Is marriage a dying institution?

On the way to work one morning I was listening to the radio. For some reason or other, I was listening to Lite FM. The station of choice for the mature generation. Perhaps I was in the mood for some matured entertainment or perhaps I was feeling my age that morning. For your information, the stations have adjusted the demographics of their target audience. Hitz fm is now targeted at the 10-18 age group, Mix fm to the 19-25 age group and Lite fm for the 26+ age group. I fall in the latter category and therefore have voluntarily admitted myself as a ‘matured’ person. Anyway, the announcers were asking their question of the day and it was

“Is marriage a dying institution?”

My answer to that question is no. It is not a dying institution but it has definitely changed and evolved. The idea of marriage 50 years ago and today is very different. In todays modern world, people enter marriage because they have found a person with whom they can stomach the rest of their lives with. Decades ago, people, especially women entered into marriage for security and stability reasons. As a result, they put up with a lot more than most modern women would. Infidelity, ignorance, abuse – be it physical, verbal or emotional, abandonment, the list goes on. The modern woman, one who’s financially capable to support herself do not need to be tied down to a marriage to a man if these issues were to occur. She has the emancipation women 50 years ago could only dream of having.

Having said that, people ARE rushing into marriage BECAUSE it is so easy to get out of it. Divorce no longer carries the same stigma in our society as it used to. More and more young people are signing divorce papers before they hit 30 years of age. It is due in part, the pressure of society for young people to settle down and the romance most women place in the idea of weddings. Young women tend to get carried away with the minute details of an elaborate wedding and once it is over, the reality of marriage sinks in. Because divorce is so easy to obtain these days, young people don’t give a single lingering thought of leaping into a binding marriage contract and two seconds later renouncing that very same binding contract.