Pearl - February 23, 2026Andrew Wilson Defends The Tradcons and Takes an L
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Summary
In this episode, we tackle the question of whether or not marriage is good for men. Is it a good or bad thing for men to be married? In the case of Christian ethicist Dr. Steven Cooper, it's a good thing.
Transcript
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Commentators like using studies because it gives them more power.
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Interesting phenomenon when you get two men together who agree on many, many things,
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So kind of the audience is now in a position to see a clash of ideas and make up their own mind.
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In this particular case, we're diving into if marriage in the West is good for men.
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But the Christian ethicist, in this case me, this is a tough topic to navigate
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because it's full of nuance and the ideas have to be scrutinized
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And you have to do that so that they'll understand where you're coming from.
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And I need to do it in a way that still supports the Christian view.
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Many people have trouble with nuance because they take critical thinking
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about a position as the adoption of the position itself.
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This is mostly just due to the fact that many people are fucking stupid.
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And there isn't anything I can do about that, so I don't even try.
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instead i want to meet them where they are and criticize the portions of the ideology i think
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are incorrect and allow them to do the same in the case of mr cooper we will tangle on this core
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idea is marriage worth it or not that's what it's going to come down to and to explore mr cooper's
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view on this i've taken some time to review a lot of his content i haven't read his entire book
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but i have read many excerpts from it and so of course i'm not gonna be able to glean all the
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insight. I just didn't have time to read it. But here's what I got of his basic view. His view
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is totally rational, according to both his book and online videos. Essentially,
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the view is that the risk of marriage is due to the overlapping of the state. And in the view of
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a contract, it's a really bad deal for men. Because marriage is a contract with the state,
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and the state is seemingly biased against men, men have a lot to lose when it comes to assets
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and their most important asset which is their children to rulings which are unfair to the man
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when it comes to divorces this is mostly true and you're not going to get any argument from me on
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this further he expands that the chances of divorce are very high he cites 50 in many cases
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but it's actually closer to 40 at least for first-time marriages but in the spirit of good
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faith i'm also going to kind of concede that that's pretty damn high so another point of concession
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there the rub comes in when we start to dive into these numbers as does it say lord jake they're
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actually very deceptive let me give you an example of why we have to be cautious on this
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an off-sided reference by the manosphere is that while it's true men are most of the workplace
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fatalities which happen in the usa especially the total uh you know these fatalities are quite low
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you'll hear feminists talk about this as well that's kind of an overlap that they have at least
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in totality but the reason why this is important is because when we break down the fields in which
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men are actually dying the majority of them are in construction logging and fishing so if you
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wanted to mitigate risk when it came to work for instance you would probably tell men not to avoid
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working in jobs which are physically perilous but to avoid working in specific jobs which are
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very perilous because those are where you're going to incur the most amount of risk of death
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Yeah, but it's a little bit different because like, I don't think it's a good analogy because
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some men like that adventure and they kind of like the risk of death, you know, and the upside is
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they get like the respect at their job, you know, because men care about being respected. And if you
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do a super dangerous job, it's not really like the fear of death. I don't really think most men
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feared death what is worse than death is another man banging your wife and raising your kid while
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you're in a different house i think that was like worse so i don't really i mean you guys can tell
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me i just like i don't know the guys that do the super dangerous jobs that i've spoken to even
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like crab fishing they don't seem like resentful that they do these dangerous jobs if anything
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they kind of they get paid they get compensated for it but it's the someone else is banging my
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wife and raising my kids i think that is almost like worse you know yeah and you pay them to
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exist while you're broken start i don't really think that's the same so which means i don't like
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debate i don't like debates power slicks i'm not that good at them but i just think differently
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like it's always like whoever talks fast and uses these like they'll compare things that i just
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don't that you're really it's just so much better to talk to boots on the ground it's why i always
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i always talk to service workers always always always always and i ask i ask them like questions
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and you just get way more information than some guy reading a study in order to avoid these risks
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in the workplace and serious injury these fields are likely best avoided and that's how you would
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do risk mitigation in marriage it's no different there are high risk groups and there's low risk
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groups the amish for instance have an almost zero divorce rate you heard that right yeah but okay
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that doesn't really okay what percent of women are amish in america like that's what they do in
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these debates it's like that's not really a good argument okay there's 400 000 amish oh total
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total 345 million in the u.s so it's 0.12 of the population according to grok and plus i've seen
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shows where hold on like i've seen shows from ex-amish and a lot of times the women do the same
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thing like here this girl is the ends and i come from the strictest form of amish community and
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a day okay yeah she's got fake hair bow tie did you see what i'm saying it's like i want to share
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with you she's overweight you know this girl is literally from an amish community you know
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okay let me go back right zero you can source this from amish studies at elizabeth town college with
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researchers confirming this men and knights are about one percent mormons 18 same with catholics
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orthodox christians even less than that 11 to 12 percent muslims very low as well atheists have
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surprisingly have an only an 11 chance but that's because they basically avoid marriage and get
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married very late in life christians in name only are what are considered nominal christians
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yeah and so but what they always do is they say like these people aren't real christians
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and i i don't really like that argument because it's always just conveniently whatever the
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podcaster just happens to be doing right now they didn't have to do it for a lifetime
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it's just like okay i'm currently going to church or i'm currently doing this it's like uh okay
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like what does i don't know even like when they say oh you have to go to church it's like okay
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well my dad has lived a better like more religious life than 99 of christians but he's not he like
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because he doesn't go to church i don't know all right let me keep going these are people
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who don't go to church they don't really do much in the way of religious practices
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actually have a much higher but okay they don't like is it it i don't know it just sounds elitist
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to me like okay you realize they're shift workers that just don't go like they're busy you know all
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right let me like okay yeah it's easy for us to go to church we have the time you know what i mean
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like we're influencers we're like you know and it's always like convenient because everyone
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becomes religious when they become an influencer it's like yeah it's it's easy to when you have
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the time you know i don't know percentage rate of getting divorced because of the self-id and
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there basically isn't anything to distinguish them from secularists or agnostics and that's
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why those numbers are so high when broken down by group it gets even more low the more religious
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you are and if you add a prenup to it the risk becomes almost non-existent for most people
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Suddenly, the spread of divorce seems actually quite low, depending on the group you're a part of.
