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I must have missed these discussions, because I've never seen this as far as I recall. How does this argument work?
No, that's not necessarily the case. More left-wing women getting married and having children doesn't have an obvious bearing on whether right-wing women are doing the same.
Also, while I am familiar with the argument that gay marriage harmed the institution of marriage, I have never heard anyone argue that this marriage institution ever required holding right-wing social views on things unrelated to it. What prevents a right-wing woman from thinking Palestinians don't deserve what Israel does to them?
My understand was that this was based on a statistic that found married women are more conservative than single women. There are a few different reasons this might be/have been the case. I could see a social pressure, stronger in the past, expecting that a wife would adopt political views more in line with her husband/would vote in step with her husband. Married women will be older on average than single women so the basic older>conservative pipe line. The institution of marriage could change how someone evaluates a lot of different questions, putting priority on their children over welfare for strangers, etc. This is at least my vague understanding of the situation (but it could be a reference to something totally different?), and some possible arguments.
I think the elephant in the room is the baby. It’s absolutely amazing how much having a baby in the family can shift your perspective on a whole host of issues. I find the biggest difference is in the value of stability, of protecting the child both physically and emotionally, and in choosing the extended family and close friends over other people and things. When you have to think about your kid growing up in the world, it suddenly isn’t all that appealing to suggest revolutionary changes, or fighting the power. When you say “defund the police,” some part of your unconscious brain understand that you’re chaining up the guard dog that is tasked with keeping your family from being robbed. When you say “upend the political system,” again some part of your brain understands that you rely on the rest of society being stable so you can be economically stable and safe. These things become a lot less desirable when you’re not just asking if I will be safe and economically stable, but if you’re risking those things for the baby. I don’t think that it’s a straight liberal or conservative thing, just a stronger preference for stability and a strong urge to favor things that they associate with stability.
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Also, selection effects, whereby more conservative women are more likely to get married.
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Caveats about a bubble and all but...
Among the women my wife socializes with, and in the polarized climate of my state with regard to schools secretly transitioning children, it's a pretty hot third rail in their interactions. But thus far, every single mom my wife has touched that third rail with (often after months of trying to feel them out) is horrified and aghast at the policies public schools are fighting tooth and nail for. It's utterly inconceivable that a public institution would take such serious health measures with their children and keep it a secret from them. And yet here we are.
Every other issue is a toss up honestly. But, that is the single issue which, for whatever reason, D's have decided makes you "far right", and we've yet to encounter a mom who supports it in the wild.
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There's also the fact that living with, being tied to, and having lots of intimate conversations with a person you've committed yourself to just changes your worldview to be in line with them. It's very difficult to get that close to someone and not seriously evaluate their worldview in a way you might not if it were just presented to you by a stranger.
This effect is probably stronger if your own worldview is weaker or less reasoned. While social pressure plays into it, I think it's more the informal pressure of being exposed to contrary ideas by someone you love rather than any formal pressure to conform.
(This was actually a factor for me in dating -- I really did not like many of the conservative women I met whose worldviews seemed imposed on them from the outside instead of something they'd worked out themselves with fear and trembling. I was fortunate to meet my girlfriend who is both not crazy or a progressive ideologue, and actually well-informed on what she thinks.)
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How far back does this trend of "marriage -> more right-wing" go for women? A century? Two centuries?
When all women were married, women were generally more conservative than men, and now it’s the opposite.
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