Criticisms of marriage are arguments against the practical or moral value of the institution of marriage or particular forms of matrimony. These have included the effects that marriage has on individual liberty, equality between the sexes, the relationship between marriage and violence, philosophical questions about how much control can a government have over its population, the amount of control a person has over another, the financial risk when measured against alternatives and divorce, and questioning of the necessity to have a relationship sanctioned by government or religious authorities.
Criticism of marriage comes from various cultural movements, including branches of feminism, anarchism, Marxism, masculism and queer theory. Feminist activists often point to historical, legal and social inequalities of marriage, family life, and divorce in their criticism of marriage.
History
In 380 BC, Plato criticised marriage in the Republic. He stated that the idea of marriage was a "natural enemy" of the "commonwealth", aiming for its own higher unity.Sue Asscher, and David Widger (2008), The Republic by Plato. The Project Gutenberg EBook. Retrieved August 3, 2013.
Paul's first letter to the Corinthians suggests, from the wording in 1 Corinthians 7:1, there were some critics of marriage among the early Christian believers.Meyer, H. A. W. (1880), Meyer's NT Commentary on 1 Corinthians 7, translated from the German sixth edition, accessed on 19 February 2025
In the industrial age a number of notable women writers including Sarah Fielding, Mary Hays, and Mary Wollstonecraft, raised complaints that marriage in their own societies could be characterized as little more than a state of "legal prostitution" with underprivileged women agreeing to marry for the sake of obtaining food, shelter, and other basic necessities of life.Jessica Spector (2006), [ Prostitution and Pornography.] Stanford University Press, p. 51. Retrieved August 3, 2013.
Commentators have often been critical of individual local practices and traditions, leading to historical changes. Examples include the early Catholic Church's efforts to eliminate concubinage and temporary marriage, the Protestant acceptance of divorce, and the abolition of laws against inter-faith and inter-race marriages in the western countries.
The decision not to marry is a presumed consequence of Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy. His well-documented relationship with Regine Olsen is a subject of study in existentialism, as he called off their engagement despite mutual love. Kierkegaard seems to have loved Regine but was unable to reconcile the prospect of marriage with his vocation as a writer and his passionate and introspective Christianity.
A similar argument is found in Franz Kafka's journal entry titled "Summary of all the arguments for and against my marriage": I must be alone a great deal. What I accomplished was only the result of being alone.Kafka, Franz. Summary of all the arguments for and against my marriage: From Kafka's Diaries, 12 July 1912...
As a high-profile couple, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir always expressed opposition to marriage. Brian Sawyer says "Marriage, understood existentially, proposes to join two free selves into one heading, thus denying the freedom, the complete foundation, of each self."
Prior to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, many people banded together to boycott marriage until all people could legally marry. The argument was that since marriage is not an inclusive institution of society, the members of the boycott refuse to support the institution as it existed.
In the West, cohabitation and births outside marriage are becoming more common. In the United States, conservative and religious commentators are highly critical of this trend. They are also often critical of present-day marriage law and the ease of divorce. John Witte, Jr., Professor of Law and director of the Law and Religion Program at Emory University, argues that contemporary liberal attitudes toward marriage produce a family that is "haphazardly bound together in the common pursuit of selfish ends" exactly as prophesied by Nietzsche.Witte Jr., John (1997). From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition. Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 39–40. In his From Sacrament to Contract, Witte has argued that John Stuart Mill's secular and contractarian model of marriage, developed during the Enlightenment, provided the theoretical justification for the present-day transformation of Anglo-American marriage law, promoting unqualified "right to divorce" on plaintiff's demand, one-time division of property, and child custody without regard for marital misconduct. A Catholic professor Romano Cessario, in a review of Witte's book published in an ecumenical journal the First Things, suggested that a solution to the current crisis of marriage in the West, could come from the possible revival of the sacramental marriage among Christians, thus counterbalancing Nietzsche's pessimism (as echoed by Witte).
Cultural criticisms
Male dominance Critics of marriage argue that it is an institution which contributes to the maintaining of traditional gender roles, thus preventing women from achieving social equality, and reinforcing the idea that women exist to serve men, which in turn increases the abuse of women. They argue that marriage reinforces the traditional paradigm of male-female interaction: subordination of the woman to the man in exchange for subsistence. According to Sheila Jeffreys "the traditional elements of marriage have not completely disappeared in western societies, even in the case of employed, highly educated and well paid professional women." She argues that even such women remain in abusive marriages out of fear of leaving and out of duty. Even in Western countries, married women "feel they have no choice but to stay and endure and may be 'loving to survive.'"
