All that waiting until your parents have given up on you is finally paying off, Millennials: New research from the Demographic Intelligence data-crunching firm suggests that, due to Millennials marrying later in life than their parents and grandparents, the marriage rate is going to hit an all-time low since anyone first started tracking the statistics. This is particularly surprising because Millennials are in the prime of their early adult years, when marriage rates are traditionally high. Since they are the biggest generation in the United States — bigger even than the Baby Boomers — it seems like the rate should be going up. But Demographic Intelligence projects that, by 2016, there will only be 6.7 weddings per 1,000 people, compared to 16.4 in 1946 or 10.8 in 1984.
If you’re sick of buying a variety of summery but semi-formal dresses to avoid wearing the same thing in all the Facebook wedding photos, this should seem like welcome news, but Brigid Schulte of the Washington Post reported on this issue like it’s a problem needing to be solved. All of her quotes are from people who see this development as a negative. Sam Sturgeon of Demographic Intelligence worries, “We kind of hope we’ve reached a floor.” Conservative sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox complains, “Marriage is, in some ways, in the worst place it’s ever been.” Schulte even quotes wedding and tourism professionals, so they can lament on how you lazy cohabitators are ruining their business.
“Hopeful signs…are rising rates of marriage among the educated,” Schulte writes. Hey, I rock a corsage as well as anyone, but is the desire to see father-daughter dances to “Unforgettable” really such a big deal?
Despite Schulte’s framing, it’s not actually a given that a high marriage rate is better than a low one. It might be a problem if there were huge swarms of Americans who want to get married but can’t, but all the evidence suggests that isn’t exactly what is going on. Instead, it appears that Millennials aren’t eschewing marriage so much as they are putting marriage off: Marrying a little later, when they are more established and sure of themselves and their relationships. And that is a good thing.
After all, as Schulte completely fails to address, the divorce rate in this country is also going down. It’s not just because fewer people married means fewer divorces, either. The divorce rate in relation to the marriage rate is going down, or, bluntly put, the chance that your personal marriage is going to end in divorce has gone down. Waiting longer, not being so impulsive about who you marry, and entering into marriage when you’re more mature: Common sense tells us these things would lead to a lower divorce rate, and the statistics bear this out.
Schulte does list some convincing reasons as to why people are delaying marriage longer than they used to, namely a combination of lessened pressure to make it legal and growing economic insecurity. But I’d also argue that the meaning of marriage is shifting subtly in our culture, and that is contributing to people’s choices to put it off until later.
Marriage used to be understood as the beginning of the relationship. Sure, you had dated before you married, but weddings were structured around the idea that this is the beginning of your life together. Cohabitation before marriage used to be controversial, but now, outside fundamentalist circles, it’s treated as standard. Marriage is now what you do after you’ve accumulated the other accoutrements of adulthood: the education, the job, the social capital, even the fully stocked kitchen and furnished living room.
Marriage isn’t fundamental anymore. It’s aspirational. It’s not marking your entrance into adulthood, but more a graduation ceremony, a celebration of an achievement already locked down before the next phase of life begins. That’s why couples are increasingly comfortable with waiting until after they have a kid or two to marry. It’s also why things like married student housing at college campuses have become a relic of the past. People used to marry to grow up. Now they grow up to marry.
This change should be welcomed with open arms and not just because marrying when you’re a little more grown up means the marriage is likelier to last. It also restructures the concept of marriage. While some might still romanticize the idea of partnering off while you’re still unformed and growing up together, there’s significant advantages of partnering up with someone after you’ve hardened into the person you’re going to be, with all your opinions and habits and peccadillos. It makes it easier for spouses to retain an individual identity, apart from the relationship. For women especially, this is a huge boon, and probably one reason that conservatives want to return to the days when you became a Mrs. before you became yourself.
Plus, it’s probably better for your sex life. As sex therapist Esther Perel has been arguing in recent years, a little mystery is necessary to maintain erotic intrigue. How better to have that mystery than to be with someone who had a life before you, who had adventures and experiences that shaped them that had nothing to do with you? So maybe it’s not that the Millennials are somehow failing by not marrying as much or as young. Maybe it’s that they’ve finally figured out what their elders never learned.
Amanda Marcotte is a freelance journalist who writes frequently about liberal politics, the religious right and reproductive health care. She’s a prolific Twitter villain who can be followed @amandamarcotte.
I think mothers may also be nudging the marriage rate numbers down. There was a time when mothers aspired for their daughters to be married; it made them feel as though their daughters would be taken care of. But modern life has shown us “happily ever after” is an apocryphal tale that often leaves young women struggling to raise children on their own.
Since my daughter was college age, I’ve counseled her that she din’t need to be married to have children, but whether she is single or married, she absolutely needs to make sure she can financially support herself and her children on what she alone makes.
While there are certainly many mothers my age who dream of planning their daughters’ weddings, there’s also a growing group who are more vocal about shepherding their daughters around the systemic land mines that are inherent in marriage, in order that they can achieve an independent and self-sufficient life style.
“Marriage isn’t fundamental anymore. It’s aspirational.” Bullshit.
I do family law and a lot of pro bono work with poor parents whose inability to care for their children has resulted in the children being taken into the care of the state. Maybe two of the 100 or so parents I represent each year are in living (if not always thriving) marriages. With marriage and a couple working at it you get commitment and more economic security. It really is better for the kids to have two parents around, if for no other reason than because not every day in the life of one parent is a good one. Not every marriage should survive, and no one has to get married, but to say it is not fundamental to the kind of society we want to have is just wrong. There are lots of good reasons to get divorces, and not every marriage is healthy for every kid, but I know of no one working with poor families who will say that a child with two parents committed to their own relationship and their children never trumps a single parent raising a kid.
As the parent of a millennial or three, I was with you up until the part of having a kid or two before marriage. Children are a lifetime commitment for both parents. Children deserve the security of a permanent relationship among those parents. If you are not ready to commit to a marriage, you should seriously consider whether you are ready to commit to a child. I would suggest that if you are not ready for both, you’re not ready for either.
Amanda hits the upsides of late marriage (and she’s not wrong with them, though I agree with commenters who say elective single parenthood is more of an upper-middle class and rich person’s thing). Some downsides to late marriage, at least if you have kids:
• You’re going to miss a lot more of your childrens’ lives. If you start around having kids near age 40, and you’ll see them up to their 40’s. Contrast with if you start a familiy in your early 20’s: you could easily see your kids turn 60. If your kids follow in your footsteps and start families later, you’re going to be pretty old by the time they get to be parents. It’s a whole different ball game than if you started earlier.
• You’re going to be in the most labor-intensive parts of parenthood as you hit middle age, and you’ll be in your late fifties as they go through teen years. You won’t be an empty nester till near or past retirement. This may not be optimal, to say the least.
A whole lot of couples are living separated because they can’t afford the cost of a divorce, that’s why “the divorce rate in relation to the marriage rate is going down”.
“Consultations” with a lawyer, 1 hour of his/her time so that you can decide if they are worthy of being hired, costs anywhere between $250 and $350/hour. On average a retainer for a non litigation divorce is anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000. Litigation with minimal assets sets a person back $50,000 at a minimum and this is for each party. How can a blue collar or even a white collar couple afford that kind of money? Then there is alimony and child support.
I have two boys but I would tell them the same if I had girls: DON’T GET MARRIED!!! Or do so at your own risk and peril.