As we head towards Valentine’s weekend, and onwards to wedding season, talk at Citizen Femme HQ has turned to marriage. Why, in a world where one in three marriages end in divorce, do so many of us still get hitched?
Is it patriarchal and old-fashioned, or does it still hold a place in modern society? Two women share their very different perspectives.
Not getting married actually feels romantic
Jenny Murray, 30-year-old ESG credit analysis from London
I’ve been with my boyfriend for eleven years – we met on the first day of university in fact. But my gut reaction when asked why, after over a decade, I don’t have a ring on my finger, is quite simple. I just don’t think we need to. In 2025, I really don’t believe you have to be married to have a successful and loving long-term relationship and I actually think it’s romantic not to be.
Marriage for a long time has been treated as the ultimate proof of showing love and commitment. It’s seen as the obvious next step to take after you’ve been in a relationship for a while. Sometimes I feel like having an ‘I said yes’ post on Instagram and sending out save the dates (even if only to your very nearest and dearest) is some sort of checkbox exercise you have to complete to prove you love someone – the ring, wedding, and babies conveyor belt if you will! Even eloping with no fuss has had an ‘oh isn’t that romantic’ makeover.
Jenny Murray with her long-term boyfriend
In my opinion though, it’s really outdated to have this linear view of a relationship’s progression. It has nothing to do with not wanting to be in a long-term relationship (I do, very much), but I don’t think marriage is what builds the essential bond you need for a successful partnership. No piece of paper will be able to tell you that you are in a secure, committed relationship. That has to be done through your daily communication and signs that you love each other – which you still need to be committed to day-in-day-out when the going gets tough (no marriage required).
Equally, sometimes I think marriage locks people into a relationship that they should no longer be in. You should feel able to change as a person as you get older, but not all relationships necessarily grow with you, and I’ve known people who have got stuck, even though women are not necessarily as financially dependent as they once were through marriage. My boyfriend and I have grown up with each other – meeting as we did at 18 – and have been lucky to develop into people who love each other more than ever before. Most importantly though, we’ve stayed together because we wanted to, and without the need to think about the piece of paper we signed, even when we argue.
Society has evolved in a way that you can buy property together and have kids together without needing marriage. Even the issue of having different surnames is balanced by a lot of people choosing to keep their own names. I work in finance, so I often hear the debate around whether there are tax benefits too. But if that’s the strongest reason for getting married, you may want to reassess, especially as it can be such a stressful and potentially expensive experience.
I asked my boyfriend for his own opinion – yes, we have spoken about it – and he agreed, saying: “If you aren’t comfortable with the idea of not being married in order for your relationship to continue – and see marriage as a guarantee, or necessary ‘help’ – I would worry that you aren’t actually 100 per cent sure of your own, or your partner’s, commitment.”
Ultimately, I don’t think those traditional societal drivers for marriage are as strong as they used to be. As long as both partners are happy and committed, then meeting society’s expectations for marriage isn’t necessarily needed. If you want to get married that’s wonderful. It does work for lots of people and can be a great party too – I’ll no doubt cry as maid-of-honour at my best friends marriage this year! But I truly believe you can show signs of commitment at a much deeper level than a marriage. And, taking away the contract can mean you find better, more romantic ways to prove how much you care.
Our wedding vows are bigger than us both
Ella Alexander, 37-year-old Fashion Features Director, London
In the build-up to getting married last year, I started to feel funny about the idea of becoming a Mrs. I had no doubts about my would-be husband, he is by far the best and funniest man I’ve ever met, but I did feel a certain trepidation about the Mrs part. It felt old-fashioned somehow, and maybe even a bit dowdy. I remembered interviewing the nonchalantly chic Parisienne Caroline de Maigret a few years ago who referred to her then partner as her boyfriend and how chic that sounded as a woman in her forties.
If you’re a left-wing modern woman, entering a marriage doesn’t feel like the most urgently progressive choice to make. As a social, religious and cultural construct, there are, shall we say, issues. I’ve never been someone obsessed by weddings or who dreamed about what they might wear. I had a school friend who was so obsessed by getting married to the extent we would trawl wedding shops where she would try on endless dresses. Once she entered and won a competition to have her wedding photos paid for. Her poor mum had to call up a few weeks later and say that the event had, very sadly, now been cancelled. Weddings, I learnt, make people mad, and the fairytale notion of a marriage, the idea that once we have a ring on our finger all will be sunny, never sat well with me either. I wasn’t against it at all, but I also wasn’t hungry for it.