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While I would suppose you wouldn't want to be part of the 17 or 18 percent in these groups,
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telling men that they have an 80 or 90 percent chance that their marriage will work out shifts the picture entirely.
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The breakdown is suddenly far less daunting, and the risk is now much more manageable as far as these categories go.
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This nuance is often missed in this conversation, but it should be highlighted.
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Marriage isn't very risky for people in these groups.
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it's risky for people who are in the secular groups because those groups map on to the
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national average almost identically about yeah and so commentators like using studies because
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it gives them more power so like if he says oh my study which a lot of times i've turned to
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remember i made a video on why the stats he's gonna quote are wrong um i have to go back but
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they always just find a way they like do the smallest population like for example they'll say
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oh people that go to church every like couples that go to church every day well if she decides
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she doesn't want to go to church every day now you're not included in that statistic you can't
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force someone to do things right but commentators they like using studies and it maybe it's a
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necessary evil but it's because it gives them more power like i know i i have cousins that are from
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the super religious communities and uh one of them ended up in a throuple one literally ended
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up in a throuple from a latin mass catholic community so it's like okay you want me to
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believe your study now i'm not supposed to believe my eyes like i grew up i actually it actually i
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find it more insulting when it's catholicism because i'm i'll think you think i don't know
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catholic women really i went to catholic school and they're like oh it's not real catholic
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unless it's latin mass and i'm like wide cousins that went to latin mass and you're gonna tell me
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that you know more fuck it like not obviously all respect to andrew as i said at the beginning
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i just disagree right i i i don't think like i'm not gonna let a commentator tell me that they know
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better catholic people they don't you know 39 to 41 give you an example of this again can you
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remind me what it was i don't remember why why are these stats misleading i know we went through
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the catholic stats i don't remember why it was so long ago five to ten percent of people who ever
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drink alcohol will become alcoholics that could be argued to be very very very high risk i suppose
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but most men look at the risk factor and consider the trade-off acceptable and reasonably low
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for what they get out of the behavior of socially drinking so as to the question is marriage worth
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it in the west specifically here in the united states which what we're talking about for many
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men yes and for many men no specifically secular men it seems to be a big fat no their risk is on
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par with the national average like i said and this leads to cohabitation likelihoods which become much
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higher which leads to high risk for abuse for their children along with other negative outcomes
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for their family dynamics and those are the actual facts of the matter right but abuse comes from
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stepfathers i'm pro surrogacy you are saving your daughters from a stepfather right you you you don't
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do surrogacy because you want love boohoo that's not in the cards 2026 go buy your baby fellas
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now perhaps my opponent and i unless you're gay unless you're gay you don't you guys we're good
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you guys just end your genetic lineage now agree these are facts but he still feels the trade-offs
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aren't worth it we can dive into that but i always view everything as a trade-off everything
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politically is a trade-off it's always risk versus reward somebody's always going to get the shaft
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so with that that's my opening statement and i would like to dive into these issues when my
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opponent's ready after his all right rich you can have uh six minutes or so take as much or as
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little as you'd like yeah i won't need it um no marriage is not worthwhile for a western man
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living in the west thank you for attending my ted talk let's get started boys okay so when when you
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say that marriage isn't worth it for men in the west are you how are you how are you uh viewing
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that are you viewing that through risk assessment okay um girl pearl girls girls are going to see
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worthering heights and loving it it's a film about a man marrying a woman giving her everything and
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cheating on him girls wish the adulterous relationships had a happy ending that's true
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that's true women always want to be with the side dude you're just doing like a basic risk
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assessment for men in general yeah broadly speaking i would say it's a risk assessment
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when you take a look at the landscape and that's the thing a lot of times they're trying to sell
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you their religion so they want you to convert and that's like a full form of um like controlling in
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away they want you to be a part of their congregation so because they believe either
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for money or because they believe you're going to hell if you don't um so they're not i don't
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know it's not really always the most honest i know that you because people have their egos invested
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right it's very hard like when you believe in something to say okay well yeah my religion