Personal reasons and the cultural factor

(7) It is important to ask the deep reasons why contemporary culture is witnessing a crisis in marriage, both in its religious and civil dimensions, and the attempt to gain recognition and equivalency for de facto unions.  In this way, unstable situations, which are defined more by their negative aspect (the omission of marriage) than by their positive characteristics, seem to be on a level similar to marriage.  In fact, all these situations are consolidated in different kinds of relations, but all are in contrast with a real and full reciprocal self-giving that is stable and recognized socially. In a context of privatization of love and the elimination of the institutional character of marriage, the complexity of the economic, sociological and psychological reasons suggests the need to delve into the ideological and cultural background on which the phenomenon of de facto unions, as we know it today, has been progressively growing and becoming affirmed.

The progressive decrease in the number of marriages and families recognized as such by the laws of different States, and the increase in some countries in the number of unmarried couples who are living together cannot be explained adequately as an isolated and spontaneous cultural movement.  It seems to be a response to the historical changes in societies in the contemporary cultural moment that some authors describe as “post-modernism”.  It is certain that the decreased influence of the agricultural world, the development of the tertiary sector of the economy, the increase in the average life span, the instability of work and personal relationships, the reduction in the number of family members living under the same roof, and the globalization of social and economic phenomena have produced great instability in families and favored the ideal of a smaller family. But is this enough to explain the contemporary situation of marriage? The institution of marriage is experiencing a lesser crisis where family traditions are stronger.