Why millennials and gen Zs are in no rush to get married

The rate of new couples eloping has been plummeting steadily. Millennials seem terrified of the whole outfit of marriage, their younger Gen Z counterparts think of it as a joke in bad taste.

There is a social crisis unfolding, there have been fewer and fewer marriage invites being handed out among the younger generation. When marriages hit the airwaves, it is often the case of dirty linen being washed in public.

Scandals are the most welcome news, we tell them as observations of just how fickle and plastic marriages have grown. The bad press around the topic of marriage and what the union signifies is the leading reason behind the general lack of enthusiasm around this important rite of passage.

The first culprit to tinker with the bells was the suppressed trauma nursed over the years. Children who have grown up around unhealthy adult relationships that often turn abusive emotionally or physically tend to see little glory in marriage.

Parents who are constantly fighting paint a bad picture of what the institution of marriage is supposed to represent. Consequently, children who grow up in troubled families view marriage as a cumbersome burden that they are better off avoiding. Borrowing from past precedence, fear and uncertainty leads to avoidance.

Eventually, the years trickle by and the thought of marriage is shoved further away. Dating used to be a grace-filled adventure that allowed for the benefit of the doubt. Now dating has morphed into this caution-guided savage vetting process. The current dating mindset tends to see all that could go wrong and smothers the goose long before it lays that golden egg of marriage.

Runaway inflation broke the bells. In the days of old, a man could keep his three wives happy with a granary or two. In the current consumerism era, everything seems to be skyrocketing upwards cost-wise.

As things grow more expensive, dating has become an awfully expensive exploit. The second group of victims in the war on marriages has suspended the thought of it until things look up. The way I see it, things are in no particular rush to look up, the shilling has picked the nasty habit of growing thinner and thinner, now it buys less and less.

.

Keep Reading

• How to baby proof your home in Kenya
• Parental kissing: Should parents kiss their children on the mouth?
• The cost of mother shaming
• Fear of a 'toxic' label should not deter parents from disciplining their children

Love is too expensive a commodity for the penny-wise bachelor and the smarter spinster. Why stretch out a budget that is bursting at the seams? This second group stays single for the economy of it, they say they will get into marriage when their pockets jiggle differently, but who knows when that is with an erratic economy biting at the heel?

The need to seek out professional excellence has obliterated what remained of the bells. When you are starting out a job in a new company or organization, you often have to put it in the work to prove your worth. The amount of time and effort poured into achieving professional traction can get in the way of socialization patterns.

As the promotions trickle in to match the effort and dedication, the third group to shy away from marriages is hooked on that capitalistic bait. Now position has become the new defining factor that influences social status, suddenly marriage and family seem like this burden that threatens to slow professional progress. The third group to write off marriage does it for the appeal of status, their effort is better rewarded in professional circles, in a way they are married, committed to a different union.

The final big boss that lays waste to marriage as a vital rite of passage is the pursuit of autonomy. The contemporary world is largely individualistic, this can be observed in the rich diversity of personalities and preferences.

Marriages are built around commitment and the need to fuse two individuals into this utopia blend that speaks and acts as one uniform outfit. The struggle for identity has seen to it that young girls view marriage as a potential trap, a door that leads to servitude.

The young boys on the other hand tend to view marriage as this massive burden that is not worth it when they contemplate the sacrifice it calls for. Now the two groups are working towards a singular goal, drifting further apart.

The young girls are convinced they hardly need the boys to be successful, while the young boys are dedicated to proving them right. This is joint misery at its finest hour, maybe in future, we will be lonely together.