While the orderly lifestyle, financial stability, and emotional sustenance of marriage help both sexes, men--for whom "being unmarried can be a greater risk to one's life than having heart disease or cancer"--particularly benefit from being rescued from dissolute, reckless bachelorhood.
The authors blame high divorce rates on our society's notion of "privatized marriage," which exalts romance and ignores the social utility of marriage. They argue that even a loveless marriage (though not an abusive one) is better than no marriage, especially for kids. They advocate mild state intervention, like covenant-marriage options and mandated waiting periods before divorce, to help bolster the institution. Clergy, relatives, and therapists are urged to help troubled couples stick with it. The authors' case for a more dutiful approach to marriage is well supported, but in a society as individualistic as America's, perhaps a little quixotic.