婚姻悖論:逃不了的圍城

On TV, in film, and in "Save the Date" cards tacked to fridges everywhere, we are steeped in the cultural white noise of wedding voyeurism and schadenfreude. A new study threatens to change the conversation: The number of married Americans is at a record low. The Pew Research Center has crunched the Census data and discovered that only 51 percent of adults are married. That number plunges to 20 percent for 18-to-29-year-olds. In 2010, weddings dropped by 5 percent from the previous year.

電視裏，電影裏，各家各戶冰箱上貼着的“婚禮日期提醒卡”(婚禮請柬)上，我們擺脫不了某種文化白噪音——我們曝露在窺探他人私密的八卦人羣之間，我們浸透在幸災樂禍的看客之中。而最近的一項調查卻轉變了我們的話題：美國結婚人數創歷史最低紀錄。美國調查機構皮尤研究中心對人口普查資料進行了分析，發現美國只有51%的成年夫婦已婚，其中18-29歲的青年中已婚人數比例跌至20%。2010年，結婚人數比2009年降低了5%。

This study is just the latest one to track a broadening of relationship choices for the youngest generation. Cohabitation is on the rise. Last year's Pew research on marriage unearths the ambivalence behind the numbers: 44 percent of Millennials feel that marriage is "becoming obsolete." So is marriage on its way out?

青年人的婚戀關係選擇面在不斷拓寬，這次即是對最年輕的一代進行的跟蹤調查。我們發現，年輕人同居的現象日益增多。去年皮尤研究中心對婚姻的研究揭露了隱藏在數字背後的矛盾心態：44%的新千年一代認爲婚姻“越來越過時了”。那麼婚姻真的過時了嗎？

Hardly. Scholars and sociologists say that younger generations are probably delaying marriage, but that doesn't mean we won't eventually tie the knot. "The age of marriage has reached an all-time high," says the Council on Contemporary Families' director of research, Stephanie Coontz—26.5 for brides, 28.7 for grooms. Some people may stay single forever. But Coontz warns that the number won't be as dramatic as we might think. "My guess would be that a slightly lower, but still fairly high aMount of people will get married in their lifetimes—say, 84 percent as opposed to 90 percent a few years ago, or the 95 percent abberration in the 1950s."

不盡然。一些學者與社會學家表示，年輕一代很可能在延遲結婚，但並不意味永遠不結婚。“平均結婚年齡已經創下空前最高紀錄——新娘26.5歲，新郎28.7歲。”當代家庭協會的研究主任斯蒂芬妮·昆茲這樣說道。還有一些人可能永遠保持單身。但昆茲提醒我們，這個人數不會像我們想象的那麼多。“我猜想，雖然結婚人數可能會減少，但依然有相當多的人會在一生中選擇結婚——相對於幾年前成年人中已婚人數爲90%，目前則只有85%，早而在上個世紀50年代，這個比例是95%。”

Indeed, a majority of singles are hoping to walk down an aisle one day—even those in cohabiting couples—regardless of marriage's obsolescence. Therein lies the paradox: Why do we want to join an institution that, according to us, is passing its expiration date? Privately, we're choosing to live in sin or by our lonesomes. But publicly, we profess our interest in joining the oldest of romantic institutions. Or is it the other way around?

事實上，大多數單身貴族還是很希望有一天——可以像其他同居男女一樣——走在林蔭道上——先不考慮婚姻的。其中存在一個悖論：爲什麼我們都想遵循，在我們看來，是一種即將過時的制度呢？背地裏，我們選擇罪惡地姘居或過着獨居生活；卻公開宣稱自己對加入那種最過時 但具有浪漫情調的制度多麼有興趣。或者又多麼沒興趣？

Here's one possibility: The word "marriage" means different things in different contexts. On a societal level, marriage dredges up images of antiquated gender roles, social pressures, and institutional control. But individually, we see the opportunity to mold the institution to fit our own values—even more now that it's not obligatory.

這裏有一種可能的解釋：“婚姻”這個詞在不同的語境中意義不同。在社會層面上，婚姻讓人想起那種過時的性別角色形象、社會壓力以及制度上的約束。但個人看來，我們有機會改進這種制度讓其符合我們的價值觀——更多是因爲婚姻不是強制的。

"As marriage has become less necessary to support yourself, to gain respectability, to have a rewarding life and a successful life, we've raised our expectations of what kind of a relationship we want," says Coontz. "Because it's not essential, we're no longer willing to enter a marriage that we don't see as being really, really good."

“我們能夠自力更生、獲取社會地位、過上有意義而又成功的生活，在這個過程中，婚姻變得越來越不必要，我們對自己想要的那種婚戀關係的期望值擡高了，”昆茲表示，“因爲婚姻不重要了，我們不再心甘情願地踏入我們認爲真的真的那麼好的婚姻殿堂了。”

That logic may mean that our generation waits to get hitched for the "right" reasons—love, compatibility, financial stability (which, given the state of the economy, is inevitably delayed). That explains the rise of cohabitation as much as it does the fall of marriage. Most of us who choose to live together see it as a test drive for marriage, not a real alternative. But because we recognize that we do have options, marriage seems more "ours."

那樣的邏輯可能意味着，我們這一代就是在等“對”的結婚理由——愛情、合得來以及經濟基礎穩定（考慮到經濟狀況，結婚就不可避免地延遲了。）這也很容易解釋隨着結婚人數的下降，同居人數卻在上升。多數選擇生活在一起的人都將同居看做“試婚”，而不是一個婚姻備選項。但原因是我們認識到了自己有選擇權，這樣看來，婚姻更是“我們自己的事兒”。

By agreeing that marriage is "obsolete," we're saying good riddance to our parents' idea of what the word means. But so many of us feel this way that we have created a new social compact around the institution's redefinition. We're signing the certificates on the premise that we're ambivalent about marriage but too chicken to start from scratch. Pretty soon our friends will pair up and fall in line. And so it begins again.

我們贊同婚姻“過時”這種說法，就已經擺脫了父母眼中這個詞的概念，這的確可喜可賀。許多人都有這種感覺，感覺自己已經圍着這個制度的再定義創造了一種新的社會契約。在婚書上簽字的那一刻，心中依然充滿矛盾、膽怯，沒有白手起家的勇氣。但是很快，我們的朋友們就成雙成對地加入結婚大軍。那麼結婚就又流行了。