Why Get Married?
Before anyone jumps to conclusions and thinks this is going to be a post discouraging people from getting married, it isn’t. Now…
….my thought to write about this comes from seeing an influx of articles with writers acting as if they aren’t aware of WHY people are opting out of marriage. It’s almost like they’re refusing to look around so PLEASE, stop, and look the fuck around. People want to reinstate “the good ol’ days” when people actually wanted to get married but consider WHY people were more apt to tying the knot “back in the day” versus today. If we’re being deadass honest with ourselves, WEDDINGS are painted as the joyous part of marriage. Under the surface of the laughs, smiles and kisses of weddings, MARRIAGE has ALWAYS been a binding, legal institution that doesn’t require love for it to actually work. Digging deeper into what marriage involves and wiping away the crust of delusion referred to as rose colored lens, has allowed people to really assess if marriage is a good, healthy buy-in for BOTH parties. We have been coming to the conclusion that for A LOT of people, THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE is more burdensome than the laughing, loving, and living it’s postured to be.
I read an article this morning that became the charming third time signaling to me that it was time to write about this instead of verbal sharting on Threads. It was Jane Coaston’s interview with Brad Wilcox in The New York Times, ‘I Said, What’s Your Plan About Marriage and Dating? And There Was Silence.’
I encourage you to read the entire interview but the key things to sit with are these two points:
As of 2021, around 25% of 40-year-old Americans are not married - the highest percentage ever recorded.
They aren’t getting married for any number of reasons, whether that’s distrust of the institution of marriage or the potential loss of access to federal benefits or a belief that marriage just doesn’t fit their needs.
Determining the WHY is always going to be the most important thing and also being honest about how marriage is painted versus what it REALLY is. However, more often than not, the illusion is pushed over the reality and people get married only to find out, it’s not even remotely close to how it’s projected to be. Take for instance Coaston asking Wilcox, “How did we get to this point where, as you write, we are seeing the “closing of the American heart?” Associating the decline in marriage with the “closing of the American heart” is probably one of the most disingenuous things we can say about marriage. This is EXACTLY what I’m referring to when I say marriage is presented as being about one thing, only to find out it’s not really about love at all. The lure of love is usually what convinces people to walk down the aisle, state vows (that will definitely be tested), jump the broom and utter those binding words of “I do.”
Imagine removing that deceitful veil of “love conquers all things” and “love is all you need” BEFORE even entertaining the idea of a ring sliding on a finger. THAT is what is happening right now. People are questioning if a legally binding agreement to another person is worth fucking around and finding out about. The numbers show, the risk is no longer worth the reward. Wilcox mentions that 1 in 4 men in their prime, 25 to 54, are not working, and those men are less likely to get married in the first place and more likely to get divorced if they do marry. I don’t know about you but this statistic isn’t helping his cause and people who are marrying men already know this from experiencing relationships with them. In a society that still pushes the cave man mentality of gender politics, it’s beaten into everyone’s brains that men are supposed to provide. This statistic reinforces that marriage is not a good idea, especially if the gender role that most people lean into when it comes to men, isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing.
Do I agree with gender roles? No. I think they’re stupid as fuck and were created so authority could be established. I think they harm our relationships more than they actually help but that’s another blog for another day. I just want it to be clear that I think UNNECESSARY gender roles do more harm than good for productive, healthy family units and relationships. Let’s get back to the issue at hand though…
Wilcox goes on to mention the rise of expressive individualism and growing secularization being the causes of “fewer Americans opening their hearts to marriage today.” I appreciate Coaston arguing the point that people aren’t getting married BECAUSE they take it too seriously to just do it for the sake of doing it. Wilcox agrees but thinks one of the challenges we’re facing is the myth of the soul-mate and failure to recognize we’re all flawed. While I agree with him that any relationship worth its weight an that we consider valuable will be challenging and require consistent maintenance. HOWEVER, I also think it’s important to point out that reducing highly problematic things happening in relationships to someone thinking the other person must be perfect, happens far too often. It’s dismissive and an easy out for someone who has no intentions of doing the challenging work Wilcox speaks of to have a successful relationship.
Wilcox mentions “Nikki Haleyism” and I’m going to let you discover that fuckery on your own BUT he isn’t necessarily agreeing with her but does mention that society needs to do a better job at connecting their friends, children, and students to potential prospects for marriage. However, people are already doing that and we’re still ending up separated, divorced, or living unhappily ever after in some capacity. Once we add children to the worst batch of kool-aid we could have ever concocted, our decisions about marriage become even more heavy. Far too many people don’t consider how marriage will affect all parties involved when it’s just the two married people; so, what about the children? What about them? They become the collateral damage that is NOW deciding against marriage. It’s no longer good enough to attach ourselves to another person simply for the sake of saying “I’z married nah!” and settling for being coupled instead of being viewed as a lonely single. I’m willing to bet our parents (I’m tail end of Gen X & beginning of Millennial), grandparents, and great-grandparents didn’t all WANT to be married but chose to out of necessity. Whether that be the tax write-offs, being taken care of, or having financial security, those were real ass necessities some people wouldn’t attain without marriage. But now?
Well, I can tell you this, I lost far more by marrying one of the men in their prime who cannot manage to keep a job than by staying single. Before marriage, I had a nice 401k, a nice savings outside of that, a nice home, a great social life, amazing credit score, and was genuinely living my best life. Marriage didn’t improve ANY of that and it should have because 2 SHOULD be better than 1. Right? Unfortunately, we are learning the hard way that this is not a guaranteed outcome. Even though I disagree with Wilcox on some things, his assessment of things is fair and it all boils down to his last statement:
What sane person is going to argue with that closing statement? I don’t even consider myself to be as sane as I’d like to be but I’m not arguing those points. What I will say is being single, unmarried, and uncommitted is far more attractive RIGHT NOW (and for the foreseeable future) because again, the risk of marriage is no longer worth the reward. Want the honest truth for that why? Because there are little to no rewards when it comes to being married. Make the risk worth the reward and I guarantee you MORE people will get (and stay) married. Make it worthwhile for all parties involved, not detrimental to one and beneficial for the other. THIS is where we start to be realistic about marriage. Otherwise, we’re going to fall into a time warp that mirrors The Handmaiden. THIS is what a lot of people are pushing for when they mention “the good old days”, forcing implementing a structure of power that says we have no choice in the matter. We’ve been there and we’ve done that and it isn’t worth returning to… much like getting married isn’t worth it for more people today than a lot of us are willing to admit.
