Is Traditional Marriage Dead?

Is marriage dying a slow death? Are we witnessing the end of an institution that has held societies together for ages? This week in Brazen, we flip the traditional narrative on its head and take a refreshing look at marriage as it morphs into a new paradigm that reflects real lives, real struggles, and real victories. 

Through the lens of our personal life journeys and the ever-changing societal norms, we traverse a terrain teeming with new perspectives on marriage. We dissect the roots of rising divorce rates, shining a light on the shifting gender roles, the media's portrayal of love, and the effect of financial independence on marriage. We investigate the emotional commitment required in a marriage, the challenges of outgrowing a partner, and the nature of successful marriages. Using the analogy of mature startups, we delve into the attributes that contribute to a thriving marriage and ponder over the optimal age range for marrying. 

Fellow Brazen listeners, we invite you to join the conversation as we share our personal experiences and stories - be it about parenthood or the decision to be child-free. We encourage you to rate, review, and share this episode – because these discussions deserve to reach as many ears as possible. Together, let's redefine the narrative around marriage. Stay bold, stay brazen until we meet again next week!

Chapters

• 0:00 The Changing Concept of Marriage
• 13:44 Factors Impacting Divorce Rates
• 22:50 The Concept of Successful Marriages
• 28:45 Podcast Feedback and Contact Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Brazen, a weekly podcast where we get down and dirty on how we can live a more bold, curious and vibrant life. We are your hosts Kali Hughes, a self-care coach and nurse practitioner, and Valerie King-Mowler, a business growth and mindset coach. In this podcast, we are helping women stop people pleasing and perfectionism, awaken their inner badass and discover what can happen when we take the lead in our own life. Join us as we explore everything available to us when we brazenly take accountability for our life and well-being. Let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Brazen podcast. Today we are talking about whether the concept of a traditional marriage is dead. And we are going to start off with a fact which is almost 90% of the world's population now live in countries with falling marriage rates and in the US in particular it's dropped 60% since 1970. And also the age of marriage has increased. So for both men and women, and that came from CNBC. We'll link to the article.

Speaker 2: 1:17

But we wanted to kind of talk because Kali and I've had a conversation about this before, where when you think about marriage, like in the 1800s or up until kind of relatively recently, you essentially were like leaving your parents' house and moving into your husband's home or whatever. And nowadays, obviously, women are not just going from their parents' house to their husband's house in most cases and have time to get an education and develop a career and all of that. So it's just interesting to kind of question, particularly if you're child-free, like me, whether marriage is even like. What are you actually even getting from marriage nowadays? And just obviously, historically you were sometimes combining finances or there were like a host of different reasons to get married, and now it's just like why is it falling and what is kind of the purpose of marriage at this point?

Speaker 2: 2:23

One other interesting fact was that the median age to get married for women in 1890 was 22 and it's now 27. But that seems really old for 1890. I actually just put that fact in there because I would have thought it was like 18 or 19. Like, I felt like people got married very early back then, but I just wanted to throw that in there Interesting. So, kelly, what do you think about all of this? And maybe start off with a little bit about your story and your marriage?

Speaker 1: 2:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:57

So my husband and I have been married for 10 and a half years now and we got married pretty young, like we would have fit right in in 1890, because we got married when I was 22 and he was 23.

Speaker 1: 3:15

And it's interesting to think about it now, 10 years later, now that I'm a parent and I have a teenager in my home, and just thinking about how young 22 years old is and thinking about just all of the personal growth that I have had in the 10 years since I got married, it's just super interesting to think about that. And my husband and I we do have kids, as I just mentioned, but we didn't start right off having kids like as soon as we were married. We waited until we were 27, 28 years old before having our first. So I feel like we kind of got the happy medium between what the two different types you know kind of people do, like we got married young but we had children later than some other people do, especially people who do get married young. A lot of times they start right off having kids.

Speaker 2: 4:26

So it's kind of like an interesting juxtaposition you know of like our experience, yeah, and you know, in my case I obviously got married in my 30s, my early 30s, and you know, I think it definitely like shapes kind of how I feel about marriage and obviously because I don't have kids.

Speaker 2: 4:46

And you know, I want to preface all of this by saying I know I sound very like utilitarian when I'm talking about marriage in the 1800s or whatever, and like obviously there is the romantic component and I think my question is what is the difference between having kind of the legal union versus just having like a long-term relationship? And you know, like I think women have like traditionally not fared super well in marriages in terms of, like you know, domestic responsibilities or, like you know, the laws were kind of more male centered around marriage and all of that. So I think you know there is kind of that thing. Where is there kind of a rebellion against that concept of feeling like? I mean, I just think of the worst case scenario, which is like rape was not considered rape if it was within a marriage and like all of that. I just question whether women are just like not feeling the need to have that sort of legal union anymore when they can have a little bit more independence outside of a marriage.

