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Key points
- There are still good reasons to consider getting married.
- Marriage elicits support from others when things get tough.
- Marriage changes your definition of your family and therefore of yourself.
Recently I asked a 20-something-year-old whether he had plans to marry his partner. It was off the table, he said. Marriage was a relic of a patriarchal society. The only approval he needed was from his partner, he asserted. His vision for his relationship was one held together by love and respect. He didn’t need anyone else’s approval and certainly not a legal sanction for legitimacy.
The late anthropologist Margaret Mead didn’t oppose marriage but thought it should be limited. Many years ago, she and I were interviewed on a TV show; I talked about my book about weddings, she about her memoir. During the discussion, she made the point that marriage should be reserved for a relationship that involves procreation. Living together but rejecting children wasn’t marriage, she said, but cohabitation.
Recent Trends
Despite marriage now being legally available to anyone regardless of sexual orientation, as reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, “a record number of current youth and young adults are projected to forgo marriage altogether.”
The trend is mirrored in a majority of countries around the world, mainly in rich countries but not exclusively. However, defying Mead’s view regarding children and marriage, there is a sharp increase in the number of children who are born to women who aren’t married.
Marriage is under siege from two directions: people in loving relationships don’t feel the need to be legalized and neither do people care about marriage as a way of protecting children’s interests. What will be lost in the new standards is yet to be determined. Perhaps cohabitation will prove as stable and satisfying as marriages; maybe children will do at least as well where the parent isn’t married. These are open questions that need thoughtful consideration.
Since a vast majority accept premarital sex as moral, cohabitating is more common than marriage, and the percentage of children born out of wedlock is about 40 percent and rising, why get married? Is marriage destined to disappear? Should it?
Why Marriage May Still Be of Value
Getting Married the Way You Want was the book I had discussed with Margaret Mead. If I were to write such a book today, I would entitle it Why Get Married (?) The book would have as many questions as answers. But there are several strong reasons why marriage may still be of value.
First, a marriage is a public statement that the couple is serious about their relationship. This signals that their relationship takes priority over others. This serves a dual purpose of setting boundaries on the part of others who may have amorous intentions while it also elicits support when the relationship hits rough patches. Ideally, a marriage is stabilized because it has received a public endorsement. If you think that long-term relationships are intrinsically valuable, then this is to the good.
Perhaps a more compelling reason is this: If you ask an intended bride or groom before the wedding to tell you about their family, they likely will mention their parents, siblings, and grandparents, if they have any. Ask the same question after wedding vows are exchanged and the answer shifts. Now the closest family member is the spouse. The change is instantiated in the law. If you are married, your closest relative is your spouse, someone who was likely a stranger to you until your adulthood. The psychological impact is clear once you realize how bound up your identity is with your conception of who constitutes your family.
I can’t help wondering whether the dismissal of marriage isn’t related to the government report about the public health crisis of loneliness. As U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy writes, "Given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation, we must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders. Together, we can build a country that’s healthier, more resilient, less lonely, and more connected." The loneliness epidemic is rooted in the mistaken notion of individualism, the view that elevates the interests of one person over that of all others, something that no good relationship can maintain.
Marriage requires trust, and today that is in short supply: The future has never been more fraught. Marriage is one strong way to combat these deleterious effects of distrust and loneliness. As E.M. Forster, in his novel Howard’s End, wrote, “Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.”
At its best, marriage offers a connection like no other, committed as you are to a journey with an equal partner over a lifetime despite inevitable disappointments, setbacks, and limitations. The commitment isn’t tentative but one that runs deep, reinforced by society and personal identity. Marriage requires effort, understanding, and forgiveness over and over again. When it works, life’s journey couldn’t be sweeter.
