Is Marriage Losing Its Meaning Nowadays?

And what type of bond will you form?

During recent decades, marriage rates are dropping, while in part, divorce rates are higher than they were in 1970.

The trend of glorifying divorce is reaching its heights in modern times. Want to be free again? Are you annoyed by your partner’s habits? Divorce has become the answer. But is it a convincing one?

What’s the point of marriage?

“There are some games you don’t get to play unless you are all-in” - Jordan B. Peterson

In the past, marriage was a necessity. Especially when women weren’t allowed to work, they had to marry, whether they were in love or not. Nowadays, as we are aiming for equality between the genders, marriage is, in most cases, not needed for survival anymore. Usually, marriage portrays a way of building a legal and financial safety net for both parties.

But there has to be a deeper meaning to marriage than merely being a financial tool in modern-day life.

What differentiates a marriage from a relationship is — apart from the rings — the concept of the bond until death. It’s stating that none of the two persons will ever leave the other.

“Whatever may happen, I will not leave.”

While sounding like the biggest threat to liberalism, it actually has a smart concept behind it. Marriage is for people that accepted their own flaws and therefore expect their partner to have flaws, too. Without knowing all the flaws of their partner, they decide to stay with them for the rest of this journey.

Some may do this because they are blindly in love. Others, however, do this because it allows them to be and develop themselves fully. There is a level of trust one is only granted access to if they are all-in, which marriage is exactly enabling.

This is also connected to the idea of the flood. In life, the chances are quite high that you or a close person to you will, at some point, encounter a huge challenge. This challenge can take on one or even several facets from endless possibilities.

You could stumble into heavy gambling or alcohol addiction or develop severe conditions of physical or psychological nature. Maybe you made some immoral deals in the past that may come back to bite you.

No matter which challenge comes your way, it’s technically your challenge. Since everybody will have their own problems, why would someone bother to take up with your’s, too? Especially when the problems are so big that someone may only face them if they have to. In a marriage, you have the choice to either face your partner’s problems as a team or live with them for the rest of your life. The threat of losing everything you own to your partner’s gambling addiction may give you the motivation to help him get over it.

Can’t you also help your partner without a marriage? Of course. But there is a different threshold for the challenge you accept. In a normal relationship, there is always another option possible: Leaving.

Because of love, you may put up with many challenges. However, you will reach a point in which you start to delay solving problems until they built up to a degree that cannot be ignored anymore. And once you are facing them, the likelihood of leaving is staggering high.

In the case of a marriage, one is more prone to instantly tackle upcoming problems since they would otherwise stay there for the rest of your shared life.

In conclusion: Marriage is a game in which you have to be all-in, pressuring both of you to solve problems as they come up.

Why marriage lost its meaning

Every era had its problems with marriage. In the past, the above concept didn’t work, as women were practically forced into marriage, and men could cheat as they wished. Nowadays, marriage is facing a different threat: Divorce. The simplification and societal acceptance of divorce, to be precise.

Certainly, there are reasons which should still justify handing in a divorce. But these circumstances have to meet a standard of extraordinary extent.

As long as you can leave, there will be a certain level of problems that you will not put up with. The easier it is to leave, the lower this level will be placed. The concept of marriage with the possibility of divorce makes it nothing more than a relationship with a potential lawsuit. Being a law student, the latter may even be something I am looking forward to.

A marriage that can be ended easily is not a marriage. It’s a relationship with a ring on it.

With prenups continuously being used more often and efficiently, lawsuits are becoming less of a threat, too. Marriage mostly turned into a relationship with a slightly higher threshold but nowhere near being all-in. But are you still allowed to play the game? Or should you even want to play it?

Is the concept of marriage still needed today?

Marriage nowadays doesn’t serve the purpose anymore to stay together until the end. But still, the promise to do so is romantic. Also, the societal expectancy of marriage rises when the partners reach a certain age. Although the marriage rates are dropping, it is still quite common to tie the knot.

Additionally, a marriage offers various tax benefits, becoming one of the main reasons to marry nowadays. Is it the ultimate state of capitalism when the most intense love symbol turns into just another way to save taxes?

Or did we get the concept of marriage wrong all along? Has it ever been about love?

As stated above, marriage first and foremost was about securing one’s existence by finding a fit team partner. Nowadays, people can potentially fully function in society without a partner, making the need for marriage disappear. To pick out one person you want to spend your life with, although not necessary, turns it into a deeply romantic act.

From this perspective, marriage is more about love than it was ever before. Despite the fact it doesn’t serve its former purpose anymore, the concept of marriage turned into a gesture of love. And, to answer the question stated at the beginning:

When has love ever been meaningless?