How marriage has changed?

Marriage can be a beautiful commitment shared between people that will hopefully last a lifetime.  It is interesting to think about the concept of marriage and how it has changed over time. One way in which marriage has changed over time is that divorce rates are at an all-time high.  With divorce rates, so high people sometimes go into marriage very nervous that they will end up in that statistic.  Also, with divorced individuals living happy and fulfilling lives after divorce, people start to believe that marriage does not have to be lifelong.  People tend to still go into marriage with the idea that it will be lifelong but be less scared of the idea of divorce.  This can be really difficult because marriage naturally comes with low moments.  If someone is always looking for the next opportunity, they might be less likely to work through the low moments and be okay with divorcing. 

Today there are more accepted types of marriage than ever before.  While not always accepted, there are many different types of marriage today compared to what we were there 50 years ago.  There are polyamorous and LGBT marriages, among others, and there are still arranged marriages, monogamous marriages, heterosexual marriages.  On this same note, values within marriage are changing over time.  In the past, religious and conservative marriages were mostly accepted, whereas now, there are all kinds of values within marriages of today’s society.  This also includes the values of some religions changing and accepting certain types of marriage they used not to accept. 

As all of these changes are happening, they have somewhat reduced the value of marriage.  In the past, marriage was viewed as the ultimate goal for many people, and while that is still the case for some people, more people than ever are okay with being single and/or never getting married.  Society has currently been promoting the value of being single if you want to be and not feeling pressured to marry.  This has led to a decline in marriages today compared to in the past.