Opinion | The Path to Happiness: Career or Marriage?

To the Editor:

Re “Marriage, Not Occupation, Provides Joy,” by David Brooks (column, Aug. 20):

Mr. Brooks’s information that formidable faculty graduates prioritize relationship around profession could only appear from a privileged male. Presented the glass ceiling, if ladies do not prioritize a occupation, they may possibly not be productive, and their self-esteem may undergo.

Expert females who want to marry may possibly have hassle acquiring a husband, as males frequently search for significantly less ambitious young gals to treatment for their needs and children, or resent the needs of their wives’ perform. Females who prioritize relationship might finish up with significantly significantly less monetary safety following divorce or just after the dying of a breadwinning spouse.

After divorced, females normally have much more problems locating a 2nd partner than gentlemen. Further more, in just marriage, ladies frequently consider on a “second shift” domestically, are a lot more most likely to treatment for infirm husbands late in daily life and are more issue to domestic violence.

Even though I agree that a sturdy marriage is a excellent asset and intimacy is vital to happiness, making relationship alone a priority around financial protection and self-fulfillment can backfire, specifically for girls.

Susan Spock
Bethesda, Md.

To the Editor:

David Brooks pinpoints a truism that is normally neglected in today’s superior-pace chase for vocation results. As a married father of three, I can attest that it is unachievable to uncover joy when my spouse is mad at me. Having said that, if my manager at function is apoplectic, I can rest like a child.

I have examine that to be a fantastic father, the most essential romance is the one with your husband or wife. Experiments have proven that marital hostility can lead to emotions of very low self-esteem and unworthiness in youngsters.

It is time to update the ancient adage “happy spouse, happy life” with “happy spouse, content property.”

Andrew Ginsburg
Southport, Conn.

To the Editor:

I like David Brooks, but this time he misses the mark. If the headline of the column were being “Marriage to the Suitable Particular person, Not Occupation, Brings Joy,” it would have strike the bull’s-eye. Question anybody who has been married for a prolonged whilst and that is what they will say.

How do you know it is the ideal individual? That’s the difficult component. Danger-averse grown ups will continue on to choose for possessing control with thriving professions fairly than having a probability on acquiring pleasure in a relationship.

What about that Harvard College research that located that what actually brings contentment is owning very good interactions? You do not will need to be married for that.

Susan Cohn
La Jolla, Calif.

To the Editor:

David Brooks has a remarkable expertise for achieving the head and touching the spirit in something he writes. This write-up was an astounding example of that ability.

My husband and I every single grew up amid our parents’ disastrous marriages. From early ages, we both of those realized we did not want a repeat of individuals relationships. We worked really hard to carry out vocation objectives, he as an appellate judge and me as a relationship and spouse and children therapist. They are pieces of our lives that we go on to rejoice in.

In no way do they compare to the considerably higher and a lot more satisfying accomplishment of generating a powerful and wonderful relationship.

In December we will rejoice our 64th anniversary.

Joan Harris
New Smyrna Beach, Fla.

To the Editor:

David Brooks argues that youthful grownups focus extra on their professions than on marriage because they look at qualified accomplishment as more crucial than marital happiness — an unwise inversion of priorities. But his criticism overlooks a basic point.

Obtaining the right relationship lover is frequently a matter of luck and serendipity, about which we have tiny or no command. By distinction, a prosperous career commonly involves frequent work and hard perform, day after working day, year following yr. It is not illogical for young grown ups to devote most of their time and electricity to developing a vocation relatively than hunting for a mate.

Soon after all, if your passionate lifestyle involves frequent effort and hard work and challenging get the job done, you are undertaking it improper.

Stuart Altschuler
New York

To the Editor:

David Brooks’s column on relationship uses study information that simply cannot link cause and result. He doesn’t think about the chance that positive, optimistic and pleased folks are significantly far more likely to entice partners and get married than pessimistic, sad men and women.

In other words, surveys that demonstrate that married men and women are happier than unmarried people today might not be displaying that marriage triggers contentment, but in its place that contentment encourages relationship … or possibly there’s a bit of both equally causations afoot.

Steve Plotkin
Rockville, Md.

To the Editor:

David Brooks ought to not be supplying information and acting as some sort of skilled on the subject matter of relationship based mostly on a couple of content articles he study. The truth is that about fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. Of the remaining partners who continue to be married, surveys locate only fifty percent of them are “happy.” The other 50 % continue to be married primarily for the kids or money protection.

So you have a a single in four opportunity of being married and getting joyful. Not great odds to my way of thinking.

This is not to say like is not essential. But marriage is not the reply for quite a few, not to point out the misery of its dissolution.

Kenneth J. Rosenbaum
New York

To the Editor:

My Uncle Nelson, who was married at minimum 4 situations that we understood about, gave me the ideal tips when I was in higher university, crying around a damaged romance: “Never brain associations. Discover you a very good vocation and that will make you significantly happier in everyday living.”

I marvel how numerous girls would disagree, as I do, with David Brooks’s column.

Josie Zeman
Montclair, N.J.

To the Editor:

David Brooks tells us that when he’s amid younger older people, he likes to inquire how they are thinking about life’s significant commitments — what careers to abide by, where to are living and whom to marry.

As it transpires, when I am among the youthful grown ups, I like to inquire them the exact concerns, and what I can by no means recognize is why they promptly head for the hills.

Martha Weinman Lear
New York