Speaker 1: 5:56

Yeah, and I think that we're kind of in a transition period, I feel like, for the concept of marriage and how people see the purpose of marriage. Because you know, back before the women's suffrage movement and back before women could own their own homes without a husband or a father co-signing, own their own credit cards without somebody having to co-sign for them. You know, all those things are quite recent developments within the last 50 years, and so I think that a lot of times for women to have any kind of an advantage in life, you needed to have a man, you needed your father or your husband to basically co-sign on every decision that you made in your life for it to have any validation behind it, I guess. But that's changed now and so I think we're in this transitional period of like.

Speaker 1: 7:09

You know, there's some people who still view marriage in like a more traditional way of like.

Speaker 1: 7:17

You know it's a man and a woman who get married and then you know, if you're super traditional and you have the means, then you know the man works outside the home and then the woman stays home and raises the kids and keeps the house and it kind of follows along that more traditional trajectory.

Speaker 1: 7:41

But we don't need for that to be the default anymore, and so I think that's why we're kind of seeing this shift in the perception. So I think we're just seeing this shift because, you know, there's just a difference now, and women who might have been forced to get married in order to have certain advantages earlier in life now don't need that and they can build their career before they get married. They can go to college and get educated, they can, you know, be financially independent. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think there was a utilitarian aspect to marriage which pushed a lot of people into marriage before, and now there isn't that incentive, and so the focus is more on marrying for love and having a committed, loving partnership, which may or may not have been the primary priority in marriages, you know, prior to, say 1970.

Speaker 2: 8:58

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point and like, obviously, like everything you brought up is really valid, like you kind of couldn't really survive very well in the world without, like having a male partner, and so I do think that that's like a really good perspective on, kind of why marriage was so important in the past and isn't as important now.

Speaker 2: 9:20

And I had recently read something where, you know, one of the reasons people were saying they weren't getting married is because they kind of like the concept of recommitting to their partner every day, as opposed to just being sort of legally obligated and not wanting to get out of their marriage because of the legal pain that it is and the you know, financial issues that you have when you separate.

Speaker 2: 9:47

And I thought that was a really interesting take on relationships, like the need to not kind of have a piece of paper and, like I said, recommitting to your relationship and it's like either partner could leave at any time, which you can also in a marriage, but with much less hassle if you're not legally wed and the idea that you are kind of just choosing to be with that person every day was very interesting to me. And you know now that we don't have all of the things that you talked about, like what is the value? Like why are people getting married now? And you know, is it because there's still that stigma of, you know, not being married and having kids? Or also, just like in my case, you know, at this age I don't know if I would have gotten married again. And it's not that I'm like unhappy in my marriage or anything, but I'm like what was the gain for either of us versus just being?

Speaker 2: 10:45

in a long term relationship, and I don't look at every relationship in terms of the games, but I, you know, I'm just kind of curious, like would I have made a different decision now than I did when we got married?

Speaker 1: 10:57

But yeah, and I think it's interesting to kind of think about that, because you know, when my husband and I decided to get married, obviously we loved each other and we both wanted to get married.

Speaker 1: 11:13

But I don't think either of us really put thought into like why should we get married other than we love each other? And it's just what you do. And so it's interesting to think about that, because I have gone to school to be a nurse and so in education I had a career, I could have been financially independent, and so there was really no utilitarian purpose to get married. And so it's interesting to think about the fact that would we make the same decision if it were 10 years down the road and we met each other and we were both, you know, independent on our own and deciding to come together and be in a committed relationship to each other? Would we choose to get married or not? You know, it's just interesting to think about. I mean, I think that we still would choose to get married, but I think the reasons and the thought process behind it would be different. You know, just being later in life.

Speaker 2: 12:24

Yeah, I think for me it's similar to the topic of choosing whether or not to have children. Like, I think, depending on where you are in your life, you kind of fall into the decision and, like you know, when we talked about the child free versus being a parent, in that episode you said, you know, it kind of was like the next step for us and I think for marriage, like for me, it was kind of like the next step for us. But you know, like, I'm super happy with where we're at. But, like you said, you know, I don't know, had it been, you know, a few years later or I did come to our relationship. We both did as, like, very independent people and so, you know, I think we probably would have made the same decision even a few years later. But it is just an interesting idea of like, are people just moving towards that because, as expected, or is that something you truly like, really want in your life? I don't know. This is a very interesting topic.

