I dream of getting married
CONFESSION: I binged the entirety of Love is Blind Season 10 this week, and it got me thinking about what I mean when I say that. Sure, I want to, someday… But at 21, I simply cannot fathom being so obsessed with the mere idea of getting married, to the point that I’d be willing to skip the process of building a life with my lover before reaching the altar. The contestants’ deluded mindsets make the show addictive for me.
There’s one girl, Brittany, who bought her wedding dress before filming even began. She is now pretending this purchase was “a sign” that the show would lead her to Devonta, the “love of her life” (who only calls her pretty when she forces him to). As a romantic, I am baffled by the reduction of love to some sort of asset people have to convince themselves of possessing, just so they can finally get married.
The point is: the show made me wonder how much girls nowadays dream of getting married, why we are expected to, and how much we think love has to do with it. Granted, my friends and I are all a few years to a decade younger than the women on Love Is Blind, but nonetheless, I ran a survey to answer some of my burning questions on the matter. I would like to add that my friends are a pretty diverse group of young ladies, so I do believe (and hope) this data collection is a fair representation. The participants will all be referred to anonymously.
girlfriend vs Bride Vs Wife
In this group of girls from ages 18-23, over 80% of their parents are married, and almost 90% have been in an exclusive romantic relationship before (though only 35% are still in one). So, it’s safe to say their opinions are based more on experience than theory. Most survey-takers attend university, and none say the experience has made their outlook on marriage more positive; if anything, their opinions have remained unchanged. One thoughtful response reads as follows: ‘My experiences [at uni] have made me realise that women should put themselves first […] so I’d say my thoughts on marriage have become more pragmatic rather than negative.’ Pragmatism seemed to be the overall nature of the responses.
The label of “bride” doesn’t seem to attract the girls who took the survey, unlike the women on Love is Blind. I asked on a scale of 1-10 — 1 being grossed out and 10 being giddy — how the terms “boyfriend/girlfriend” make them feel, and the answers were literally all over the place. I asked the same scaled question about the term “situationship,” and all but one girl voted 5 or below (3 received the most votes). I also asked if being a wife or being a bride was more appealing, and wife won by a 20% margin. Perhaps because more promise lies behind the term “wife” than “bride”. The idea of a marriage also won — though only by 13% — over the idea of a wedding.
What I am getting from these results is that labels are not as important to our generation as they might have been for millennials, because they’re so hard to attain nowadays, with all the expectations and metrics social media has (tried to) put in our heads. We might not even see marriage as an upgrade from being in a relationship. Over 50% of participants felt that loyalty ought to be equally devout among unmarried couples as among married couples. One girl stated:
‘It’s basically the same thing to me. I think marriage is just a symbolic marker for committing to spending the rest of your lives together, but you can do that without a legal ceremony.’
Of the girls currently in a relationship, when asked whether they felt marriage would legitimise their love for their partner, 75% said no. To display the contrast in opinion from older generations: my mother has consistently told me, ‘nothing counts if you ain’t got a ring on your finger.’
The Freedom of Choice
I might be reaching here, but I think girls nowadays just view marriage more as a choice than an inevitability. It’s why we find marriage more appealing than a wedding, because we go into the wedding knowing it’s just the beginning of a new chapter. When “traditional” wifely standards were more staunchly upheld, a wedding might have seemed more like the last hurrah before an end; hence the obsession with being a bride or a wedding being a woman’s “big day”.
So, I asked the participants to choose one: dream husband or dream job. This was the only question that received a perfect 50/50 split down the middle. Since all the answers displayed reason rather than total idealism or harsh cynicism, it seems this was my most successful attempt at placing the responders into two opposing camps.
2025 saw a ton of celebrity engagements and weddings. Dua Lipa and Callum Turner are a great example that marriage does not mean settling down. Over 50% of the participants agreed with this sentiment. I particularly adore this couple because they do not subscribe to the narrative that marriage is an end goal for women but a loss for men. Dua is still very active career-wise and seems to be jet-setting every weekend, partying just as much as she ever did. She just brings her fiancé along with her now. Of course, she is an extremely privileged example, but I’d argue Dua has even more reason than the average person to stop working — yet she has not. Taylor Swift recently made a proud declaration in her newest album: ‘When I said I don’t believe in marriage: That was a lie.’ That said, she has made clear in a recent interview that she is NOT retiring just because she is getting married.
On the flip side, we have someone like Nara Smith, who wants us to think she does not work. Meanwhile, she is likely the breadwinner for her family. What I appreciate about her is that she proves a modern woman can choose to be a “traditional” wife (as a stay-at-home mother) without “submitting” to her husband (depending on his income, social life, expectations, etc.). Many would argue that Smith is perpetuating harmful and unrealistic standards for motherhood, but anyone above the age of 17 would understand that she is a content creator with a shtick and that no mother actually has to make Cheerios from scratch while wearing a runway dress.
