Why the double-mindedness about marriage
As a child, I had a clear sense that there were milestones in life that not only marked one’s passage to adulthood but that epitomized the “pursuit of happiness”: getting your first car, graduating high school, moving into your own place, getting married. But for many young people, at least one of those milestones is no longer perceived as a measure of success.
Over the last 50 years, the marriage rate in America has dropped by 60%, and a survey of both Gen Zers and Millennials found that two in five consider marriage “an outdated tradition.” In fact, 85% said they don’t feel marriage is needed to “have a fulfilling and committed relationship.”
And yet … 83% said they hope to get married someday. What explains this double-mindedness — a disdain for marriage while secretly longing to experience it — now that we’ve just rounded the bend on National Marriage Week?
Perhaps it’s because young people — whatever their impressions of marriage — are feeling more and more alone. A 2020 study of Gen Zers and Millennials in the workplace found that 79% of the former and 71% of latter consider themselves lonely. While 50% of (more-married) Baby Boomers do not.
The difference, though, is not strictly generational. An analysis of Gallup polling data found that 61% of married couples, whatever their age, describe themselves as “thriving,” emotionally and financially. Only 45% of never-marrieds were able to say the same. Background, education, and gender don’t seem to have any effect on those numbers. Married people just report being more content with their lives than those who’ve never tied the knot.
Some of that involves income. Being able to combine two salaries and count on some tax credits gives married couples more financial freedom than most singles. But even couples living together don’t seem to consider themselves much more content than non-marrieds. And unmarried men and women with high incomes don’t report the same satisfaction as less-well-off married people. There has to be more to it than the money.
Nor is it just about children. Studies show that the number of babies born outside of marriage has increased more than 20% over the last 45 years to about 40% of all children born in America each year. Marriage may not be the social pre-requisite to having children that it used to be — but un-marrieds having children don’t seem as happy as those starting families within marriage.
So why is an institution that has so much to offer so many faltering at such a remarkable rate?
Theories abound. Certainly more children today come out of broken homes; the rewards of a marriage have not exactly been modeled effectively for a lot of young people. And social media, many agree, isn’t helping things, either. Love is supposed to be an adventure — braving social situations, forging gradual relationships, weighing people holistically: their personality, their character, their potential. Now, experts say, dating’s more like a job interview: some Q&A and a photograph or two, filtered through a few online chats and texts.
In their desperate search for “safe” relationships — no painful conversations, no vulnerability, no choosing to trust, no call to commitment and responsibility — young people are eliminating the very things that make intimacy between souls possible and that make marriage attractive and rewarding.
More than that, they’re rejecting (or at least, postponing) the quintessential relationship of life — the one God created to illustrate His own love for us. All of the elements that God designed for marriage — the union of one man and one woman, the lifelong commitment, the sacrifices and priorities — are disdained by a culture that celebrates instant gratification, disposable relationships, and a me-first mindset unacquainted with sacrificial love.
That places a lot of responsibility on those of us blessed with healthy, happy, rewarding unions to provide a living testimony — by word and example — of the delight and deep satisfaction born from a lifetime of serving each other, trusting each other, and enjoying each other — to communicate that the rewards more than compensate for the risks.
Persuading this generation to re-embrace the beauty and worthiness of marriage cannot be accomplished overnight. The decline of several generations will take time to restore. But the strongest marriages are forged by persevering through toils and tears, and if we remain steadfast in our resolve, we can rebuild a culture that honors and cultivates marriage.
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Matt Sharp is senior counsel and director of the Center of Public Policy with Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal).
