Marriage still in fashion – finances are the problem

At one level this is no surprise, though it is good to see some evidence-basis beyond the anecdotal and admittedly not-so-random sampling of personal encounter and conversation. This is the articleMarriage still in fashion – finances are the problem - Times Online: and here's one of the most important findings. "Of those cohabiting, eight out of ten wanted to wed. The most frequently found reason for wanting to marry was to indicate commitment, another large proportion saying that the institution provided a stable environment to bring up children." Which all sounds good. Though I'd also want to ask questions about the 'tell me what you think I want to hear' factor. In other words how far are these statements of aspiration to which respondents are reasonably committed and how far, like losing weight or giving up smoking, are they aspirations which are 'some other time, when ...'?

We are also told that "The main reason for not having yet married was having not met the right person, but almost a quarter of those surveyed said it was financial: either they could not afford the wedding or were waiting for things to improve, for instance so that they could buy a home". Again, anecdotal evidence is supported. And maybe this is a big part of the aspiration 'if/when ...'. The difficulty is that in the meantime, we have, consensually but not consciously, as a society, created a new pattern of pair bonding where formal, legal, marriage is a staging post later on. What is the new meaning for a wedding and a marriage in this case? It cannot mean what it did: the start of a committed and intendedly stable relationship which is safeguarded socially and in which children may be brought up. The privatising of the relationship may mean that many couples are 'married' well before their nuptuals, though the public side of that may be somewhat inconclusive compared to previous 'marriage'; are they intending a lifelong partnership or is this a trial-run? Is cohabiting mainly a convenience or a statement of intent? Now let's note that in some cases, particularly where divorce is easy and frequent, these kinds of questions adhere to marriage too. So this is not so much an issue about legal marriage as about a society's ability to sustain and nurture stable partnerships -whatever the recognition structures may be. We should note an important and likely interpretation of the results, "Marriage signals, rather than generates, commitment," The report itself, identifies the main factor to promote marriage and stability as being freedom from deprivation. Yet another piece of social research (and the linked post links to still more research) that indicates that if we want to build a society of greater 'moral worth', we have to pay attention to reducing absolute and relative poverty: otherwise all we are doing is letting the rich feel morally superior because of their good fortune or because they can hide from the injustice of how they gained and maintain their prosperity while blaming the poor who can't buy distance from their wrong.