Do we need to get married?

Drilling down to the historic meaning of marriage, it's a patriarchal hot mess. So why does it feel so dispiriting to be ring-free?

For the first time ever, fewer than half of all adults in England and Wales are married or in civil partnerships, the Office for National Statistics reported this week.

The news comes in a week when I was already mulling over the concept of marriage in my mind. Where I come from (Surrey), marriage is a big deal. No, scratch that ‒ weddings are a big deal, with dinky bridal shops in every village, stately homes offering neat packages of menus, flowers and cakes, and daily, hourly conversations about who’s getting hitched next, where and on what scale. The spectre of the bride feels inescapable. The siren song of Surrey’s married young women wafts over the hills and through every social event: When are you joining us?

Luckily, Londoners are less bothered about bouquets. Here we’re more into long-term cohabitation, co-parenting or ethical non-monogamy; or at the very least, tattooed, dyed-hair brides downing pints at pub weddings. I like a wedding, though. I love the all-day format, the feast and the dancing. I always, always cry at the speeches, no matter how little I know the wedding party. But weddings have, for a while now, felt like something that happens to other people, not to me.

I think if I’d got into a healthy relationship at any point in my twenties, I wouldn’t have questioned the idea of getting married for one second. But when you meet someone later, in your mid or late thirties, racing down the aisle doesn’t seem quite as non-negotiable. Do we need it? You ask yourselves. Not only have you seen outcomes good and bad from friends already married a decade or more; you’re also likely thinking of more concrete, serious ways to spend your cash: a house, say, or 18+ years of parenting costs. If, like me, you’re someone straddling a poorly-paid creative job and a brutal housing crisis, spaffing several dozen grand on one day of celebrations can seem like a giant waste of money.

‘No, no it’s going to be super small: just 800 of our nearest and dearest waving butterflies over an indoor lake’

We're certainly doing it older, if we're doing it at all. The Times article on the drop in marriage rates adds: “According to the latest figures the average age of a first-time bride today is 33 and a groom is 35. This is a decade older than it was in the 1970s.”

There are also the more dated and negative connotations of marriage ‒ promising to obey, forsake all others and, potentially, even take a man’s name in place of my own. The origin of marriage was, after all, to transfer a woman as property from her father to her husband, as well as to confer legitimacy on any children they bore. (In ancient Greece, a father handed over his female child saying: “I pledge my daughter for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring.” Cheers, pa.) Here in the marginally more enlightened 2020s, I’ve watched dear friends weigh up the problematic nature of legally agreeing to “belong” to someone with the beauty of a ceremony that our mothers and our mothers’ mothers danced through; with the joy of making it official with the person you love, in front of all of the other people you love.

Marriage can also be practical. People marry to stay in a country they’ve emigrated to, in order to be legally recognised in medical or next-of-kin situations. Some people just want the day, man ‒ I truly believe that. Whatever the reason for getting hitched, it still feels like a ring and a piece of paper seals the deal when it comes to a relationship. Confronted with things like buying a property or creating a human with someone I’m not married to, it does feel like it lacks that extra varnish of security.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about weddings, and I’m a little disappointed in myself for succumbing to the Bride Bug. As much as I’d like to think I’m above all this, there’s something irresistible about being the Chosen One ‒ a fiancée, a bride. I’m fascinated by how the social expectations around diamond rings and first dances have seeped into my bloodstream, over years spent actively trying to move away from such obsessions. I’ve never thought of myself as someone who dreams of wearing a big meringue, making a tearful speech to 100 people, or even having a roomful of people look at me for more than 30 seconds. On paper, a wedding is my worst nightmare. So why do I still crave that validation?

Thinking of subscribing to Commitment Issues? Sign up by end of Jan to get 20% off: that’s £4 a month (cancel anytime) - 55p less than small Starbucks latte!

The more weddings I attend, the more I find myself drawn towards the ritual. There’s such conviction in it. Promising publicly, full-throatedly that this will work out. Believing, somehow, in the concept of “til death us do part”. It’s intriguing to me that no more modern style of wedding has emerged, one where we’re all a bit more relaxed or realistic in celebrating what love looks like now. Instead, all of these unaltered, iron-clad marital vows can feel like… tempting fate? Hubris? But we all play along, don’t we, even knowing the divorce statistics. There’s something about weddings that makes me feel equal parts optimistic and cynical.

