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Well, Color Me Unimpressed

zuzu

Married couples dip below the majority mark for the first time.

Why am I unimpressed? It’s rather an artificial statistic, given that gay couples can’t marry (and account for some 1-2% of the total (though that figure may be a bit low due to reluctance to reveal such information), and 5% of households were unmarried opposite-sex partners. Clearly, people are still coupling up in large numbers, regardless of whether they plan to eventually marry.

Also? I’m not overly concerned if marriage becomes a historical footnote in the course of several generations. I don’t think much of the institution, particularly the fact that it’s been given special legal status and confers all kinds of public goodies on what is essentially a private arrangement.

Still, it warms the cockles of my icy little heart to see the fundies trying to spin this one — especially when it’s the red states where marriage has fallen the most:

David Blankenhorn, president of the marriage advocacy group the Institute for American Values, said married couples had become a minority largely because of the growing number of households made up of people who planned to marry or who used to be married.

Steve Watters, the director of young adults for Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group, said that the trend of fewer married couples was more a reflection of delaying marriage than rejection of it.

“It does show that a lot of people are experimenting with alternatives before they get there,” Mr. Watters said. “The biggest concern is that those who still aspire to marriage are going to find fewer models. They’re also finding they’ve gotten so good at being single it’s hard to be at one with another person.”

13 thoughts on Well, Color Me Unimpressed

  1. As part of the 5% of het couples who don’t marry, I have to ask…What’s the point of marriage? Apart from an opportunity to get loads of presents and have a good party, what advantage does getting married have over living together? Even leaving aside the historical ick factor, all marriage does is make it easier for your partner to get away with abusing you and/or running off with all your money. Why sell yourself when you can live free and still get milked on a regular basis? (To attempt to invert the old “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free” question…I expect others who post here can do it better.)

  3. They’re also finding they’ve gotten so good at being single it’s hard to be at one with another person.

    As much as I hate agreeing with anyone from Focus on the Family, he may be on to something here.

    I’ve been married for 11 years and divorced for 10, and I’ve gotten so used to living alone that I just about can’t contemplate living with another person, no matter how much I loved her. Sure, the companionship might be nice, but it just seems like it would be an endless stream of mutual invasions of privacy.

  4. As one who got married for the first time at 23, second time at 27, third time at 34, and last time at 38, I obviously have a passion for the institution. But in my past, at least, my love of marriage and my ability to live in to the commitment of marriage were two different things. By the same token, I know quite a few unmarried couples who have been together for years and years and from whom I have learned a great deal. As a Christian, I believe I am called to marriage — but I see no reason why the secular state should endorse that.

    And why California keeps giving marriage licenses (over and over and over) to the likes of me when they won’t give ’em to my gay and lesbian friends irks me almost as much as it irks them.

  5. What’s the point of marriage?

    At the time? Health insurance through his employer, as I was a student and the university plan was shit. And taxes, because I had no income, so it was a benefit. Aside from that (the legal stuff), not a whole lot. Well, except maybe my religious family not being in our faces about sin and other related nonsense. Of course, we get instead “when do I get grandchildren???”

  6. Bitter Scribe – it’s not just the fact of being unmarried for an extended period. I’m married now, and have been for fifteen years. But if I were to ever be divorced or widowed, I cannot imagine ever getting married again. I’ve become so much more certain of myself, and fussier about what I want in a mate. My husband grew with me from a much more malleable phase, and we’re well suited, but I don’t think anybody else would be anymore.

  7. Well, except maybe my religious family not being in our faces about sin and other related nonsense

    Oddly enough, my (partly Catholic) family was entirely silent on this point. At least to me. I have the feeling that my parents told other relatives to mind their own business in more or less polite terms, depending on the relative. Or maybe they trust my judgement on the issue. Stranger things have happened. One oddity of the family dynamics that I can’t figure out is that before my daughter was born everyone called my partner my “boyfriend”. After she was born they started calling him my “husband”. Aparently, if you have a child and the father doesn’t run screaming into the night, it means you’re married. Or something like that.

  8. “Hard to be at one with another person”-ugh, what an awful sentiment. I don’t want to “be at one” with anyone, no matter how well we can live together and etc., and if we can’t be independent persons within the relationship, I’m going to consider that an unhealthy relationship.

  9. If I ever became supreme dictator, one of my first moves would be getting rid of legal marriage. I say make it a purely cultural/religious thing. From a legal standpoint it just seems to complicate things. Plus we wouldn’t have to keep hearing about all of this “sanctity of marriage” bs in the political arena.

    I’m sure there are a ton of little details that I am not considering, but I don’t really give much thought to the idea because it will never happen.

  10. Rather than chuck out legal marriage, I’d prefer to open it up. I say let everyone (who wants to) enjoy the approx. 1,000 distinct privileges of marriage. Everyone should be able to designate the people they wish to share their employment benefits, their home ownership, hospital visitation, tax benefits, death benefits, etc. There’s no reason to privileged people possible breeders over everyone else.

  11. One oddity of the family dynamics that I can’t figure out is that before my daughter was born everyone called my partner my “boyfriend”. After she was born they started calling him my “husband”.

    There’s actually a lot more historical context for that than there is for the contemporary idea of marriage as some kind of formal affair.

    The lower classes – who usually didn’t have the kind of time or financial resources required for a full on wedding – just quietly shacked up together and that was it. In many cultures young adults had a certain degree of liberty until the woman became pregnant, and which point they were considered married and both moved to his parent’s home, her parent’s home, or their own home, depending on the culture.

    The current ideas we have about marriage are fairly bound up with upper class rituals, which in most places had more to do with alliances and property than with the woman and man being wed.

  12. What’s the point of marriage?

    Origionally? To sell women&young girls into slavery.

    …I’m not certain it’s any different today when I think about it…

  13. Sure, the companionship might be nice, but it just seems like it would be an endless stream of mutual invasions of privacy.

    If I ever became supreme dictator, one of my first moves would be getting rid of legal marriage.

    Even leaving aside the historical ick factor, all marriage does is make it easier for your partner to get away with abusing you and/or running off with all your money. Why sell yourself when you can live free and still get milked on a regular basis?

    Zuzu: I was starting to worry about your bloggers, but it’s nice to see a few of them have some good sense.

    Hurray.

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