Marriage is in bad shape because of gay marriage and being able to marry your cat. They made it a secular ceremony, rather than what God intended. The state has made a complete mockery of marriage.
Personally, I’ve always been against that “living together” custom that emerged with the boomers around Woodstock time. I didn’t do it and have been married 45 years. All four of my kids lived together and all got married. Some are pushing the twenty year mark.
But think of the world our grandparents lived in. The ability to amuse yourself was not nearly what it is now. Pretty much to entertain yourself, you read books, or maybe went to the movies once a week. Basically to entertain meant interacting with others, and that meant there was much more pressure to conform to social norms, which meant, getting married. The thought of being called a “spinster” or an “old maid” was abhorrent to women, just as a “confirmed bachelor” was to men (because we all knew what it was the code word for).
Now with all of this technology and social media, you can scratch that itch without even thinking about marriage.