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"You know those celebrity magazine covers, the ones with photos of a famous couple ripped apart under a headline like $290 MILLION DIVORCE! (Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher) or INSIDE HER SAD SPLIT (Heidi Klum and Seal)? They give the impression that America is in the midst of a marital crisis, which would be easy to dismiss if it were just Hollywood we were talking about. Thing is, it isn&amp;amp;#8217;t: A growing body of research shows the rest of us are questioning marriage too. Exhibit A: Although the overall divorce rate is dropping slightly, it&amp;amp;#8217;s actually on the rise among 25- to 29-year-olds, according to the latest U.S. Census. A first marriage is especially vulnerable: One in 10 fails within five years. Exhibit B: Fewer people are marrying in the first place. Only 51 percent of adults today are hitched, compared with 72 percent in 1960, a Pew Research Center analysis found. From 2009 to 2010 alone, new marriages fell 5 percent. Exhibit C: In the most startling development, more than half the births to women under 30 now occur out of wedlock, government data reveal. &amp;amp;#8220;This is quite amazing,&amp;amp;#8221; says Helen Fisher, Ph.D., a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. &amp;amp;#8220;A hundred years ago, if you had a child out of marriage, you&amp;amp;#8217;d be a social disgrace. Today women feel comfortable enough economically and culturally to bring up a child without a recognized commitment from a man.&amp;amp;#8221; It&amp;amp;#8217;s enough to make you wonder: Could marriage in America soon be history? When we popped the question to more than 2,100 women and over 1,000 men ages 18 to 40, the answer was (well, what do you expect?): It&amp;amp;#8217;s complicated. Happily never after Marriage is as old as Adam and Eve, and our survey-takers are still enthusiastic about the tradition, at least in theory. A full 92 percent say they want to get married someday. But when it comes to the reality of marriage in 2012, women are more skeptical: More than half of those under 30&amp;amp;#8212;51 percent&amp;amp;#8212;say the institution is becoming outdated. &amp;amp;#8220;This is really a breathtaking statistic,&amp;amp;#8221; says Pamela Haag, Ph.D., author of Marriage Confidential. &amp;amp;#8220;If you&amp;amp;#8217;d asked this 60 years ago, a lot of women would have been too busy making dinner for their husband or running after their children to even take the survey, and they couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t afford to not be married. Today there are so many other options. Marriage might still be the preferred dream. But it&amp;amp;#8217;s not the exclusive dream.&amp;amp;#8221; Many women echo that sentiment. &amp;amp;#8220;At some point I would like to be able to say &amp;amp;#8216;my husband&amp;amp;#8217; instead of &amp;amp;#8216;my boyfriend,&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;amp;#8221; says Melody Wilson, 26, who lives outside Washington, D.C., and has been with her boyfriend for four years. &amp;amp;#8220;But if I never got married, I wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t feel shunned or inept at relationships, which I might have if I lived decades ago.&amp;amp;#8221; Vanessa Vancour, 27, of Reno, Nevada, goes even further: &amp;amp;#8220;Having a ring and legal documentation does not guarantee commitment, devotion, or happiness,&amp;amp;#8221; she says. &amp;amp;#8220;Weddings can be beautiful, but beyond the pretty dress and a few legal rights, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t see the point.&amp;amp;#8221; Certainly, Wilson and Vancour don&amp;amp;#8217;t speak for all women; 49 percent of you feel marriage is a timeless institution. &amp;amp;#8220;I think it&amp;amp;#8217;s the ultimate sign of commitment,&amp;amp;#8221; says Megan Brames, 22, of Nashville. &amp;amp;#8220;I want to know my partner is serious about spending his life with me.&amp;amp;#8221; Guys are even more traditional&amp;amp;#8212;a full 55 percent aren&amp;amp;#8217;t giving up on matrimony. &amp;amp;#8220;Despite the myth that men are less committed, they are predisposed to desire marriage,&amp;amp;#8221; says Fisher. It&amp;amp;#8217;s evolution, she explains: &amp;amp;#8220;He wants to keep the mother of his children around to ensure his DNA lives on.&amp;amp;#8221; The &amp;amp;#8220;contagious divorce&amp;amp;#8221; So why are more young women losing faith in marriage? Could all the drama surrounding celebrity splits be to blame? Forty-four percent of women in our poll say: Yes, the hoopla is fueling the divorce rate. Some research hints at the reason. A controversial 2010 study out of Harvard University, Brown University, and the University of California, San Diego, suggests that divorce is catching: If, for example, a friend ends her marriage, your odds of following suit rise by 14 percent; if it&amp;amp;#8217;s a sibling, 22 percent, researchers reported. And in today&amp;amp;#8217;s digital, tabloid-obsessed world, stars are like your next-door neighbors. &amp;amp;#8220;I think of Heidi Klum as a friend,&amp;amp;#8221; says Ashley Spencer, 25, of Orlando, Florida. &amp;amp;#8220;I follow her on Twitter and love all her projects. I really thought she and Seal were going to go the distance. So when I heard she was getting a divorce, it was like hearing an actual friend was ending her marriage.