The reason I bring up these celebrities is that I feel they explain why the question of dream spouse vs dream career was the most divisive. I believe it is because girls nowadays view both as active choices that do not necessarily have different levels of impact on our identities. They are no longer opposites, as they might have once been. Being a rich, single woman no longer means you’re a spinster, and getting married in the same season you debut is no longer considered a win. None of the survey takers deemed it “normal” to be married at any age younger than 27. Perhaps we need more time to make the right choice for ourselves. In the words of one of the surveyed girls: ‘No woman should get married before age 30. You should be at the club.’
Motherhood
The most interesting result (in my opinion) was that only 19% of the girls felt “motherhood” was a symbiotic or synonymous term with “marriage”. One girl shared:
‘Marriage is separate from motherhood. Motherhood is strictly between the mother and child, the man is not present in the equation. He can and should try to be, but that’s not what motherhood encapsulates.’
Unlike “girlfriend” or “wife” or “bride”, mother is not merely a label. It is inextricably linked with a woman’s child(ren) and the experience of raising them. Motherhood is probably more integral to the female experience than marriage, for it is something that only biological women can go through. The survey results imply that the dream of having a child no longer requires getting married in most girls’ opinions. So, there is no ulterior motive to rushing to the altar nor any point in having a shotgun wedding.
Love And Marriage
Next up was the age-old question: are love and marriage synonymous? I explicitly asked the girls to answer based on their personal opinion, not on their impressions of societal expectations. 50% said yes, and the other 50% said maybe or no. All of the people who said maybe/no seemed to approach with caution. It wasn’t that they would rather be married without love than be single; it’s just that they have witnessed loveless marriages, and thus know the terms are not always linked. One of the most interesting explanations reads: ’Marriages of convenience are sadly very common. Also, being closeted, internalised homophobia plays a [role].’ Marriage may feel like being forced into a box for some, rather than a sense of security.
On the other hand, all the girls who said yes seemed to approach from an emotional place, even in the tone of their answers. One girl says, ‘I see getting married as a celebration of love, not as a contract.’
I personally loved that perspective.
Another shares, ‘Bruh if we aren’t in love, we’re not getting married. Point blank period.’
As the survey approached its end, I asked which factor most influenced everyone’s opinions. I provided a long list of options:
- society at large
- Gen Z standards
- personal relationships, experiences, heartbreaks
- my parents’ relationship
- What I want for my life/future
- my partner
- religious beliefs
Unsurprisingly, “what I want for my life/future” won with an overwhelming 50%. All the others received 0%-15%. Again, emphasis on the freedom to choose.
I asked the girls if they ever dreamt of getting married when they were kids. Over 80% said yes. Finally, I asked if they still do. The percentage went down to 62%… But hey, it’s still a win!
I suppose my conclusion here is that girls do still dream of getting married, but only because we want to.
extended Thoughts
To close out the article, I would like to highlight a few of my favourite extended responses.
Though two of the girls declared themselves uninterested in marriage, they do not hate on it:
‘I don’t think it’s necessary! I want to be with someone forever, I think most people do. I’d even call myself a romantic, and I love love. But I think marriage is useless; it’s just a legal contract that has no basis in our modern society. I think it made sense in the past when a woman needed a husband’s protection. I mean, women couldn’t even have their own credit card without their husband’s signature until the 70s. Now, I just see it as an archaic institution. You can be with someone and love them forever without having to get married. I think that’s much more romantic. Being boyfriend and girlfriend forever.’
‘My mom was never married and [since] we look to our parents a lot as children to see which milestones to hit, [marriage] was never one [for me]. I liked the idea of wearing a princess dress more — which you can kinda only do at a wedding — but, like, then it has to be white. [I don’t know, it just] never intrigued my childhood brain and doesn’t now, either.’
This one is practical without being cynical:
“You can love someone and not have the emotional capacity to marry them / vice versa. Loving the person you choose to marry (when you’re at the point in life when you’re ready to settle down) is a rarity, but one can hope.”
This one blends emotion with reason (and is the one I relate to the most):
“I mean, I think I was meant to be a partner. I feel as if I am a better ‘me’ when I have a partner. Maybe that is naive. I think it’s strange considering I am a very independent girl, but I love the emotional connection and balance that comes with a partner. It’s challenging, and I like the challenge. Marriage is an even bigger challenge, but I WANT that challenge. It just has to be with a forever person, which is the problem.”
P.S. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who took the time to fill out my survey! <3