Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X & Boomers Have Completely Different Ideas Of What It Means To Be In A Good Marriage
La Famiglia / Shutterstock Attitudes towards marriage have shifted a lot over the years. While most people still want to get married and see it as an important milestone, some of the more traditional beliefs about marriage have been left in the past.
Since opinions are changing with time, it makes sense that each generation has its own unique idea of what a good marriage actually looks like. Pretty much everyone values spending their lives in a healthy relationship with someone they love, but this doesn’t mean the exact same thing across different age groups.
Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and boomers all have their own ideas of what it means to be in a good marriage.
While marriage might have been considered a necessity for older generations, younger folks feel they have more of a choice in the matter. The idea of spending a happy life with your soulmate is an enduring one, but Gen Zers and millennials don’t necessarily want the same things out of marriage that their boomer and Gen X parents did.
Boomers came of age at a time when society expected them to get married and they accepted that expectation as their fate.
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It was almost as if they had to reach that goal before they could continue with their adult lives. They tended to marry very young, usually in their early 20s.
For them, marriage was more like a societal institution than a chance to find happiness. Many boomer couples were happy together, of course, but the public perception of divorce was only just starting to change. Overall, they believed a good marriage was one that lasted and grew their family, and they took pride in building a stable life together, which they saw as its own kind of success.
That said, they were also the first generation to make divorce common and mostly acceptable after no-fault divorce became legalized in California in 1969, with all other states following quickly over the next half-century.
Gen X had similar ideas about marriage, with one important distinction.
Having experienced so many of their parents or their friends' parents getting divorced, Generation X grew up somewhat skeptical of the institution. In 2011, it was reported that "Among Gen Xers, more than four-in-ten (42%) of those whose parents were married say that having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in life, compared with only 23% of Gen Xers whose parents were not married while they were growing up."
At the same time, Gen X did feel a longing for the idyllic kind of family life they didn't get to have as kids. Those who did marry entered that arrangement thoughtfully and are credited with lowering the once-staggering divorce rate.
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Gen X was really the first to be able to consider their options when it came to what a long-term relationship might look like. This gave them the freedom to define a good marriage on their own terms in a way previous generations couldn’t. They didn’t have to stay together just for the sake of appearances, which let them come up with creative ideas of what it would mean to be truly happy.
Millennials were the first generation to see marriage as a true choice.
By the time millennials reached adulthood, a lot had changed. Women were joining the workforce in greater numbers than ever before, so the idea of a woman needing to get married so her husband could provide for her financially started to feel old-fashioned. This led many of them to wed later, if at all.
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Having children was still a priority for millennials, but the idea that it was unacceptable to start a family without being married first was fading. This made them feel comfortable living together and having kids without actually going through the legal process of getting married.
For millennials, a good marriage meant being tied to someone whom they truly loved and wanted to be with. Marriage wasn’t a necessity anymore, and they each got to decide if it felt worthwhile to them. They could live the lives they wanted with or without a spouse, so they only got married when it felt totally right, which was a freedom their parents usually didn’t have.
Gen Z is defying convention by pushing back against the attitude millennials had towards marriage.
People tend to think that each new generation pushes the envelope more than the last, but that’s not true for Gen Z. Research has shown that they actually believe marriage is more important than their parents did at their age. They also value more old-fashioned ideas like waiting to start a family until after you get married.
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Gen Z is moving in a more conservative direction overall. Men from this generation are more likely than boomers to think that women shouldn’t be overly independent and that taking care of kids isn’t masculine. The explosion of tradwife influencers on social media is likely due to these more traditional beliefs making a comeback.
This youngest generation of adults doesn’t necessarily discount the importance of a loving, happy relationship, and they know they don’t have to get married. They also think of a good marriage as being a throwback, though. If they choose to wed, they want to make it old-fashioned and rely on established gender roles instead of trying to make marriage something that’s entirely their own.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
