Marriage is going out of style.
According to Census data, almost 25 percent of adults aged 40 in America have never married. This is a sharp increase since 1980, when the comparable statistic was 6 percent. What is going on? And, why?
I am certainly no expert on this subject, as I am married and have been so for the past fifty years. My wife Charlie and I come from two very stable families where our parents both celebrated their Golden Anniversaries. Probably not coincidentally, my brother Terry and wife Kay have been married for over 55 years, and Charlie’s sisters Jan and Lynn have both been married for at least that long. In addition, my wedding “best man” in 1974, Pat Freemon, has been married to his wife Sandee for the past half-century. Many of our friends here in Mesquite, a retirement community, have also enjoyed long-term marriages.
So, we Baby Boomers come from a culture where the institution of marriage was strong, and the idea of divorce was repugnant.
It’s a different world now, apparently.
Not only is employment moving toward the “gig” situation, but human relationships are trending in the same direction, with formal unions between loving individuals becoming short-term like car leases. The average marriage in the U.S. now lasts 8.2 years, and 5 percent of married people have taken the “sacred vows” three times.
I suspect that many young folks ask the question, “Why bother to get married?” In today’s society, there is no stigma to being a single adult, nor is there much fuss over two consenting adults “living together”. Such arrangements used to be considered “sinful”, but that was back when most Americans were faithful Bible thumpers. This is not the case now, when most people identifying as Christian don’t attend church regularly, and high percentages of the younger generations are non-religious.
Pew research reveals that 51 percent of individuals aged 18 and over were married in 2020, in comparison to 72 percent of similarly aged folks in 1960. What has changed to drive down marriage rates so dramatically?
Maybe it’s because there is so much uncertainty in modern life. Gone are the days (i.e. those of my parents and their progeny) when a burgeoning American economy provided the prospect of lengthy careers in many occupations. Rapid technological change and the shift toward the global economic model have greatly changed employment prospects for young people. Many jobs that we and our parents enjoyed have been outsourced or simply disappeared through automation. Reliable employment, with decent pay, is harder to come by in the 2020’s.
The old path to success, i.e. get that education, work hard, make yourself valuable to your company, may not cut the mustard in today’s world. A college education is now extremely expensive, and a degree earned is no longer a guarantee of future success. Jobs that require thinking, as opposed to manual labor, are rapidly being replaced by machines that can think and learn (artificial intelligence). How does one plan for the future, i.e. marry and have kids, when the family income stream is sketchy? Inflation has not helped, either. Not surprisingly, households where both spouses work have increased by 50 percent since 1980.
It’s a sign of the times.
Marriage has never been easy. It is a team sport and, just like in the pro leagues, there are many more losers than champions. Making a go of marriage requires a large investment in understanding, compromise, planning, mutual support, tenderness, and compassion. If children are involved, spouses must agree on the rules of the house, discipline, how to impart wisdom, and instilling shared values in the youngsters. A lack of commitment by both spouses to a shared “game plan” is nearly always a recipe for disaster. Children are not dumb and will invariably find ways to test their parents’ resolve, including “whipsawing” (pitting one parent against the other). A united front is the only way that child raising works; failure to work together reaps crummy children and marriages that fail.
Love is the essential ingredient; without copious amount of same, couples are just fooling themselves. And I’m not talking about sex. Sure, young people often have supercharged hormones, which is natural, as they are in their reproductive prime. But, that phase passes, replaced by the stronger purpose of thriving in the group enterprise. Successful couples, married or not, are components of a team which will only achieve goals through mutual support. Knowing that your partner “has your back” and wants you to succeed even more than you do is key. Love does that to people who are well-matched.
That’s the trick, of course… finding one’s soul mate among the billions of people who are also searching.
Charlie and I watch a lot of crime docudramas on TV. Typically, something horrible has happened and the crime detectives are tasked with figuring out why. Quite often, violence occurs between spouses, and the program delves into the history of the union, the nuclear family, and the impact of the “relatives”. After watching hundreds of these dramas, it is hard to deny that most of the problem marriages are unions that should have never occurred in the first place: immature young people who confused “sex”, partying, and the desire to “play house”, with love and commitment. So many of the problems were created by hormonally-charged young women chasing “bad boys” or “Good Time Charlies” who have neither maturity or commitment in their toolkit. These are the young couples who get married, have a bunch of kids, and split up after five years… because they have nothing in common except the memories of those brief good times. Invariably, their divorce turns the couple into mortal enemies, particularly if alimony and child support are involved. And, then, bad things (like murder) happen.
Who’d have thought?!
Maybe because the younger generations are watching these shows or are picking up on the unimpressive marriage statistics that I’ve previously noted, individuals opting for a traditional marriage are not as plentiful as in my day. Maybe that’s a good thing, because marriage is not easy… it’s something that both parties must work on each day. Certainly, choosing the right partner (to marry or simply live with) is vitally important; as the old saying goes, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” If long-term marriage is desired, it is necessary to find a serious partner who just do happens to love the heck out of you.
Finding the lost Ark of the Covenant might be easier.
I got lucky fifty years ago. I wasn’t looking for love when I met Charlie, having just emerged from a four-year stint in the Air Force. I had previously done a lot of dating while in college, really enjoyed every one of the four dozen or so gals that I spent time (and learned things with each one) with but was now focusing on finishing up my degree and starting a career. I ran into Charlie, who was a nurse, while I was working in a hospital as an x-ray tech. On paper, she was not a good prospect: divorced with four young boys. However, she was a hard worker, a good mother, had ambition, and came from a good family. And she was excited to find real love… for the first time. We hooked up and never looked back.
We have been a great team for the past fifty years, focusing on love, respect, and mutual support. We’ve had some challenges like everyone else, but we’ve stuck together and overcome the rough patches when they’ve occurred.
If I were young right now, and looking for love and commitment, I don’t know if I’d opt for marriage. It worked for me, for sure, but times are different in the 2020’s: who knows what’s going to happen with the economy, with politics, and with society? I could see hooking up with a good female friend for companionship but committing to a long-term relationship and/or fathering children would probably not appeal to me given the uncertainty out there.
A better choice, given the situation, might be a canine companion: love, devotion, and companionship… in spades, with no strings attached.
I hope my grandson Craig is listening.