Ella Alexander with her husband on their wedding in Sicily © Noemi Alessandra
To me, the thing I always wanted was a child. That was more important than the hullabaloo of a wedding. And, a few years after I met Rich, my now husband, we had our son Lenny, who taught me a new kind of love. Having Lenny made me want to get married more, not for the legal security it would bring – I already felt so secure in my relationship – but because I just wanted to. There was no logical need; you can explain away marriage through rational reasons, but most people don’t do it because of tax benefits or visas – they do it for love. They want to make a private commitment public. I wanted to pledge to love Rich forever in front of my friends and family. It wasn’t the wedding, so much as the marriage that I wanted. Tradition lies at the heart of a marriage and in any civil partnership – making a public promise to love each other despite what life throws your way. The fact that we are now able to separate and divorce if those vows are broken makes them more meaningful, not less. To choose someone every day and to honour those vows is what makes marriage special.
Tradition doesn’t have the best PR, but we have choice in which we give meaning to. As a staunch feminist, I wasn’t desperate for my dad to walk me down the aisle, but to him, it meant everything. Sometimes it’s worth applying a liberal approach to our values in order to make the people we love happy. To me, holding my dad’s arm as I walked down the aisle wasn’t about being given away, it was a symbol of the support he has always given me. Marriage might have roots in becoming a man’s property, but it has developed beyond that – I am not owned by my husband, we are a partnership. As Gloria Steinem said of her wedding aged 66, “I didn’t change. Marriage changed… It is possible to make an equal marriage.” I decided not to take his name because that felt important to me. We have agency about what traditions mean to us, and which we leave behind entirely.
We got married at Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton, not far from where we live, in front of 20 members of our closest family, including (if not starring), our toddler. There is something incredibly intense and moving about standing in front of someone, looking into their eyes, and asking them to love the entirety of you and the other person saying, ‘I will.’ It requires a huge amount of vulnerability and faith. The marriage itself requires work, compromise and love. That people do this every day, despite all the reasons not to, is staggeringly beautiful to me.
Ella Alexander with her dad on her wedding day © Noemi Alessandra
Marriage is not just about a party, but is there a better reason to celebrate than love? We had a bigger celebration in Catania, Sicily, a city that holds a special place for us both. I have been back and forth there since I was 21 (a fairly long time ago at this point), and my husband and I stayed there for two months during the pandemic, when we created a mini community. We stayed in a rundown airbnb under a baroque palazzo, and became friends with the people who worked there and the family who lived in the palazzo. They very generously opened their home to us for the wedding. I wasn’t nervous about the big day, nor did I get particularly stressed by the organisation.
We kept the traditions we liked – a ceremony, a sit-down meal, speeches and dancing – and scrapped the ones we didn’t. There was no hen do or bridesmaids. Instead, my oldest best friend was maid-of-honour and my brothers were my bridesmen. My mum did my makeup, and my brother’s girlfriend did my hair. I didn’t buy or wear a traditional wedding dress, but borrowed one from a dear friend. There was no fancy car to take us to the venue, we walked through the city. Our wedding wasn’t religious, and another best friend was our celebrant. I did a speech, so did my maid-of-honour. We had no cake-cutting moment, but stacks of cannoli. I suppose having our son at our wedding was also, to some, non-traditional. We can create our own type of wedding culture.
It’s cheesy, but my wedding day was the best day of my life. I know I should say the birth of my son was, but that day was pretty painful. Having him there at our wedding was so special; we felt like an impenetrable unit of three supported by the love of our guests, every one of them forever a part of our story. It felt like a bringing together of our two worlds, a sum of our parts. It was romantic, a dream anchored in reality, happiness and love. There was, like all weddings everywhere, dancing, eating and kids falling asleep in buggies. There were a few who drank too much, and others who danced too much and felt it acutely the next morning. It was a tangle of friends and family from different parts of the world. Our favourite people had travelled hundreds of miles to join us in our favourite place, to bear witness to our wedding and support us in our decision. So many of our wedding guests helped us to make our day the best version of itself. I have never felt so wrapped in love. Weddings give people a chance to be incredibly kind.
Alexander with her husband and son © Noemi Alessandra
I am not an authority on marriage or weddings, I have only done this once and I hope to never do it again, but for me they have – as boring as this sounds – utility. As life goes on, and we get on with ordinary married life, it is very useful to have a day to look back on that represents the best of us as a couple, a reminder to celebrate the commitment we made to one another. The decades that I have promised to share with Rich will encompass many things, loss, ill-health, new jobs, bad jobs, child-rearing, holidays, home-making and Christmas parties, and to have a symbol of the world we have created together feels very precious. Those vows we made matter; they are bigger than us both. Marriages today are freely chosen, and where there is choice, there is freedom. It is about two families and two sets of friends coming together to create a web of love. I understand the hype around weddings now; I am proud to be a Mrs.
Lead image: Noemi Alessandra
We may earn a commission if you buy something from any affiliate links on our site.
Any Questions or Tips to add?