Are Girls Being Lied To About Marriage?

Maybe it’s actually in others that we find ourselves

This week I’ve been thinking about marriage. I saw this tweet and it struck me:

Via: @flourrite, Twitter.

It struck me because I think it perfectly captures the dominant cultural narrative about marriage today: that it stunts women’s personal growth and success. Found within fluorescent pink self-help books, TikTok therapy hashtags and feminist Instagram graphics is this idea that women should chase their dreams and build their career and figure out who they are before they commit. Stay single and find yourself! Your 20s are your selfish years! Explore and experiment! Like last week, when 19 year-old actress Millie Bobby Brown’s announcement of her engagement was met with comments like she’s too young, she hasn’t found herself yet, she doesn’t know who she is…

via: @milliebobbybrown, Instagram.

This way of thinking about marriage—as something you pursue only after you figure yourself out and achieve everything you want—is so pervasive, and, I think, at least partly why more than half of women aged 34 or under are now unmarried. In mainstream media, marriage is often portrayed as an obstacle to women’s full potential. Women admit to hating their husbands, confess that marriage can be “confining, stifling, and creativity-killing”, and see their spouses as standing in their way: “I loved my husband; it’s not that I didn’t… but he stood between me and the world, between me and myself.”

If marriage is at odds with personal growth, divorce is now the opposite: a psychological catharsis, a path to self-actualisation and self-discovery. Divorce for no reason other than vague dissatisfaction can now be a cause for celebration, a cost-free form of self-empowerment, a “radical act of self-love”—even when children are involved. Spouses split despite not being “miserable miserable.” Families fall apart so parents can find themselves. “I didn’t divorce my husband because I didn’t love him, I divorced my husband because I loved myself more,” writes a mother of two in the New York Times. I’ve written elsewhere about this glamorisation of divorce: