I’ll risk it and defend marriage to this crowd. To me getting married was about getting out of myself. As someone who got married later in life, I’d spent decades living only for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Relationships were shallow and lasted only so long as convenient. By choosing to get married and intentional build a family, I knew I was sacrificing a lot of ego and choosing to give up a lot of freedom and self. But I was ready to do it. I firmly believe what we’ve created is greater than either one of us, and is worth the irritations sacrifice.
> Cohabitation has become a popular alternative; living together is a less complicated relationship model that comes with an easy escape hatch (compared with marriage) if the relationship fails<p>This seems like a bit of a false promise... Once you commingle finances, own a house together, have children, and so on, there's no "easy escape hatch." Plus thinking of having an "easy escape hatch" probably does not do wonders for the relationship.
In the Netherlands, there is virtually no societal difference between people that are in a long-term relationship and live together, and married people. To the point that people call themselves husband and wife if they technically 'just' live together. My German girlfriend was shocked to learn this, in other countries (and cultures) marriage really is more of a 'thing'.
This is really surprising, but also interesting to hear. I think there’s a lot of societal pressure to both get married and to have children, especially in the south, where I’m from. Thankfully, my family never pushed these on me.<p>I’ve been with my wife for 13 years now, and married for 8. It’s been an awesome experience for us, but I know neither of us considered marrying any of our previous partners. If we hadn’t found each other, I’m not sure I’d be married at this point. Marriage in and of itself should probably not be a goal. It’s contingent on finding someone who you really want to be married to.<p>Having kids is the same way. It shouldn’t be the default, it should be the thing you do when you truly feel it would add value and meaning to your life, and be worth the tradeoffs you’re making. I hope that society moves more in the direction that both marriage and having children is something that you can choose to do, or not, and there’s not an implicit judgement on you for failing to meet norms that honestly don’t work out for the majority of people.
My partner and I have been together for 7 years, we bought a house together, haven’t found a compelling reason to get married.<p>Marriage is a complex and binding contract that for two high earners is a tax disadvantage. The most prominent benefits I’ve learned are some situations around visitation rights, and avoiding being compelled to testify against your spouse. It comes from a very dubious history of the husband essentially owning the wife. The “commitment” of the legal marriage obviously doesn’t prevent people from falling out of love or breaking up, not that it should – if one partner stops loving another they will still leave the relationship one way or another. So, why marry — besides “tradition” and “society wants you to for whatever reason”?
The underlying Pew research study has a lot more meat than this pretty thin blog post: <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/10/05/rising-share-of-u-s-adults-are-living-without-a-spouse-or-partner/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/10/05/rising-...</a>
Marriage happens in the heart.<p>I perceive the big event as the opposite of something healthy.
The need for a legal thing is resolved in Canada: if you live together for 1 year, that's basically equivalent to being married.<p>I have been living with my partner for 13 years (I'm 34), we both work from home so that's some 24 x 365 x 13 hours together.
I occasionally ask her to marry me, for fun, and she says yes. At times she says maybe to joke. But really after living together for that long, does that even matter?<p>So there you go, another reason to never marry<p>We have two children.
I imagine there's a bimodal distribution at work here: wealthier couples could choose to get married in a traditional ceremony (which is often an economic flex as much as anything else), although in such circles prenup agreements related to divorce-related division of wealth seem increasingly common. If you're going to have a prenup, why get married at all? There are issues related to end-of-life-decisions but the living will solves that problem. This is where 'changing social values' apply, in that non-married living arrangments don't lead to social ostracization as they might have in the past.<p>The other side is simply economic - getting married and raising a family is an expensive proposition that many people (at least in the United States) can no longer afford, and there's no real social safety net that ensures medical care and quality education for low-income families - so raising a family in poverty is not an attractive proposition. There's also good evidence that birth rates track economic recessions pretty closely:<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/04/06/us-birth-rate-decline-linked-to-recession/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/04/06/us-birt...</a><p>This economic factor seems universal, as the high cost of housing in China is associated with a decreased marriage rate (although unequal numbers of men and women related to the now-defunct One Child policy is another issue):<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01400-4" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01400-4</a>
I was expecting this article to be preachy, sanctimonious, and panicked. Instead what I got was a level headed article, one that even expresses some amount of admiration for the topic.<p>Consider me pleasantly surprised.
