To be (married) or not to be (married)
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Friday, December 12, 2025 15:37
VIEWED: 2105
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Fewer people are getting married, fewer people BELIEVE in marriage. We're doomed! Doomed, I tell you, DOOMED!!! (Isn't that what the Religious Right tells us?) God is going to smite us with his wrath, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods...omigosh, floods...somebody call Noah!!Quote:
More at: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2031962-2,00.html#ixzz1
In 1960, nearly 70% of American adults were married; now only about half are. Eight times as many children are born out of wedlock. Back then, two-thirds of 20-somethings were married; in 2008 just 26% were. And college graduates are now far more likely to marry (64%) than those with no higher education (48%).
When an institution so central to human experience suddenly changes shape in the space of a generation or two, it's worth trying to figure out why. This fall the Pew Research Center, in association with TIME, conducted a nationwide poll exploring the contours of modern marriage and the new American family, posing questions about what people want and expect out of marriage and family life, why they enter into committed relationships and what they gain from them. What we found is that marriage, whatever its social, spiritual or symbolic appeal, is in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be. Neither men nor women need to be married to have sex or companionship or professional success or respect or even children — yet marriage remains revered and desired.
When an institution so central to human experience suddenly changes shape in the space of a generation or two, it's worth trying to figure out why. This fall the Pew Research Center, in association with TIME, conducted a nationwide poll exploring the contours of modern marriage and the new American family, posing questions about what people want and expect out of marriage and family life, why they enter into committed relationships and what they gain from them. What we found is that marriage, whatever its social, spiritual or symbolic appeal, is in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be. Neither men nor women need to be married to have sex or companionship or professional success or respect or even children — yet marriage remains revered and desired.
The Marrying Kind
In 1978, when the divorce rate was much higher than it is today, a TIME poll asked Americans if they thought marriage was becoming obsolete. Twenty-eight percent did.
Since then, we've watched that famous royal marriage and the arrival of Divorce Court. We've tuned in to Family Ties (nuclear family with three kids) and Modern Family (nuclear family with three kids, plus gay uncles with an adopted Vietnamese baby and a grandfather with a Colombian second wife and dorky stepchild). We've spent time with Will and Grace, who bickered like spouses but weren't, and with the stars of Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica, who were spouses, bickered and then weren't anymore. We've seen some political marriages survive unexpectedly (Bill and Hillary Clinton) and others unpredictably falter (Al and Tipper Gore).
We've seen the rise of a $40 billion-plus wedding industry, flames fanned by dating sites, and reality shows playing the soul-mate game — alongside the rise of the prenup, the postnup and, most recently, divorce insurance. We care about marriage so much that one of the fiercest political and legal fights in years is being waged over whom the state permits to get married. We've seen a former head of state's child (Chelsea Clinton) marry after living with her boyfriend and a potential head of state's child (Bristol Palin) have a child before leaving home.
So, where are we on the marriage question? Less wedded to it. The Pew survey reveals that nearly 40% of us think marriage is obsolete. This doesn't mean, though, that we're pessimistic about the future of the American family; we have more faith in the family than we do in the nation's education system or its economy. We're just more flexible about how family gets defined.
5fi7YlKP
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Go ahead Niki, mock the sanctity of the Holy union between a man & woman. God will make a pillar of salt outta you. Be fearful. Be very fearful.
And say three Hail Mary's.
The laughing Chrisisall
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Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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Boycott marriage until it's nondiscriminatory! Marriage is the new "bus."
When they lose all those license fees, they'll come around. Or maybe not....
However, a boycott might convince DeBeers to start lobbying legislators....
----
Arrogant and proud of it. 
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Hello,
By the time the government makes marriage all-inclusive and fully diverse, almost no one will get married any more. Were it not for social programming, I doubt I'd be married right now. Oh, I'd love my woman, and I'd be living with her, and sharing my life with her...
But it would have never occurred to me to sign a contract or make a legal construct out of it.
When the day comes that any adult can marry any other adult, or several, of any gender or lack thereof, and enjoy complete freedom in their romances and relationships-
Well, then I suspect people will realize that they don't need 'official' marriage after all, and will simply prepare whatever arrangements please them and serve their needs.