&amp;amp;#8221; Caitlin Brody, 25, of New York City also took the Klum-Seal breakup hard. &amp;amp;#8220;They seemed in love beyond belief. He freakin&amp;amp;#8217; had an igloo made for the proposal!&amp;amp;#8221; she says. &amp;amp;#8220;It can be hard to believe in happily ever after if even supermodels and award-winning musicians can&amp;amp;#8217;t make it.&amp;amp;#8221; Of course, we are wise enough to know that celebrity couples have unique challenges, from long stints on location with sexy costars to legions of love-struck fans. As Laura Jansen, 24, of Los Angeles says, &amp;amp;#8220;I am just not on the same planet as Demi and Ashton.&amp;amp;#8221; And yes, women in our survey were more affected by breakups among couples they know personally. A full 63 percent say they get upset when a friend or someone they know splits up. &amp;amp;#8220;It&amp;amp;#8217;s depressing,&amp;amp;#8221; says Wilson. &amp;amp;#8220;And sometimes I find myself hoping it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t happen to me.&amp;amp;#8221; That feeling, says Haag, &amp;amp;#8220;gets at the ripple effect of anxiety and fear that one divorce can have among friends. While divorce might not be, strictly speaking, a viral phenomenon, I&amp;amp;#8217;ve seen how catalyzing one breakup can be within a small community.&amp;amp;#8221; Ironically, this is where celeb divorces are actually helpful. When divorce hits close to home, it&amp;amp;#8217;s hard to deal with&amp;amp;#8212;and often kept hush-hush. &amp;amp;#8220;While it can be difficult to speak our mind when someone close to us divorces, riffing on Heidi and Seal helps us to process it,&amp;amp;#8221; says Eric Klinenberg, Ph.D., a New York University professor of sociology and author of the new book Going Solo. &amp;amp;#8220;We&amp;amp;#8217;re interested in celebrities&amp;amp;#8217; revolving-door marriages because so many of us have experienced the same thing among our circle.&amp;amp;#8221; And there is another positive side to all this marital collapse: It seems to be taking the pressure off women to get hitched. Nearly one in three women in our survey says she&amp;amp;#8217;d feel fine going through the rest of her life single. Plus, 59 percent of women say divorce is healthy if two people fall out of love. &amp;amp;#8220;Thirty years ago people in a bad marriage felt they had to justify getting divorced&amp;amp;#8212;to themselves and to their friends and family,&amp;amp;#8221; says Klinenberg. &amp;amp;#8220;Today they have to justify staying together. Very few think that if they get divorced, their life will be over. The country is full of single people living big lives.&amp;amp;#8221; The new happy marriage Still, our survey shows that most women&amp;amp;#8212;and men&amp;amp;#8212;would prefer, all things being equal, to get married. So what do they want from matrimony today? Something great. Now that marriage is optional, say experts, we have higher expectations of it. &amp;amp;#8220;There&amp;amp;#8217;s a real strengthening of the idea that marriage is now about personal growth and fulfillment,&amp;amp;#8221; says Andrea L. Press, Ph.D., professor of media studies and sociology at the University of Virginia. As Laura from Los Angeles puts it, &amp;amp;#8220;Getting married is really important to me, but I won&amp;amp;#8217;t do it unless it&amp;amp;#8217;s going to be amazing.&amp;amp;#8221; And if an amazing marriage is your dream, by all means follow it&amp;amp;#8212;just don&amp;amp;#8217;t pretend that divorce may never happen to you, advises Fisher. &amp;amp;#8220;Learn from what&amp;amp;#8217;s going on around you,&amp;amp;#8221; she says. &amp;amp;#8220;Why are your friends breaking up? Is it money, cheating, issues over kids? The brain is built for love, but knowledge is absolute power when it comes to surviving the ups and downs of marriage.&amp;amp;#8221; Traci Miller of New York City knows that now: &amp;amp;#8220;I learned from my own divorce. I was in an unhealthy relationship, and I left him,&amp;amp;#8221; says the 34-year-old, who is now engaged to another man. &amp;amp;#8220;I am definitely OK with not getting married. But I do believe in forever love&amp;amp;#8212;just with the right guy. And I think I&amp;amp;#8217;ve found him this time.&amp;amp;#8221; Sarah Wildman writes for The New York Times and Slate."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/weddings/2012/04/do-you-still-have-faith-in-marriage-glamour-may-2012>