New Generation, New Values: The Decline of Marriage in America

Every generation has a different set of values from the one before it. The “Greatest Generation” survived the Great Depression and World War II, developing a much different set of values than, say, Generation X or Y, whose conflicts tend to be focused on family, friends, and their immediate surroundings.

My wife and I married at 23, which sounds crazy now. I was obviously young, not far out of college, between undergrad and grad school, and already had student loans.

Living in New York, my idea of financial responsibility was keeping the credit card charges under the limit while spending everything I had on rent and entertainment. To say that we weren’t yet on a firm financial footing would be an understatement.

It didn’t matter, we married anyway. Our first child was born when I was 26 and still in grad school.

Those circumstances — young, educated, in debt, not yet financially stable, back in school, and married with children — didn’t seem unusual at the time, although they would clearly make me an outlier today.

Nowadays, the news is full of stories of young millennials putting off life decisions as they grapple with finding good jobs, paying off student loans, and generally