Does Marriage Still Matter in a Modern Society?

By: Mackenzie Parkin

When I was growing up, I distinctly remember daydreaming about what my future husband would be like. In my young and very naïve mind, the most pressing questions I had about marriage were how tall, handsome and dreamy my husband would be. Now that I’m older (and hopefully a little wiser), marriage brings a much more complicated and realistic set of questions to mind. To me, it definitely seems that the idea of marriage is much more intimidating than when I was young and relatively ignorant of the very real challenges and rewards that long term relationships may bring. Consequently, in our diverse society, many people choose to avoid marriage altogether. Cohabitation is swiftly becoming a modern alternative to marriage. As a result, it may be important for those of us in the dating world to know some of the statistics regarding marriage and cohabitation for future reference and possibly future life decisions.

The research on commitment in relationships indicates that married couples may share more commitment than some cohabitating couples (Poortman & Mills, 2012). There are a lot of different factors that may help explain this with one of them being that married couples are bound by law, and may have more financial and legal protections than cohabitating couples may have (Poortman & Mills, 2012). Another reason why married couples may have been found to share more commitment is because they are more likely than cohabitating couples to own a home together, have children together, and have other important shared assets (Poortman & Mills, 2012). These things have been shown to provide a great deal of motivation for couples to stay together which may contribute to why married couples are more committed to each other. Finally, married couples tend to be more religious than cohabitating couples. This may seem like a little outdated in regards to commitment, but research shows that religion still is shown to increase commitment in couples (Waite & Gallagher, 2000). I found it very interesting while researching this topic that married couples are less likely to be unfaithful than cohabiting couples, which may researchers believe is linked to the religious belief that marriage is sacred commitment (Treas & Giesen, 2000). Another noteworthy thing I found while researching is that married couples enjoy better health than others, including a longer lifespan (Waite & Gallagher, 2000). That’s pretty cool!

After doing the research on this topic, I was very surprised by all the benefits of marriage that I came across. I should note, however, that this research does not apply to all cohabiting couples and does not mean that cohabiting couples can’t enjoy some of the same benefits of marriage. I took from the research that marriage just increases the chance that these benefits will take part in the relationship. To sum it all up, although I know marriage is not the simple fairytale I believed it to be when I was young, I found in my research that it still boasts some very impressive benefits for couples in long term relationships. Hope this has been food for thought, I know I've learned a lot!

Poortman, A.-R. and Mills, M. (2012). Investments in Marriage and Cohabitation: The Role of Legal and Interpersonal Commitment. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74: 357–376. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2011.00954.x

Treas, J. and Giesen, D. (2000). Sexual Infidelity Among Married and Cohabiting Americans. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62: 48–60. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00048.x

Waite, L. and Gallagher, M. (2000). The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier, and Better off Financially. New York, NY: Doubleday.