A Generational Curse?

I have a friend who got married at 26. If you ask my grandparents generation, 26 is late in getting married. For my parents generation, that's deemed as a good age to get married. In this generation, many people have told me that 26 is too young to get married. Do you think as American society progresses to be more liberal, the institution of marriage will become something that seems necessary to be put off for even later, like for people who are in their 40s, or if marriage will become obsolete in the next 1-2 generations? Also, for my black people….Disclaimer: I'm NOT saying there's a causation here, rather it seems to be a correlation. Back in our grandparents generation when people got married younger (like right out of high school), there was a strong 2-parent household ratio in our community. As time went on, as the age of marriage increased, so did the single-parent household percentage increase, if we even got married at all. Do you think there's a correlation there of us putting off marriage and having an increase of single-parent households? Is this concept that I’ve been hearing of, "The Great Reset" something that will benefit us as a community in terms of us prioritizing having actual 2-parent families, and not just single-parent households?

I do believe that there is a correlation but that is just a piece of the equation. There are other factors too that I believe has an effect. I think it's more so about the values and morals that we hold, or may not deem as important, that has an effect on marriage, and how we do relationships today. I feel like many people in society go into marriage with selfish ambition and biases that destroys the marriage. I know of young couples who have gotten married and made it, and older couples who have gotten married and divorced. Personally, I do not think it is beneficial to prioritize a 2-parent home. Yes, I do believe that having a 2 parent home provides more stability for children. If the marriage is healthy, it will be the prime example of what children will model in their adulthood, which hopefully will lead to healthy generational marriages. However if the marriage is not as healthy, it will be a prime example of what not to model in a child’s future relationships.

Another friend of mine told me, that marrying young had a profound impact on her development. She didn’t pretend it didn't make finishing school or pursuing different opportunities more difficult. It did, however, accelerate her personal growth and maturity. She found that in some ways it was positive for her marriage as they did not have well established individual identities or habits formed from years of adulthood that they (her husband and herself) had to reconcile with each other. Instead, she said, they formed our habits together.

Often disputes with money are a common factor that causes division among couples, marrying young you find yourselves having to share finances from the beginning of the relationship in order to survive and becoming used to making financial decisions together early on. In a more progressive world, I believe more people are devaluing the institution of marriage as they see it as at times an obstacle or simply not needed for achieving material goals. However, the positive impact it can have on the characters of men and woman, and the benefits society as a whole can reap from that impact are still full of value.

I think a huge part is societal perspective. During our grandparents time family was more important than wealth. Most people were content just being comfortable, but now? Everyone wants six figures or to be a millionaire. People want to have education and degrees. I have a couple very close friends that I’ve known and been close too since childhood. These women especially realized it's harder to achieve their dreams getting married early instead of waiting. I deeply feel our values have changed and what we prioritize.