The other day, I listened to an episode of Jameela Jamil’s podcast I Weigh, with the guest Clementine Ford, author of I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage. It was firmly in the cynical camp. Jamil and Ford cover the historic roots of marriage, stats on who benefits (generally men), how marriage has persisted as a cover for women’s unpaid labour, the shift from being a business arrangement to being framed as a romantic prize to aspire to, and (in their view) the sadness behind women relishing the one day of attention and appreciation they’re not made to feel guilty about.

Ford spoke about “the hierarchy of marriage”, the fact that “people want to pretend that now we have choices and freedoms and we don’t have to do it, but you can’t escape the fact that there is still a social hierarchy and a status that comes from women saying that they are married or will be married.” She recalls the character of Lydia Bennett in 1813’s Pride and Prejudice, telling her oldest sister that she must now walk behind her, a married woman. “There is a shred of that that remains in our culture, even if people don’t want to admit it,” says Ford.

The core focus of the chat seemed to be how society frames married women as life’s winners, even when the stats on unpaid labour, satisfaction and divorce seriously undermine that image. “Maybe’re not as honest with ourselves about this, but there’s a deeply burrowed feeling of not being like other girls,” says Ford. “Like, he’s had this series of girlfriends before me, but I’m the one. I’m the one he chose to be his wife. This idea that becoming a wife is somehow like a promotion.” Jamil says she would rather consider her and her partner as “choosing each other daily” than creating a layer of legal officiality that would make it harder to walk away.

I don’t know if I feel quite as down on I Dos as these two women, but the discussion was certainly food for thought. Looking at the roots of marriage and what it means today will make you question your own impulses: is this commitment something I actually want, for tangible reasons? Will it change my life for the better? More than what I’d gain, maybe the larger issue is what staying in an unmarried, cohabiting relationship might say about me. More than wanting a wedding or the societal stamp of being a Mrs, I wonder if I simply don’t want to feel unmarriageable. Left on the shelf.

I’d really like to think the thing I’m drawn to is the day of celebration itself; the sheer optimism of cheering on romantic love. There isn’t a lot to truly be joyful about in this sometimes-slog of a life, but being happy with a person that you love is as good a reason to party as any. And it helps that my absolute ideal soundtrack on a night out is the weird eclectic mix of a classic, floor-filling wedding DJ. Maybe if we had more opportunities in life to gather our many loved ones around us and let loose, weddings wouldn’t have such an aura around them.

A friend recently told me that her parents are just getting around to getting hitched after 30-odd years together, and there’s something beautiful about that. They’ve made it; they’ve earned it. Think of the stories they’ll have to tell, the speeches their children can give. All of their friends already know each other, and they know exactly what they’re getting into. What could be better?

Three culture fixes about marriage and what it means:

Maestro I watched this on a flight the other day and it was really gorgeous - so moving. Carey Mulligan absolutely deserves her Best Actress Oscars nom. It follows the marriage of composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre, and her acceptance of his queerness at a time when that wasn’t widely accepted. There’s sheer joy and devotion, but also plunging lows. That scene where she thinks back over their arrangement and asks “Who’s the one who hasn’t been honest?” Whew.

Gone Girl The book, not the film. It may have become a blueprint for a host of sinister girly lit since, but I remember reading Amy’s “Cool girl” rant and thinking, wow. It was probably the first time I’d seen a married character truly rage about the rigged system of relationships, marriage and infidelity. A great, flawed couple who may just deserve each other.

The Affair We’re rewatching this sexy, dark series with Dominic West and Ruth Wilson (God, I love Ruth Wilson) at the moment. I love how it subtly shows the swing back and forth between a long-standing marriage and something new and mysterious, hinting that nothing about infidelity ‒ or fidelity ‒ is simple. When I was younger watching it, I related to Alison as the alluring other woman; now I feel deeply for wife Helen, just trying to hold everything together with a brooding husband and four kids in the mix.