Speaker 1: 13:20

Yeah, and like, let's talk about divorce too, because it's kind of been a hot topic lately over the last several years about how divorce rates are increasing and why is that? And people just don't value traditional marriage anymore. And honestly I think it is a lot deeper than the headlines would lead you to believe. You know it is entirely possible that people just are kind of, you know, have a shorter attention span in relationships. That's entirely possible. And they, you know, once they start feeling like you know they're losing that spark or you know they're falling out of love with the person, then you know they decide to move on and find greener pastures or whatever. And I think a lot of that has to do with, like, just the media portrayal of what love is and what living in a committed relationship looks like. Because I mean, anybody who's been married for a hot minute can tell you that marriage certainly is not all sunshine and rainbows. And sometimes it takes a lot of work to decide that you're going to wake up every day and choose to love the person that you've married. Sometimes, you know, in marriage you just see each other's not so lovable qualities and you have to choose to kind of accept that, work through it and move forward, but it's entirely possible that people kind of you know, just don't want to do that or they don't think that's part of the package. I think, though, that, what might be more of a factor, it might have something more to do with the gender roles that are kind of forced onto us and we are conditioned into from a very young age, and also the fact that, you know, a lot of women are highly educated, entirely capable of going out and earning their own money at a livable wage and being able to support themselves. And, like I know, just for myself, I'm not interested in being in a relationship where my husband is like another child to me. I am not interested in a relationship where, you know my husband would be abusive to me, whether financially, verbally, mentally, emotionally, whatever. I'm not interested in a relationship where my husband is out sleeping around on me. I'm not interested in those types of things, and I know that if that was like the pattern of behavior in my marriage and I didn't see how I could move forward with them, there would be a divorce happening.

Speaker 1: 16:47

And yes, divorce is like it's costly and it's like a huge hassle, and a lot of times it's like a small price to pay for, like my mental health and my well-being and, you know, having to make some lifestyle changes to live on just one income, like that's more worth it to me than living in a crappy relationship with someone who doesn't respect me.

Speaker 1: 17:14

And I think that might be a bigger driver in the divorce rates going up. Because I mean, you can go anywhere on the internet pretty much and see examples of like you know the quote unquote deadbeat husbands who don't help with the kids, who don't do housework, who you know think that you know certain tasks around the house are the woman's job, who don't think that the woman should, you know, be working if the kids are sick, like they should be the one to sacrifice their career and like that mentality is still very strong. But on the other side, women are like I don't need to put up with this shit, I can support myself just fine and I don't need you. So I think that might kind of be a big factor in why divorces are happening at a higher rate than they were, like you know, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Speaker 2: 18:19

Yeah, I think you bring up so many good points with that because you know it kind of goes back to what I was saying in the beginning, where marriage hasn't stereotypically been beneficial to women and one of those pieces is that women couldn't leave the marriages because they weren't financially independent or because, you know, you couldn't really divorce for many years in general. And I think one reason why I really encourage you know our audience and the women that we coach to question what they're looking for in their lives is because I think that traditionally, women haven't had obviously so many opportunities and like, yes, you can financially leave a marriage, but like, set yourself up so that you always do have, you know, an opportunity to make healthy decisions for yourself. And I think that's why it's like don't, you know, get yourself involved in circumstances where you can't like escape in quotation marks and I think you know, nowadays we do have the ability to leave, you know, an abusive relationship and any of that. And I think that to me is always just important because there has been that long term reputation of women not being able to.

Speaker 2: 19:30

And I did look a little bit about some facts on divorce when I was looking at this topic and the number one reason why couples get divorced, and first of all it is more, the percentage is higher than it's women like initiating the divorce. But the number one reason was for lack of commitment to the marriage. And it wasn't about infidelity that's the next one but it was actually just like not feeling that their partner is putting an equal amount into the relationship, and so I thought that was very interesting because I would have assumed it was primarily infidelity. But it does show that there is that like emotional peace and which you know, marriage doesn't ensure that someone's like going to be committed in an emotional and you know in all the possible ways that you can be committed to a relationship. But I just thought that was an interesting fact.

Speaker 1: 20:25

And I think that it really emphasizes the point that, like now, that there isn't that your utilitarian driver behind getting married, it is really reliant on both parties being committed to growing together and looking to just do the personal improvement and the work that you need to do in order to be a good partner and a good person. Because if you kind of just stay stuck in your 20 year old mentality of like how you relate to people and how you think and how you deal with conflict, then it's really not going to be a relationship that grows and like one person is probably going to outgrow the other. And I think that's where a lot of divorces happen, where it's like one party feels that the other person is not showing the interest in putting the effort into doing what they need to do in order to like meet the other person's needs on more than just like a physical or a financial basis, but like there's the emotional, there's the mental, there's the spiritual. I mean it's so much more than just like providing a paycheck and like having kids and going through the day to day, and I think that's where a lot of marriages break down these days, because there isn't that incentive.

