Editorial

Marriages between twentysomethings that fail in less than five years and produce no children has gained a new, chic moniker — "Starter Marriages" — which is also the title of a new book, The Starter Marriage and The Future of Matrimony.

Written by social demographer Pamela Paul, an editor with American Demographics magazine and one who has lived through her own starter marriage, the book has received a steady drumbeat of media attention since late January when it was released with notices in such major publications as The Washington Post, Time magazine and USA Today. The problem, according to Paul who divorced at 28 years of age after less than one year of marriage, is that these Generation X couples (children of the Baby Boomers who ushered in the age of no-fault divorce) choose marriage because American culture pressures them into it with the fanfare of engagement and large, celebratory weddings, generally with no thought of what is to follow. She calls this "matrimania."

Paul adds, "Pop culture is packed with new starter marriage icons," citing as examples entertainers Drew Barrymore, Uma Thurman and Angelina Jolie. (Since when has Hollywood been known as a model for marital bliss?) Starter marriages are often composed of children of divorce who get little or no guidance from their divorced parents to help them avoid marital break-ups themselves.

Paul describes one such victim of starter marriages in a book excerpt on the ABC News website. Isabel, a public relations executive from a New York suburb who married at 25 and divorced at 26, says that she focused all her attention during the year-and-one-half engagement on the wedding event and the marriage quickly soured, although the warning signs were there throughout the engagement. "I rushed to get married. My marriage was an unfortunate mistake, and it wasn’t worth saving because we were not meant to be."

"But starter marriages are not to be glamorized or trivialized," Paul writes. "To those who’ve had one, the very term ‘starter marriage’ can sound dismissive and, frankly, demeaning."

Really? How about this one? A 26—year—old who divorced after one year of marriage told ABC’s "Good Morning America," "I view the marriage as a rehearsal. Now I am ready to play the part better because I can expect more of people and they can expect more of me. … We, as generation Xers, live in a culture of new beginnings where we can fix anything."

Paul, who claims that Generation X holds "marriage in unusually high regard," chafes at the comparison of starter marriages to starter homes — a first home the buyer realizes does not meet all his or her needs, requires a great deal of work and will not be the one he or she dies in. "You accept these faults and make certain compromises knowing that you’ll only be there temporarily or that you’ll improve it," Paul writes. "The difference between starter marriage and a starter home is that virtually nobody who enters a starter marriage thinks he’s in it for the short term and will eventually upgrade to a better marriage."

Still, she argues that "a better understanding of marriage" is needed with the support of parents, religious leaders and married peers who can reduce unrealistic expectations for lifelong wedded bliss, USA Today reports. Of course, there are plenty people who affirm Paul’s analysis. Harvard historian Nancy F. Cott argues that the idea of lifelong monogamy is a fairly recent concept promoted by Christianity, the Washington Post reports. "We can’t assume that lifelong marriage is still the best model for our society," Cott says.

Chafe as Paul might, her book trivializes marriage with a new market-tested buzzword meant to offer victimhood status to young people who have followed the failed pattern of their parents in matrimony. David Popenoe of the National Marriage Project told USA Today that labeling starter marriage as a trend is unhelpful because "it establishes marriage as a low-commitment relationship, and that is exactly what most people do not want." Maggie Gallagher, the author of The Case for Marriage, adds, "There is no need to redefine this as starter marriages. The more you think of it that way, the less you think of it as a permanent bond."

With more than four out of 10 marriages ending in divorce in America and marital break-up the center of many family maladies, there is little need for further encouragement of this destructive trend. Call it what Paul likes, starter marriage is just another name for likely divorce.