A mentor once shared this wisdom, "In experimenting in human relationships, there is always an emotional outcome over time: lonely <i>and</i> irritated."<p>Certainly, they were right.
When you look at some repeatedly married people, both now and in history, and ask "why?" the only conceivable answer is, "They both felt they had to BE married."<p>For all the usual reasons, they thought it was unacceptable to be single, both to society and to themselves. For the latter, it was the feeling, "I'm a loser whom nobody wants." In many societies, it IS almost unacceptable to be single. Thankfully that's less so in Western societies these days.<p>I'm not saying that's the only reason, but if we're looking at the big picture, that's a huge part of it.
Marriage is a tough proposition in the west these days. The cost of childcare has never been higher, both in terms of dollars and opportunity cost, not to mention housing. Of course there are other benefits to getting married, but without the goal of family feeling attainable to many, a major driver for marriage is gone.
Looking at the first 3 causes they list, that's pretty much my wife and I.<p>I'm an immigrant to Asia, so got my life in reasonable order a bit later than most (picking up and moving across the world will do that). Early marriage in a culture I didn't fit in to yet, would have been a terrible idea. I hear lots of disaster stories in this domain!<p>We decided to ignore local cultural norms and share a residence before marriage. This was in hindsight a wise decision that let us build a life together in confidence.<p>I had my immigration paperwork properly in order before we met, but had not yet made any real money. We were both pretty broke, at the time. We held separate finances at the start, but shared expenses, which improved our financial security quite a bit.<p>Honestly, we would have continued this way and ignored pressure to get married... except that it's somewhat difficult for me to gain citizenship. Without citizenship, no land/home ownership or access to many financial instruments -- so it's optimal that I hand over 100% of any income. Marriage provides me with at least a few rights in this context (at least de jure), so we went for it.<p>It was simply the least suboptimal choice. I feel if it wasn't for the weird legal context of being an immigrant to a country that receives few immigrants (Vietnam), we may not have bothered getting married, social pressures be damned.
One of the main legal benefits of marriage is being able to be financially dependent on someone else in a secure way. If one spouse decides to put their career on hold (or never begin one in the first place) while the other one works, they don't have to worry about being penniless and unable to provide for themselves in the case of the relationship ending. This becomes less crucial if both are working, which seems more common than ever.
I'm married with one child and another on the way. Raising children seems to require both of us to work together closely. We pool all our recourses to provide for our children. I work to provide financially but that wouldn't be possible without my wife at home with our very needy 8 month old.<p>The contract of marriage makes this easier than I imagine it would be without it.
I know this is a touchy subject but I hate the fact that I am married. If it works out you’re golden but if it doesn’t then it’s going to be a constant source of depression for the rest of your life.
I'm guessing this is more to do with declining birth rates than anything else.<p>Much of the value of marriage is to enhance the child's claim to both parents' wealth and income. If married, it's much harder for one partner to tap out of parenting, in financial terms
The meaning of the word "marriage" has changed significantly even over the last 50 years in the west, and bears no resemblance to the the institution with the same name that existed before that. The idea that marriage would be chosen by the individual for romantic reasons, secular marriage, etc. etc. are new. Assumptions of fidelity have even changed and changed again several times since year 0.<p>If anyone is thinking about marriage, or troubled by this article, I strongly encourage he/she to really study what marriage meant for prior civilizations. Our society encourages people to accept modern marriage as an eternal, teleological, essential and inviolable constant of society. Imo today's US marriage is a poorly developed, haphazard, and soon-to-be obsolete layer cake of ideas which does a lot of harm.<p>Anything which isn't working for 50% of people, and which decimates family wealth when it fails, probably deserves critical thought.<p>The promised miracle spouse of modern marriage, who is your business partner, sexual fulfillment, therapist, childcare specialist, etc. etc. DOESN'T EXIST.