Speaker 1: 22:12

Oftentimes on the males side. It's still pretty socially acceptable for men to, you know, sit on the couch while their wives are cooking, helping the kids with the homework, cleaning up after dinner, putting the kids to bed, and there's really not the same pushback as there would be if the roles were reversed, like if the wife was the one, you know, sitting back watching a TV show or something and the husband was doing all of those things. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.

Speaker 2: 22:50

Yeah, I recently sent an article to basically everyone I know. It was from the Atlantic and it was about how successful marriages should be treated like a mature startup versus a merger, or like a baby startup. And of course, that article appealed to my little utilitarian heart.

Speaker 2: 23:09

But, basically, the premise of the article is that the age range that helps with the best and most successful marriages is 28 to 32, for both the men and the women. And I know I've quoted this multiple times on this podcast, but my mom always saying, you know she doesn't take any, but I should get married until they're 30. And I think there is a piece of it, like what you were talking about, where I really appreciate that I came to my marriage as like a fully formed human being and my husband was as well for the most part.

Speaker 2: 23:44

I mean, we're obviously still growing, but I like love the idea of a partnership and you know, I think there's nothing like more attractive to me than having someone that was like kind of independent, had his own career and it's a career that I know nothing about. So we're kind of each contributing to the marriage and as like two people, you know, almost like business partners, and I know that sounds super unromantic, but I just I really love that because it does feel like a mutually supportive. You know, partnership and I do think that, like picturing myself at 22 or anything like that, I'm like God, I don't know that I could have provided what I do to my relationship and it's not to say I think as long as the two partners at a young age are growing at the same pace or willing to put in the work to kind of meet each other, then I think that they can be super successful. But I'm just like I'm not sure if I could have been that person. I don't know.

Speaker 1: 24:43

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a scientifically proven fact that your brain doesn't stop maturing until at least your mid 20s like 25 to sometimes 28, depending on what studies you're looking at. And so it is prudent to avoid making any huge life altering decisions before that point, because chances are you don't have the just mental capacity or the life experience to be able to really think through what your options are. And obviously that's not super realistic to say that everybody should wait until they're 28 to get married or to have kids or whatever. But it's just to make the point that whatever decisions you make when you're younger than that, they might not be made from the most logical standpoint, they might not be set up in a way that makes sense for you long term. So just being aware of that, and again, you know, like my husband and I got married when we were 22 and 23.

Speaker 1: 26:09

But I think what's made it a successful relationship thus far has been the fact that we are both open with each other. There's like a lot of mutual respect and the fact that you know, to a certain degree we're both independent of each other. Like I have my career, he has his, and you know we both are able to contribute in a meaningful and equitable way to our relationship. And you know it's just being aware that. You know you kind of need to maybe like take some extra time and think things through, if your brain hasn't stopped developing yet and you're making some big decisions.

Speaker 2: 26:53

So we've talked about a lot of different topics around the idea of marriage and you know, I still, as always when we leave these episodes, I don't know 100% how I feel and I think for every person. You obviously are making your own decision about what is best for you in marriage or a partnership. So I wanted to end the episode with a question for both Kali and for the listeners, and that is what does a successful marriage look like to you?

Speaker 1: 27:21

Well, I think you know. First, to answer the question that the title of this episode is asking, which is is traditional marriage dead? I think traditional marriage in the traditional sense of like what it looked like 100 years ago, is dead. I think that what a successful marriage would look like to me is a committed, respectful partnership where each person is contributing and pulling their weight and paying attention to meeting all of the needs of their partner as best they can, and vice versa. And, val, how about you? What does a successful marriage look?

Speaker 2: 28:10

like to you, val. I think everything you said I mean, I've made it very clear in this episode that I like partnerships and I like to people bringing stuff to the table, but I think also, just you know, having a super open discussion around things and kind of reassessing your partnership a lot I do really like being able to talk about, like are we happy with where we are, like financially and you know, kind of lifestyle wise and making goals for the future, and I just I really find that to be really inspiring to have a partner along for the ride. So we would love to hear what you have to think about this and you can either message us on Instagram or we will also link to our email in the show notes. But in the meantime, keep being brazen and we will see you next week.

Speaker 2: 29:00

Bye, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the brazen podcast. We'd love to hear more about your parenthood or child free journey. So please feel free to email us at hello at brazenwomencom. If you liked this episode, please rate, review and share the episode so we can get the word out there. We'll be back here next Tuesday, but in the meantime, keep being brazen.