The unmarried members of the Jewish club

If it takes marriage to keep Jews practicing, we must step up to include those who defy the nuclear family stereotype

Married people are more religious than unmarried people.

Of course, on the face of it, that’s a patently absurd statement. Plenty of married people aren’t all that religious; plenty of unmarried people are.

But hear me out.

If you don’t compare the masses of couples to the hordes of singles, but consider each person—where he or she would stand as a single person as compared to where he or she would stand if married—the odds are high that the married version of the same person is the more Jewishly involved. (Note: my study is anecdotal.)

I have a cousin who married out (most of us do, I think). I was in favor of the marriage, however, and that was unexpected.