This article explores the many reasons why marriage is becoming increasingly difficult. It analyzes the idealized reason for marriage, which is for love, and the reality that economic pressures and changing times have led to a decline in marriage rates and many people choosing to remain single.
Marriage is hard work. American actor Chris Rock once said.
“Marriage is really hard, and to give you an idea of how hard it is, Nelson Mandela got divorced. Nelson Mandela got divorced. He was in prison in South Africa for 27 years, and he endured torture and beatings every day for 27 years, and he endured forced labor in the South African desert in 40-degree temperatures, and he got out of prison after 27 years of hell, and he got divorced after six months with his wife.”
If this sounds like a joke, there’s another, more serious story. Artur Schopenhauer said, “Marriage is not a halving of a man’s rights, but a doubling of his duties.” Abraham Lincoln said, “Marriage is a doubling of his duties. Abraham Lincoln called marriage “hell,” and Thomas Edison compared his wife to a broken phonograph. The story is similar everywhere in the world. Just look at the married men on TV shows, they don’t hesitate to berate their wives, and married women don’t hesitate to criticize their husbands.
In fact, marriage rates are declining globally. According to the European Statistical Office, the EU’s marriage rate has declined by 30% in the last decade, and the US National Center for Health Statistics reports that the US marriage rate has declined by 17% in the last decade. In South Korea, the number of marriages per 1,000 people last year was 6.0, the lowest ever recorded since statistics began in 1970. Dramatic statistics like these make even the dullest of numbers seem real.
But if marriage is so hard, shouldn’t people be getting married in the first place? And why are people becoming increasingly reluctant to get married? It’s important to look at the question of why people get married in the first place, rather than why they don’t get married.
Marriage is a contract between a man and a woman who have lived very different lives. Of course, same-sex marriages exist, but for the sake of this article, we’ll stick to heterosexual marriages. Contracts come with conditions. Each man and woman must adapt their lifestyle to the other, one must earn money to support the other, and one must take care of the household. As Schopenhauer said, marriage increases obligations. Friction is inevitable because you’ve been living in different environments. On the flip side, the rights of the individual are reduced as money and time are used for the family. Why does the institution of marriage still exist in most cultures?
Love is the most idealized answer we can think of. A man and woman who love each other enter into marriage to spend the rest of their lives together and become a family. However, the history of love marriage is not as long as we think. Arranged marriages alone have a much longer history than love marriages. Today, it’s not much different. Just look at the number of matrimonial agencies around the world.
If you go back in history, marriage emerged to resolve paternal uncertainty. The primary duty of humans is to reproduce the species, and marriage is a socially acceptable institution for doing so. Unlike women, men are less certain that a child is theirs. Also, because humans have long gestation periods and take a long time to reach adulthood, they need a stable cage, and families can fulfill this obligation.
However, these benefits of marriage are not as strong in the modern world. There are other ways to reduce paternal uncertainty besides marriage. Various contraceptive methods are available to prevent unwanted pregnancies, the timing of pregnancies can be controlled, and paternity can be confirmed through DNA testing. There is also a greater social safety net than in the past, so marriage is no longer the only security blanket. Most of all, I think it’s no longer a necessity to have children to continue the family line.
Modern society emphasizes individual freedom and choice. Having children is also an area of personal choice. But there’s a problem with this. It is not a truly free choice, but rather an ‘arbitrary choice’ made by external circumstances.
In South Korea, it costs about 275 million won to raise a child to college graduation, which is a huge amount of money, and we are at a crossroads between having children and giving up that choice. There are many things you can do with that money without having children. When you get married, you need a lot of money in addition to child support. The problem is even worse when you consider the cost of the wedding, the house, etc. The cost of marriage and childbirth is so high that it has led to the creation of the “3Ps” generation, which means “giving up on dating, marriage, and childbirth”. This has led to the emergence of a large number of celibates. Whereas the celibates of the past were mostly people who liked living alone, today’s “involuntary celibates” are people who can’t get married because they can’t afford it.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to live the single life correctly. This is because single life is different from the typical family life they’re used to. Without a family, there’s no one to help you when you’re sick or have difficulty with mobility, and no one to share your problems with. Being single is fine when you“re young, but it can be problematic when you”re older. In addition, celibacy is not well-received by society. They’re often seen as unworthy of marriage, or accused of disrespecting their parents.
One prominent professor says that as more and more people give up on marriage, it’s no longer a “choice” but a “culture. When single men and women see people around them giving up on marriage, they go with the flow without seriously thinking about their singleness. Only later will they face the problems of not being married, and by then it may be too late to reverse their decision. Fewer people will have gone through these issues before them, making it harder for them to seek advice.
The institution of marriage has been inertially maintained for so long that it’s good to reconsider whether it’s really necessary. Stagnant water is bound to rot, but don’t make the mistake of emptying it out for fear that it will rot.
