Marriage Is For The Bourgeois

Andrew A. Beveridge really sums up the state of marriage today in this fascinating article from Sunday's New York Times:

“You used to get married to have sex. Now one of the major reasons to get married is to have children, and the attractiveness of having children has declined for many people because of the cost.”

Substitute "marriage" for "children" in that last sentence, and you hit the nail on the head.

I've lived with my girlfriend for the past two years. We're partners in every sense of the word. We've talked about marriage, but when it comes down to it, it's not in our price range. I hate to break down "family values" to dollars and cents but that's the reality. Our families don't have the money for a big wedding. They don't have the money for a small wedding. We've been saving up for a small down payment on a house or condo, but what we've saved would barely pay for a DJ.

I think marriage's decreasing popularity has just as much to do with economics as it does with changing social norms. We're the first generation in a long time to do worse than our parents. You can no longer raise a family on one salary (unless you're a CEO) , a decent college education costs a sizeable fortune, and our best and brightest use the skills they learned in graduate school selling biscotti and coffee at Starbucks. Why should we spend thousands on a wedding just so we can feed yellow cake to our sniveling friends and cousins?