“A man shall leave his father and his mother,” it is told in the Book of Genesis, “and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
This Edenic ideal has never been more out of favor, it seems. America is seeing not only the young singles swearing off marriage, but also the married people putting less stake in it.
“What about your life do you currently find meaningful, fulfilling or satisfying?” Pew Research Center
asked
earlier this year. “What keeps you going and why?”
It was an open-ended question, to which respondents could list as many sources of meaning as they wanted to, yet only 13% of married people offered up their husband, wife, or romantic partner of any sort. It’s not that nobody cares about family — about half of all respondents mentioned family or children, according to Pew — it’s just that 87% of married adults didn’t mention their bride, groom, boyfriend, or girlfriend.
This is a major decline. In 2017, to the same question, more than twice as many married people (31%) offered up their spouse or romantic partner as a source of meaning in their lives.
It seems that marriage as an institution is disappearing from the country’s consciousness. Media habits have presaged (if not advanced) this trend. Back in the #MeToo era, major newspapers would regularly cover the creepy predations of media celebrities
without mentioning
that the star journalist groping or propositioning his younger colleague was a married man. Many defended this journalistic practice, saying it was irrelevant.
When a Washington Post columnist wrote about her decision to have a baby, and how society doesn’t support mothers enough,
no spouse was mentioned
. Articles on the current baby bust often totally omit marriage.
Matrimony, once the central institution of society, is a mere personal choice and an afterthought now.
The United States continues to be more marriage-centered than the rest of the wealthy world. Pew asked adults in
16 other wealthy countries
, and the portion mentioning their spouse or significant other was lower in all of them, particularly in Asia.
Now, maybe this is no long-term trend, but merely a fruit of quarantines and stay-at-home orders. Considering that the biggest gainers from 2017 to 2021 were society or places, and freedom and independence, perhaps married people are simply experiencing some cabin fever.