I’ve been married for 5 years, together for 10. The main reason we got married is because my new job had really good health insurance and her graduate school had crap health insurance.<p>We didn’t do a big (or any) wedding, buy expensive rings, etc<p>But I guess we were already “committed” to each other in the intellectual / spiritual sense so marriage was just a formality. The whole “escape hatch” thing didn’t really apply, we just don’t give a shit about the institution of marriage and associated ceremony
My spouse of 10 years is the child of serially married and divorced boomers. After seeing one of the parental units go through marriage #3 as a teenager they have zero interest in the whole song and dance and I don't blame them. Anyways, married or not, the feelings are the same and we go on living life the way we want to. Who cares?<p>Also, if civil marriages didn't exist today and I tried to propose "hey, let's invent a system where you register who you're fucking with the government", you'd think i was insane. Rightly so.
Talk like this in the USA tends to equivocate between marriage (a legally sanctioned social and economic union) and marriage (a Christian sacrament, usually grudgingly including other major religions). IIRC the second kind of marriage has been in decline in the USA for decades because participation in organized religion is in decline and some states made it hard to get the legal status called marriage without involving a church. In most places there are other legal forms of sexual and social partnership such as common-law relationships in former British colonies.<p>I have trouble taking anything in this genre by an American seriously unless it clearly communicates the definitions it is using.
I was married 20+ years. Don’t recommend it. Instead find a partner who has his/her own life and share the good times between you. Adjust time spent together up/down as needed to not get bored/complacent. Do not get involved with a person who aren’t mature enough to have their own life without you.
Today, it is now possible to live entirely independently, with little reliance on a large family. Government and society provides (at a price) many things that used to be provided by extended family : eg child care, unemployment benefits, food, social activity, clothing, housing.<p>This new “society provides most services” favours being single with one other person (and maybe one child).<p>Being married and having children is more suited for older days when society provided almost no security and protection from economic and natural realities.
> If they have sufficient resources, and most of the [permanently single] ones I see are financially independent, they are relatively content.<p>Rest of the article suggests "financially independent" as working a job to support oneself. Though I wonder if a significant portion of their clientele are wealthy enough to not work or only work a small portion of the year. When I was single and made enough to live alone it actually increased my desire to seek a partner, not necessarily get an official marriage document.
When marriage was more common, having multiple close social / family ties was also more common.<p>Modern marriage makes you concentrate all that emotional energy on one person. It’s a lot.
"In fact, most never-married individuals come to see me for help dealing with parents or family members who insist that they live a more conventional lifestyle, not because they are unhappy with their choice of marital status, a lot of married people cannot say the same."<p>That took an unexpected, refreshing, turn.<p>It seems to me that the legal system around marriage is outdated and flawed compared to societal norms today. Marriage licenses are cheap, easy, and quick to get. That's not necessarily a problem on it's own. Then you have a large number of marriages that end in divorce - a process that typically costs as much as each party buying a car, and takes months or years to complete. It's never truly over as I've heard stories of people seeking amended alimony years after the divorce. It seems many of the decisions maid by the courts in this realm are absurd (like the lady who was forced to pay for her husband's "lifestyle" or watching PPV porn; or not amending monetary obligations when income changes).<p>It truly baffles me how alimony is even legal today. Based on how alimony is treated, marriage is essentially indentured servitude. If any company offered terms that are typically found in marriage/divorce without any disclosure/consult, they'd be getting sued by AGs.<p>People talk about the student loan epidemic/issues, but I feel that this one is much larger and more costly.
I may be miserable and lonely, but at least I'm not putting myself in the position of making things even worse once the (literal) honeymoon is over. My misery is a known quantity that I've learned how to live with. :I
My brother married then his wife started to beat him up. He tried to escape has been forced back every time. It was either prison or wife. She reported him beating her same way. After lots of stress they finally dissolved their marriage. I'm planning to never ever marry anyone.
I wonder if it relates to the decline in fertility in the last few decades. Is having kids a motivation for marriage? Could it be the other way around?
The current legal institution of marriage is also not a great option for anyone who is polyamorous, which is gradually becoming more widely accepted and acknowledged. The law only recognizes one pairing, meaning you have to decide which one of your partners gets <i>very literal</i> special extra rights. Picking which of your partners gets guaranteed visitation rights and immunity to compelled testimony against you is incredibly unfair, so the answer for many people ends up being none of them.
Marriage is a signal of commitment to society.<p>It used to be that more social opportunities, status and privilege were afforded to married people.<p>The prevailing culture cares less about this signal. Or rather - there’s less of a prevailing culture than there used to be.