Part of this is also due to people’s attitudes in other areas of life. For example, many twenty something and even thirty something single young people still live with parents. Living with parents well into adulthood can really put someone in perpetual adolescence.
I’m sure part of that is due to saving money by living with Mom and Dad, however, past generations wanted to live independently and establish their adult lives. And take responsibility for the fact that they would have to manage their money to make ends meet if they were living on their own and being self supporting.
I was talking to a 27 year old unmarried woman, friend of the family recently about marriage. She’s not seeing anybody, and not looking at marriage and family as a goal. She was surprised to hear that a friend from school a couple years younger than her was married. She said she couldn’t imagine being married at only 25.
We could even talk about sex. Between a hook-up culture and birth control enabling casual encounters with little risk, people think about sex differently. Young people look at sex as something that they want to participate in, but don’t consider the marriage relation to that subject.
Libs have taken all the sex out of sex. After the initial newness wears off, without any relationship context, sex becomes simply another recreation option, like “should we play racquetball or have sex?”
It’s essentially meaningless in terms of connecting one person to another in an emotionally satisfying way. It’s a solitary experience when it doesn’t really matter who or what is on the other “side” of the activity.
“Necessity” has always been the mother of invention. A similar principle is at work in social relationships and institutions. When it was “necessary” to be married to have legitimate sex and provide for children, people got married. With shacking up and hooking up makinng marriage less “necessary” for a the provision of sex and children, people just don’t feel the need to choose to grow up.