Bradford Wilcox says social science data has “largely vindicated Christian moral teaching on sex and marriage.”

Many of his colleagues, even those who are not Catholic, have found the prediction of Pope Paul VI — that contraception would have tremendously negative effects on society — to be true.

Wilcox, a former Episcopalian, came into the Catholic Church in 1995. Assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, he is the author of Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands. Register correspondent Sabrina Arena Ferrisi spoke to him.

In Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), No. 17, Pope Paul VI laid out some consequences he foresaw from public acceptance of contraception. He said, “Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.” Have lowered moral standards resulted from contraception?

Professor George Akerlof [of the University of California, Berkeley, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics] writes about traditional-minded women in the 1960s and 1970s. He says they generally waited to have sex until they got married. But even in cases where they did have premarital sex, they made sure that they would get married in case a child was conceived.

Akerlof also talks about women leading a more hedonistic lifestyle. Prior to the 1960s, women had to be extremely careful about not getting pregnant. The pill, when introduced in the 1960s, allowed “hedonistic” women to have greater power in the romantic market because they could be sexually active without worrying about pregnancy.

This put pressure on traditional and moderate women. A guy could threaten to have sex with another woman if a more traditional-minded woman did not have sex with him. Thus, moderate women, who were less sure of their moral beliefs, drifted toward the more hedonistic lifestyle — in order to keep the man.

More than 70% of women today have sex before marriage. This compares to two generations ago, when it was less than 20%. All of this is related to a change in technology. The pill made it so much more difficult to say No to premarital sex.

You’ve made the further claim that contraception has another moral consequence: a rise in the divorce rate. How could that be?

Basically, there are two reasons. Contraception allows for marriage to become less child-centered and more focused on the emotional side of marriage. Therefore, people don’t stick together for the child. They stop seeing marriage as intrinsically linked to kids. When problems arise, people think it’s better to divorce — even if they do have kids — because they see marriage in primarily emotional terms.

Second, the introduction of the pill allowed more women to stay in the workforce after they married in ways that they would not have before. Prior to the pill, women typically would have married, had children and stopped working. Thus, after the contraceptive revolution, married women became more career-focused and economically independent. Women thus felt freer to divorce because they had more economic and social resources.

And what about men? Has the availability of contraception, then, made men postpone marriage, maturity and responsibility?

Yes. Indirectly, contraception has increased the adolescence of men and women. Men can get everything they want without marriage and children. They can have sex without the commitment and responsibility associated with marriage, and it has helped men postpone marriage.

In our culture, getting married and becoming a father has been an important rite of passage for men. Men think of themselves as really adult only when they get married. But contraception has allowed men to put it off because they do not have the incentive they had before.

Pope Paul VI also said, “Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.” Has contraception worsened relations between men and women?

People who have many partners report less happiness in their sex life. We know that married people report greater happiness in their sexual relations than non-married people. The key is commitment within their sexual relations. This is true for men and women. There is something about the intimacy and vulnerability inherent to sex that makes commitment so important. Although contraception has made it easier for Americans to have more premarital sex, ironically, it has reduced the quality of sexual relations because it fosters uncommitted sex.

What about married couples?

The research shows that contraception makes marriage more focused on the emotional side of marriage and less child-centered. It allows couples to adopt a more couple-centered or hedonistic lifestyle. Couples put off having children to spend more money on consumer items like cars and clothes, focus on their jobs, have nice vacations and basically live the “good” life. We especially see this in Europe.

It seems axiomatic that contraception helps plan pregnancies. Yet you say it leads to unplanned pregnancies. How so?

In the 1960s, the thinking was that if we made abortion and contraception available, there would be no more unplanned pregnancies. People would be more careful. But, in fact, in the wake of widespread abortion and contraception, there has been a dramatic increase in illegitimacy. In 1960, 5% of births were illegitimate. In 2000, 33% of births were illegitimate.

Akerlof says that this is a paradox because the pill and abortion were supposed to reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing. But the technological shock of the pill was to dramatically increase premarital sex. This increased the possibility of conceiving children because many people used contraception ineffectively or not at all.

Another effect was that the introduction of abortion and contraception placed all the responsibility on women. Men could now say to a woman if she got pregnant, “Well, you could have an abortion” — and walk away. In fact, as a consequence of this new mindset, we saw a dramatic decline in shotgun marriage among men in the 1970s that has continued to this day, especially among the poor.

Why especially the poor?

The sexual revolution and its negative consequences fell disproportionately on the poor. Marriage depends on two pillars. The first is socioeconomic resources, and the second pillar is morality or religion. In terms of socioeconomic resources, marriage is a vehicle for building up savings, property and the like. People understand this and are more willing to get and stay married when they have access to resources, especially a good job for the man in the relationship.

For example, if you buy a house together, you will bear a heavy price if you divorce. So it is in your best interest not to get a divorce. It is also in the best interest for the kids, financially and otherwise, not to get a divorce. But if you don’t have these resources, you pay a smaller price for divorcing. This is one reason that the poor divorce more than the middle class.

The other pillar that supports marriage is morality or religion. For instance, people who think that premarital sex is immoral will be more inclined to keep sex within marriage. Because they have fewer resources, the poor and working class have traditionally depended more on the moral pillar to keep the institution of marriage strong in their communities.

Today, the moral pillar has collapsed across the socioeconomic spectrum. Almost everyone has pretty much bought into the ideas of the sexual revolution across class lines. But divorce and illegitimacy is less in the middle and high classes because they still want to protect their money, property and social status, and they want to pass their socioeconomic status on to their children.

Sabrina Arena Ferrisi writes

from Jersey City, New Jersey.