James Q. Wilson Quotes

The question of the family now divides our society so deeply that the opposing sides cannot even agree on a definition of the institution they are arguing about.

The reason we privilege marriage and tie benefits to it is to protect and encourage the institution into which new life comes. That's why we have benefits because traditional marriage creates children and that is where they have the most opportunity to grow up to be healthy, happy children. To extend the same benefits to relationships that do not create children surely dismantles the very reasons for those benefits.

We must marry, have children, reproduce the species.

And I would like to marry and have more children. I would like to try and do it right.

I am consumed, or I have been consumed, with these issues of motherhood and the way we act out societal expectations and roles. So both my nonfiction and my fiction have been pretty much exclusively about that.

I'm considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family - father, mother, children - is fundamental to our civilisation.

I know for my wife and I, we always loved the idea of being young parents.

Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman's natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.

Having children with someone is the real bond.

I just think you should get married if you want to have some kids.

Why in almost all societies have married women specialized in bearing and rearing children and in certain agricultural activities, whereas married men have done most of the fighting and market work?

We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want a family so we'll have to start thinking about that.

. through marriage the white trader gained entry into the kinship groups of which the woodland societies were composed, thereby becoming directly related to the people with whom they hoped to do business. Indian wives taught their white husbands the languages of the forest, skills and knowledge often indispensable to survival in the wilderness. On the other hand, the tribal people of the Lakes, who suffered severe losses among their young men in the wars and epidemics of the eighteenth century, were eager to have their widows and daughters married off to Frenchmen who could provide for needs, generate new children and grant commercial concession to their woodland relatives

The common man thinks that the marriage is like appointing one to do his work. The husband thinks so! The husband’s family thinks so. Every one thinks that a girl is coming to the family to do work. Even the girl’s family trains the girl to do the household work

Our crime has been: We married women instead of seducing them; we reared children instead of destroying them; we desired to exclude from the land prostitution, bastardy and infanticide.

Historically, there has been a clear and essential connection between marriage and responsible procreation and child rearing.

My wife Jenny and I have four young children of our own.

The human race could not go on without reproduction, and marriage creates the most secure environment in which to raise children.

My grandmother raised her nine kids and raised my mom's three.

Having children is the greatest thing that can happen to you as a husband and wife. They are infuriating at times when they're little, but on the whole, they're such a joy. I don't think I was the most brilliant mother when they were young. I had quite a bit of help because I was working and I enjoyed my work.

I think marriage is a cultural thing - it's my opinion that nature doesn't tell someone to get married.

Marriage does figure in my life, as I do want to have children. But I could also consider having children without getting married. The primary thing is having a good father, a partner who could be there with me through that journey.

if you get married they think you're finished and if you are without a woman they think you're incomplete.

I've sort of remarried a few years ago and have had a couple more children in the last couple of years. And so home life is taking up a lot of my time.

I'm more or less skeptical about marriage, because of family ties, relations between children and parents - it's all so depressing.