a very ancient solution to a very modern problem
- Feb 27
- 1 min read
What does it mean to "get married" today?
Every year, about four million people get married in the US - but what exactly are they doing?
The question isn’t why they want to get married - for the vast majority, it’s because they love their partner. The question is - what do they think that marriage is? What do they think they are doing when they get married?
It’s not finally having sex - with 95% of Americans having sex before marriage, that’s clearly not the motivation.
It’s not forging an economic alliance in the ways it once was - while there are significant financial benefits to marriage, nobody is getting married because it is an effective way for them to run their farm or village cobbler shop.
Even those couples who are motivated by promises of monogamy, that’s fundamentally a promise to not do something - be intimate with another person - but it doesn’t tell you what you are doing.
The seriously hard truth is that we marry our partners with the intention of loving them forever, but inevitably there will be moments when that love feels very distant.
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