The Generation Of Girls Who Stopped Dreaming About Marriage

At least, I did. We debated whether beach weddings were tacky, argued strapless versus ballgown silhouettes, and quietly assigned bridesmaids long before there was even a groom in sight. Getting married wasn’t an if. It was a when.

But somewhere, something shifted. According to the Pew Research Center, teenage girls today are significantly less likely to say they want to get married than girls did just three decades ago. In fact, they’re now less likely than boys, yes, boys, to say marriage is part of their future. It turns out men really might be the more romantic sex after all.

This change isn’t just the result of TikTok skepticism or “hot girl era” trends. It’s a deeper cultural barometer, one that reveals what young women now believe about men, love, and the promise, or peril, of marriage itself.

Have women stopped believing in love? Or have they simply stopped believing that marriage is the safest place for it?

From Security to Risk

For generations, marriage symbolized security: emotional stability, financial partnership, shared dreams, children, protection, and belonging. It was how life was built. Today, however, young women increasingly see marriage not as a necessary step into adulthood, but as a risk.

Marriage now instills fear of divorce and the loss of freedom. Concerns about emotional risk, financial vulnerability, and instability have grown. Nearly half of marriages in the U.S. end in divorce, and women overwhelmingly initiate those divorces, roughly 69 percent of the time. It's not exactly a fabulous statistic for anyone hoping for a happily ever after.

Divorce used to be a scandal whispered behind closed doors. Now it feels more like a rite of passage. The unofficial entry requirement to a chic forty year old women’s book club where everyone drinks wine and blames the ex-husbands for everything, alongside legal fees and shared custody calendars.

If I can be my own provider, planner, and protector, what exactly is the point of a husband?

Women were encouraged to build stability outside of marriage, and they did. Today, women earn the majority of college degrees and often out-earn men in their twenties. Many report that they can provide for themselves, financially and emotionally. And so a quiet question begins to form: If I can be my own provider, planner, and protector, what exactly is the point of a husband?

Traditional gender roles were dismantled, but they were not replaced with complementary ones. Instead, women learned how to do both roles, while men were not asked, or prepared, to grow equally in feminine or relational ones. The result is not harmony.

Women, stretched between ambition and emotional labor, have become exhausted and burnt out. Men, feeling displaced rather than needed, have retreated further into comfort and prolonged adolescence. And when men aren’t given a reason to grow up, they usually don’t.

The Illusion of Independence

There's a certain glamour to modern independence. In your twenties especially, it can feel thrilling. It looks like your own apartment with Egyptian cotton sheets and curated candles, Pilates classes, solo trips, Girl Dinner, and never having to compromise with anyone but yourself. At first, it's exhilarating. Until it's not. Freedom is beautiful, but it's not always nourishing. And while female friendships are rich and essential, they're not a full substitute for partnership with a man.

This lifestyle looks fun and free from aesthetic Instagram feeds, but deep down, it's clear that it's not working. Antidepressant use is higher among adults who are divorced, separated, or widowed than among those who are married or living with a partner. The once glamorous curated solo lifestyle can quietly become fragile and unsatisfying beyond your early twenties.

A life engineered to avoid disappointment often leaves very little room to be swept off your feet.

The truth is that independence has been sold to women as a kind of romantic minimalism. Need less. Expect less. Attach to no one. It’s the relational equivalent of a perfectly curated capsule wardrobe. Chic, efficient, but just a little bit bland. You design your life so seamlessly that nothing can disrupt it, including love. And while this self-contained existence looks impressive from the outside, it removes the tension that once made romance exciting. A life engineered to avoid disappointment often leaves very little room to be swept off your feet.

The Quiet Decline of the Marriageable Man

But it isn’t always that women have become disinterested in marriage. Sometimes, it’s that men no longer resemble the partners marriage requires. They just aren’t worthy of the “yes.”

As women have taken on more responsibility by adopting traditionally masculine roles, many men have relinquished theirs. When men are no longer seen as protectors or partners, but as risks or burdens, it becomes logical for women to protect themselves. And honestly, what's left to find appealing in a man if you're doing your job and his?

The irony is that this has worked in many men’s favor. They have been relieved of the responsibility of effort. The dates, the dinners, and the chivalry. They're largely the ones who benefit from casual sex and situationships.

It's true that it's become increasingly difficult to find a man many women can genuinely respect. Emotional immaturity, lack of ambition, and avoidance of responsibility are common complaints. It makes sense for women to say, “I don’t need a man,” when the men they encounter are nonchalant, noncommittal, and bring little to the relationship beyond the label.

Why It’s Still Worth Wanting

At our core, women are still lover girls. Despite everything, many still want marriage. Some still dream of devotion, protection, and a shared life, just as intensely as they did at twelve years old. But somewhere along the way, we lost the plot and started to believe that the best we can do for ourselves is something built by us, and us alone.

The marriage question is not simply, “Will people still get married?” It's a deeper question of whether there will still be places, socially, spiritually, and culturally, where love, commitment, sacrifice, devotion, and protection are allowed to exist without irony or scrutiny.

Marriage is sacred. It's meant to be a sanctuary. It's something beautiful to aspire to. And it's devastating that so many young girls no longer see it that way.

Women need to let go of the belief that they must do everything themselves. Men need to step up again, so that they become the kind of men worth saying yes to. And little girls need to believe again, scribbling hearts in their notebooks without feeling foolish for dreaming of their happily ever after.