Normalization and discrimination
Some commentators criticize government authorities for promotion of marriage. They also criticize the romanticized image that marriage is given in films and romance novels. Around 1980, over 40% of books sold in America were romance novels.
Some critics argue that people cannot form an objective image of what marriage is if they are from early childhood indoctrinated into believing marriage is desirable and necessary.
Critics of marriage argue that this institution represents a form of state sponsored discrimination, in a generalized way against people who do not marry, and in a particular way against certain racial or ethnic groups who are less likely to marry and more likely to have children outside marriage, such as African Americans in the US - by stigmatizing such individuals, presenting their lifestyle as abnormal and denying them rights. Dean Spade and Craig Willse write that:
The idea that married families and their children are superior was and remains a key tool of anti-Black racism. Black families have consistently been portrayed as pathological and criminal in academic research and social policy based on marriage rates, most famously in the Moynihan Report.
Social isolation
A criticism of marriage is that it may lead to the social isolation of a person, who may be expected to diminish other relations with friends, relatives or colleagues, in order to be fully dedicated to their spouse. Sociologists Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian wrote that marriage is also found to be often at odds with community, diminishing ties to relatives, neighbors, and friends. Julie Bindel writes that: "Maybe those at the most risk of ending up alone are not the folk who never marry, but rather the people who chuck all their eggs in one basket. [...] During their marriage, believing as they did that they only needed each other, both parties would have neglected friendships, or indeed, failed to cultivate new ones".
Symbolism
Some critics assert that marriage will always remain a symbolic institution signifying the subordination of women to men. Clare Chambers points to the sexist traditions surrounding marriage and weddings; she writes: Symbolically, the white wedding asserts that women's ultimate dream and purpose is to marry, and remains replete with sexist imagery: the white dress denoting the bride's virginity (and emphasising the importance of her appearance); the minister telling the husband "you may now kiss the bride" (rather than the bride herself giving permission, or indeed initiating or at least equally participating in the act of kissing); the reception at which, traditionally, all the speeches are given by men; the wife surrendering her own name and taking her husband's.
The history of marriage in relation to women makes it an institution that some critics argue cannot and should not be accepted in the 21st century; to do so would mean to trivialize the abuses it was responsible for. Some critics argue that it is impossible to dissociate marriage from its past. Clare Chambers argues that: (...) it is impossible to escape the history of the institution. Its status as a tradition ties its current meaning to its past". Past abuses of marriage are sometimes depicted in documentaries. A documentary in Ireland presented the story of elderly women who described their experiences with repeated acts of rape in marriage and the children born from these rapes, during the time when marital rape was not criminalized, contraception, abortion and divorce were all illegal, and the marriage bar restricting married women's employment outside the home was in force. Marital rape in Ireland was made illegal in 1990, and divorce was legalized in 1996.
Violence against women
Violence related to female virginity is considered a problem. In many parts of the world, it is socially expected for the bride to be a virgin; if the husband has sex with his wife after marriage and she does not bleed (it is common for a woman to not bleed when she has sex for the first time ), this can end in extreme violence, including an honor killing.
The common view of marital life as "private" and outside the sphere of public intervention allows violence to flourish. Elizabeth Brake writes that "privacy" protects "unequal divisions of domestic labor, domestic violence, and exclusion of health coverage for abortion and contraception." Mary Lyndon Shanley writes that police often "ignore complaints of domestic violence because they do not want to 'intrude' on the private realm of the married couple."
Divorce According to Dan Moller's "Bachelor's Argument", modern marriage can be compared to the act of "forging professional credentials." He argues that over 40% of marriages end in divorce, and therefore should be avoided similar to any high-risk venture.Dan Moller, An Argument Against Marriage in Minimizing Marriage by Elizabeth Brake; also in Philosophy, vol. 78, issue 303, Jan., 2003, p. 79 ff. (author of Princeton Univ.), responded to in Landau, Iddo, An Argument for Marriage, in Philosophy, vol. 79, issue 309, Jul., 2004, p. 475 ff. (commentary) (author of Haifa Univ., Israel), the latter responded to in Moller, Dan, The Marriage Commitment—Reply to Landau, in Philosophy, vol. 80, issue 312, Apr., 2005, p. 279 ff. (commentary) (author of Princeton Univ.).
Legal criticisms Economic dependence Marriage has been criticized in its complicity of wives' economic dependence on husbands due to the gendered division of labour and that women's work typically pays less than men's work. Women are more likely to downgrade or drop out of their careers to assist in child rearing or when their career conflicts with their husband's. Absent a career, women become dependent on legally granted marriage benefits such as a husband's health insurance, and are thus increasingly dependent on their husband. This dependence can facilitate abuse because the marriage becomes economically difficult to leave.
Immobility