Love & Marriage

T.K. McNeil

“The only really happy folk are married women and single men.” Or so said satirist and inveterate crank H.L. Mencken. For a long time, at least on the left, many people agreed, though without the gender caveat. Marriage just assumed to be the way of things. From at least the mid-1960s, however the only people consistently defending marriage and “family values” have been conservatives. Often taking things to an extreme degree. History seems to agree. Many of the arguments against traditional marriage coming across as fairly sound to most reasonable people. Some characterizing the institution of marriage, not entirely unfairly, as a sort of unholy alliance of draconian religious fascism and big state government control. Which was actually, more or less, true up until the 20^th century, when marriage had literally nothing to do with love. It was all about making military and business alliances people generally less likely to cheat or murder someone with whom they share relatives.

The further society moved away from this coldly utilitarian approach to matrimony, the more critical of it people became. The fight for improved rights gaining steam in the 1950s, coming to a head by the early-1970s. The general attitude shifting from dismissive to outright hostile. No-fault divorce came into law. The marriage rate plummeted, fewer people willing to take the risk.

And then it ended. Things shifted once again and young people, even those on the liberal left, started marrying again. And the marriages are lasting. The overall divorce rate plummeting to 40 year lows for first marriages. The last time it was at 2019 levels was 1975, before the anti-marriage sentiment really took hold. The average marriage now lasting for a minimum of 11 years. Many longer than that.

Did people just become more conservative? Possibly, though this is not what the numbers show. According to a report published in the March 1, 2018 edition of Intelligencer, there is a clear trend towards liberalism among Millennials. Keeping inline with traditional trends in terms of age and political alignment, younger people tending toward more liberal politics in general. So what has changed? The answer is actually fairly simple. A increase in terms of choice.

Not that long ago, there were very clear societal expectations as to what citizens, particularly women, were “meant” to do. To the point of sometimes making appeals to “natural law” in terms of staunch Social Darwinists. This has largely eroded over time, the general trend being towards further social progress. What used to be thought of as “just the way of things”, increasingly being identified, not unfairly, as traditionalism. A world-view like any other that can be accepted or rejected, depending on one's own political alignment, the trend over the past fifty years being to reject it. Leading to a state of affairs in which traditionally subjugated groups like racial minorities and women gain more social freedom to dictate their own lives. An increasing number of women opting to focus on their education and career when they are young. The overall age of both marriage an pregnancy steadily increasing. The median age of first marriage in the U.S. is now 28 for women and 29 for men. The average age of first pregnancy, a major motivation for marriage for many years, is now 26. Up a full five years from 1972 average of 21. Which has an overall positive effect in terms of divorce and abortion rates, the former down to 30 percet from an all-time height of 50 percent in the late-1980s and the latter now down to 45 in every 1,000 women between 15 and 44. The majority of marriages and births now occurring in the context of older, more educated, more emotionally and financially stable couples.

Rather than young people getting more conservative, the current trend toward marriage is more readily explained by the slow shift toward liberal ideals. Which has given women more personal autonomy. Exactly what those who were initially critial of marriage on the basis of women's liberation were arguing for.