To wed or not to wed, that is the Gen Y question.
What does one do on humid New York Sundays but lounge in Central Park and pour over the New York Times wedding announcements? Why? First of all, because it’s hilarious. If you share my weekend interest, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If this is new to you, I think it’ll suffice to say: senior picture, but worse. But no matter the shoddy photography, there is a great deal of prestige involved in getting you and your fiancé(e) into the back pages. If you happen to be so lucky you will be shouting out your commitment to one another (and to New York’s high society) to thousands upon thousands. “We’re getting hitched!!!”
 The Big White Wedding tradition is an alarming spectacle at this point. The Sunday Times is just the very beginning of it. Then there are the hundreds of wedding guests and the thousands of dollars it now seems to take to throw a wedding worthy of the name. Don’t forget the white designer dress, no matter if you’re edging on thirty and have lived with your mate for several years already. I even read recently that brides are throwing plastic surgery parties to perfect their brides maids’ appearance for the big day. No matter how you look at it, wedding madness seems to have hit the great US of A. And so, after yet another morning looking over the forced smiles of the Sunday Times, I started wondering: what does Gen Y really think of marriage?
Turns out, we heard varying perspectives on the importance of marriage as we traveled and interviewed Gen Yers in Spain, France, Sweden, Russia and the USA. (Let me just say that we only interviewed young people in major cities, and since urban youngsters tend to be more liberal than their rural counterparts, please keep that in mind as you read on.) For the purpose of this blog, I will take a closer look at the answers we were given in Spain and France vs. the United States. After all, in both Spain and France Gen Yers were the most against tying the knot, while Gen Yers in the United States were the most solidly pro.
Michelle, 27, who works as the Director of a Study Abroad Program in Paris, says: “I'm not against getting married, it's just that for me it doesn't represent anything. I'm not religious, I don't believe in God, so for me the religious part doesn't mean anything.” She goes on to dispel the myth that every girl, no matter nationality, desires a Big White Wedding: “It's not my dream. I don't dream about a very beautiful marriage or a beautiful dress. I dream about family, but not about marriage…it's a waste of time and a waste of money.” She hurries to add that she doesn't think she is the norm. “I think all my friends want to get married…I think it's tradition. Even if most of my friends never go to church during the year, they all want to get married in the church.” Actually, from what we gathered, Michelle isn’t as lonely as she thinks in the no-marriage camp. Marguerite, 28, a young and ambitious literature professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, feels strongly about the issue: “I oppose marriage, I really do.”
Fréderic, 22, who attends the prestigious Sciences Po in Paris, doesn’t want to get married either. “I don’t think I believe in marriage as an institution,” he says. Instead, he would consider the Pacs, which is an increasingly popular form of civil union in France that provides comparable legal benefits to marriage. “Modern couples are more appealing to this kind of commitment which is more flexible,” he says. Even though he says it is more flexible, Fréderic insists that the Pacs is in fact proving to be as durable as a traditional marriage: “Back when it was passed, right wing people said that it would be like a tissue marriage, because people would break up and it would be a very fragile institution. But now 18% of Pacs have been broken to date and the divorce rate is 13%. So, it is not a huge difference, right?” Maybe. But Pierre, 31, who works as a legal counsel in a scientific research center and asserts that he doesn’t want to marry because he fears commitment, says he would consider the Pacs because, “for me it's not a commitment, you can break it as easily as you want.”
Spaniards follow straight at the French heels when it comes to anti-marriage sentiments. Marco, who is 21 years old and studies Philosophy in Madrid, says: “I don’t think of the possibility to marry. One thing is a stable relationship, but another is to introduce the state into the private life of individuals. Which is what I feel marriage is. Even though my parents are married and most of the world is married.” Juan, 25, a media studies student in Madrid, agrees: “I don't believe in matrimony. I believe in love, but I don't believe in the church wedding and spending money on the wedding…civil marriage? Definitely.”
From these youngsters’ answers, the rejection of marriage seems to be a lot about the opposition to an age-old institution tied to the church rather than a resistance to the idea of life-long partnership. Spain and France are, after all, the places we expected to hear the most traditional answers due to their deep-rooted Catholic history. Perhaps the strength of the history explains the strength of the resistance.
When not aggressively opposed, the French and Spaniards are tepid at best. Anna, 25, who works as a translator in Madrid and grew up in Malaga, says a lukewarm “maybe” to marriage. Anton, a 20-year old law student at the Sorbonne in Paris chimes in: “I don't know. Maybe. It’s not important.” These answers are a whole lot less definite than what we heard from the Americans we interviewed who answered YES without a doubt, every time. One 22-year old college senior studying medical anthropology sums up the American Gen Y perspective on marriage as told to us over and over again: “Yes (I plan on getting married) I just couldn't really see it any other way.”
Why don’t the French and Spaniards desire marriage while the Americans apparently still do? Ciara, 25, who studies business administration in Madrid, hints at an idea: “It's new, but now people from all ages are getting divorced. I don't think it’s religion, I think people nowadays are more and more individual. Before, people were taught that the family was the most important thing. Men work and women take care of the family. Now everyone wants to have their own jobs, travel, have fun. People are less tolerant...” In other words: we’re back to the idea of the self-involved generation that always puts themselves first, perhaps to the detriment of family. Then again, divorce is rampant in the United States as well, but that doesn’t seem to have deterred the wishes of young Americans to step up to the altar. And so, here we come up against all kinds of questions, such as: What does marriage really mean to Gen Yers? Does it mean something different in different countries, or how else can we explain the difference in marriage-desires between Western Europe and the United States? It also brings up the hot-topic of a childless European future. All of this, my friends, will be the stuff of future blogs. - Astri Photo of wedding ring by Troy B Thompson on Flickr under Creative Commons License.
Readers have left 3 comments.  3. fyiGuest User, UnregisteredThere was an article a year or so back that the US, for the first time years is going through a renaissance in Marriage - that once again, for the first time in a long time, people are once again interested in and getting married. I don't remember the article, but one of the theories was that it is for economic reasons - that it is simply cheaper to live life in a marriage (i.e. a "family") than a couple. 2. UntitledGuest User, Unregistered I agree with your assessment of why a marriage is not so "easy" to end. However, Pierre in the blog was commenting that he is unwilling to get married for the very reason that serious commitment scares him. Instead, he says he would consider the PACs, as it is a civil union that he feels is less of a commitment than the institution of marriage. Whether that is true or not is another question. Fréderic, for one, does not seem to agree. 1. CommitmentGuest User, Unregistered Saying, as Pierre, 31, does, that marriage is not a commitment strikes me as a bit naïve. Of course it is some sort of a commitment. Maybe not as much as it has been historically for the religous, but there are at least three reasons why you might be less prone to break up with someone after you have married that same person compared to if you had not: (i) You stand up in front of friends and family and announce your love publicly, (ii) as marriage is also a legal contract there are issues associated with ending it, and perhaps the least strong reason (iii) eventhough the money spent on the marriage must be considered a sunk cost (i.e. you cannot get them back), it is my belief that people tend to get attached to their investments and would like to see some return as well and, thus, are willing to invest more and more even in situations where it would be advisable just to get up and leave. |
