Recently I asked a 20-something-year-old whether he had plans to marry his partner. It was off the table, he said. Marriage was a relic of a patriarchal society. The only approval he needed was from his partner, he asserted. His vision for his relationship was one held together by love and respect. He didn’t need anyone else’s approval and certainly not a legal sanction for legitimacy.

The late anthropologist Margaret Mead didn’t oppose marriage but thought it should be limited. Many years ago, she and I were interviewed on a TV show; I talked about my book about weddings, she about her memoir. During the discussion, she made the point that marriage should be reserved for a relationship that involves procreation. Living together but rejecting children wasn’t marriage, she said, but cohabitation.

Despite marriage now being legally available to anyone regardless of sexual orientation, as reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, “a record number of current youth and young adults are projected to forgo marriage altogether.”

The trend is mirrored in a majority of countries around the world, mainly in rich countries but not exclusively. However, defying Mead’s view regarding children and marriage, there is a sharp increase........

© Psychology Today