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
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Not surprising that many folks have lost faith in marriage. I don't believe I ever had any, but that's probably cause I'm in the demographic with parents who got married in the 80's and then later divorced. Most folks I know my age also have divorced parents.
It makes me want to be extra careful when I make that kind of decision so I get it right. It's also making my girlfriend very impatient. She's been hearing wedding bells in her ears for like a year and a half now but I told her I wouldn't even consider it until I had a better handle on things financially. I wouldn't feel right if all I could offer was college debt. Also, this busy me time, maybe a couple of years 'afore I have to really think about it again.
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Too many legal relationships are still defined by marriage, whether one wants to be married or not.
Inheritance, inheritance for one's children, medical decisions, medical privileges, immigration, and insurance are just some of the benefits you get only if you are married. If the govt ever does away with linking legal benefits to marriage, THEN we might see folks choosing not to marry.
But I suspect that would never happen.
----
Arrogant and proud of it.
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I don't see a single reason to sign a contract, other than health insurance or other legal things. I've never pursued marriage for the sake of marriage, and I'm one of the last unmarried women in my peer group, likely for that very reason. I would love to share my life with someone, but marriage isn't going to magically make that happen, so I don't look for just the ring and the signature. Not to mention that my most successful relationship was with someone who never had a single positive thought about marriage as an institution, and made it clear from the start that it didn't interest him. If I had looked solely for marriage potential, I would have missed out on a great thing.
Just because something can't be explained doesn't mean it becomes yours.
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Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
... I don't believe I ever had any, but that's probably cause I'm in the demographic with parents who got married in the 80's and then later divorced. Most folks I know my age also have divorced parents.
... but I told her I wouldn't even consider it until I had a better handle on things financially. I wouldn't feel right if all I could offer was college debt.
I also have divorced parents, although I can say now it was a good thing, not so when I was 12. And my mum did the hateful divorce better than anyone... I can say them being divorced and watching how hateful it got has made me be more careful about not screwin' up mine.
Marraige has been good for me. I'm the responsible bill payin one and he's the gotta go to work one. And I married him back when he was workin at McD's and 30 grand+ in the hole... There will always be debts... Fridges break, so do bodies. I'm frugal and we never get anything paid off.
You wanna get married, get married- or don't. Just don't have regrets...
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Interesting. I guess we're representative of the numbers...unless all those who support it are keeping quiet.
As I've said often, neither Paula nor I, or our "spouses" would have bothered getting married if it weren't for (on my part) putting Jim on my dental insurance and (on her part) having to be married for him to live in the Park-sponsored housing with her.
My parents weren't divorced, and were the perfect example of those who SHOULD have been. They turned me against marriage something fierce, added to the fact that, growing up when I did, it was something to "protest" for many of us.
Yes, there are now a lot of legal reasons to do it currently, as you said CTTS. But who's to say that, as fewer marry and more opt for legal contracts or "common-law" marriage, that won't change?
Both Paula and I would be "common-law" spouses if we'd never married, as in California after seven years together, that's what you're legally considered if you want to be.
I look at women like your girlfriend, Happy, as the last remnant of those conditioned that a woman's position is to grow up, get married, have children and be a stay-at-home wife. I'll bet, like the rest of those, she envisions a huge, fancy wedding, too? Most of them do, and it absolutely boggles my mind to see them put themselves in the hole so enormously just when they're starting out; or put their parents in the hole for one day of complete attention on themselves and showing the world...whtaever it is they're showing the world.
We have a woman on the website I run who got married; we went through the entire process with her. She posted links to her wedding dress, her bridesmaid's dresses, etc., posted all the professional photos of the wedding, they went on a fancy honeymoon somewhere in the Caribbean, and when they got home, she lost her job and he got a serious medical condition. The're hurting something fierce, but had a baby anyway...
It's a myth and I feel sorry for those who want it so bad and go into it whole-hog, partly because I think those people don't have a good grasp on what mariage IS, as well. I doubt the see much beyond the wedding day and the supposed "happily ever after" fairy tale. It's sad, in many ways.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off
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