Is Marriage Relevant in Today’s Times?

Over the last few decades, family life in America has become less stable with divorce and family violence.

The majority of the American population agrees that marriage provides value to life. Marriage was once considered as the prerequisite of adulthood, but nowadays, younger people find it out-dated, purpose-less, and fearful of the drama from divorces.

Without any doubt, the concept of marriage is losing relevancy, but it isn’t completely faded yet. Marriage life is impacting the lives of people differently than in the past. So in this article, we will see, is marriage relevant in today’s times?

Why was marriage so important to society? 

Marriage was important to society in promoting the common good and moral requirement to have children. It encourages people to be socially responsible for their family and deters adultery or other acts deemed immoral then.

However, people have been questioning the purpose of marriage given that all the previous reasons are weakening and not relevant. Having a child before marriage, cheating even in marriage is widely seen around the world nowadays.

Views of People about Marriage Relevancy

Many people don’t want to marry because marriage will change their lifestyle. They will have to earn a good living, marrying children, building a career, and many other responsibilities. With time, marriage is losing relevancy in America and Europe. 

A survey was conducted in America, and many people agree that marriage benefits society and individuals. This survey was conducted to find out the issues in a relationship, cultural, and family issues. You can’t deny that marriage life in the USA has become weaker than the past. Now a few people get married and have children. On the other hand, a survey has also shown that the majority of people are still in favor of marriage. 

Survey results have shown that:

• According to 64% of respondents, marriage helps people to become better financially. 
• 59% of the respondents agreed that marriage helps to create strong families.
• According to 53% of people, society can be better when more people get married. 
• Only 14% of people said that marriage is a burden, and it doesn’t have benefits, and it is old-fashioned. 

However, these figures show a decline in good views of people about marriage. Is marriage relevant in today’s time? Yes, up to some extent, it is still relevant in today’s times. 

Despite the positive views of people about marriage, it wasn’t still ranked higher when we ask about what are the essentials in fulfilling life? The majority of the population agrees that among the essentials of a fulfilling life, it is crucial to make a good living, having a rewarding career job, and gaining a good education. People who are married said that their spouse and children are most important to them. 

In the past, marriage was considered to be the way for stability, but nowadays, people want to get stable before entering into married life. Now people want to get married when they feel they are financially secure.  When respondents were asked about getting married, is it more important than building a career? Only 19% agreed to this question, and 52% of people were against this. It means they know their career is more important than their marriage. 

When we ask about the extremely important prerequisite, marriage wasn’t at the top of the list. When we asked about the ideal relationship sequence, respondents indicate that childbearing would ideally take place in marriage. 

Attitude towards Marriage

People’s attitude towards marriage has changed over the last few years. Young people believe that being single is the perfect way to live an appropriate life. 

The number of marriages has been decreased drastically. Nowadays young people have a different goal that’s why they don’t want to give up by doing marriage. Young people are more careers oriented, and young girls like to be more independent. So, marriage is losing relevancy with the passage of time.  

How many marriages are sexless?

Nowadays, another common trend in marriage is a sexless marriage, meaning less than 10 sex intimacy in the last year.

It is mentioned in mainstream media like Ted Talk, books, and plenty of news articles and also Wikipedia.

Newsweek estimates that about 15 to 20 percent of couples are in one. Kinsey institute's studies show that 10% or less of the married population below age 50 were sexless.

How does marriage benefit a man?

Given the above mindsets, people did research about the benefit of marriage to a man.

ScienceDaily found that there is a "marriage premium" for men that includes:

• Married men make about $16,000 more than their single peers with otherwise similar backgrounds. It also includes more assets and more job stability. 
• Better sex lives compared to both single and cohabiting men

What are the health benefits of marriage?

Havard also found that the health benefits of marriage include a married person:

• live longer.
• have fewer strokes and heart attacks.
• have a lower chance of becoming depressed.
• be less likely to have advanced cancer at the time of diagnosis and more likely to survive cancer for a longer period of time.
• survive a major operation more often.

Conclusion

Is marriage relevant in today’s times? In America, people still value the benefits of marriage and understand its benefits. While when we talk about other perquisites and needs, the desire for marriage has declined. Research has shown that Americans still love to marry or hope to marry. So, yes, marriage is still relevant in today’s times.