It is common knowledge that marriage is risky mainly because the divorce rate, though down from its peak of one in two marriages in the early 1980’s, remains high. Besides, you can live a perfectly respectable life today without getting married. Having children outside of wedlock has also become common.

Even so, it’s surprising how many people still marry. Demographers project that at least eighty percent of Americans will marry at some point in their lives. Americans are now marrying for a different reason than they did in the past. In the mid-20th century it was the norm to get married and have a family. There was no other respectable way to share a home with a partner or have children.

Today marriage is more discretionary and more distinctive. It is something young adults do after they and their live-in partners have good jobs and a nice apartment. It has become the last brick to put in place after everything else is set. People marry to show their family and friends how well their lives are going, even it they are not sure if their partnership will last a lifetime. Marriage has become a status symbol—a marker of a successful personal life.