A Marriage Trend

The Problem With Idealizing Marriage

Mark Regnerus is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of “Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers.”

Marriage no longer anchors the adult life course in Europe, and the U.S. is on the slower track to the same station. That’s pretty obvious. Western societies’ lengthy economic prosperity has brought about a scenario in which men and women alike are losing the motivation to marry. To many it just doesn’t make sense anymore. Only cultural motivations seem to resonate, and those only modestly.

The Europeans have an extensive social welfare system that can support their marriage-less families. We don’t.

Take a look at our nation’s 20-to-24-year-olds. Historically, this was a peak period for marriage, but today the pattern of nonmarital births in this age group is pronounced, climbing from 20 percent in 1980 to 60 percent in 2007. That’s not a gently sloping hill. That’s a Mount Everest of change. This leap suggests a wholesale drop in “consumer confidence” in both marriage and men.

Indeed, young Americans don’t really know what to make of marriage: they idealize it, expect a great deal from it, and are refusing to settle. So we’re choosing to live alone now. We’re cohabiting. We have joint custody. Indeed, there’s an almost palpable antagonism and mistrust between the sexes today. We’re content to bed each other, and even make babies, but expecting and delivering mutual emotional and financial support — and institutionalizing it by marriage — is more than many young American men and women feel like offering today. While I’m an unabashed fan of marriage, it’s obvious to me that Americans expect too much from it, yet will settle for nothing less than their unrealistic expectations.

The trend we’re seeing toward nonmarital births will continue. Of that I have no doubt. Some are happy about it, and some, like me, are not so optimistic. The Europeans have an extensive social welfare system that can support their marriage-less families, at least for now. We don’t. Our Social Security system even has an expiration date on it.

So while this news is not surprising, it is sad. Kids lose out on fathers. Women lose out on husbands. And men lose out on the one institution — other than the military — that can pull them out of their extended adolescence. All of it reveals how little our communities actually expect from us anymore.