Lee Suckling: Why only rich Millennials get married

Marriage used to be the default setting for committed couples, no matter where they sat on the socio-economic scale, today things are a little different. Photo / Getty Images

When you tell people you're married, you're often met with a spirited look of surprise if you're a Millennial.

"Married?" they'll repeat back to you, as if you've been elevated in social status in their eyes. Like they now consider you a "real" adult.

Telling someone you're married nowadays is almost like saying you're a doctor. For some reason, people are intrinsically impressed by it.

Modern life for Millennials is all-but-unaffordable and a wedding is a luxury, not something everyone can do. Despite the fact you can theoretically get married on $1000, five figures is the minimum expected spend.

While marriage used to be the default setting for committed couples, no matter where they sat on the socio-economic scale, today things are a little different. In 1975, eight out of 10 people were married by age 30. In 2017, we don't reach that 8/10 average until age 45.

I don't think this is just because societal expectations have changed and it's now more permissible to be single longer. I think marriage is today seen as something for the privileged; a "nice to have" if you can afford it.

I can surmise the reason people elevate you in social standing when they know you're a married Millennial. It's because in order to get married, you still need to be a "package deal".

I remember when I first announced I was engaged to a friend. "You realise we expect you to buy a house now?" he replied. This sentiment is wide-felt. Not only are you due to pay for a huge wedding, you also still need that $150,000-odd for your mortgage downpayment. So in order to enable this, you should have done your degree, have a "serious" career, seen the world on your O.E. already, paid off your student loans, and come with little or no other debt.

You're supposed to be a good package deal; one worthy of committing to. You've got to meet the self-imposed criteria.

It's a bit of a sham really, because marriage is about none of this stuff. It's not for status nor for material gain. Or at least, it shouldn't be.

Yet when we as a society think of people getting married, they are not poor. They aren't those who struggle to put food on the table. They don't have minimum wage jobs or no jobs at all.

They're from middle class backgrounds. They're professional people with disposable incomes. They have pets and Netflix and iPhones. They are comfortable.

Some statistics are behind me here. According to the UK's Marriage Foundation, people from wealthy backgrounds are four times more likely to get married than people from poorer backgrounds. Neilson research has also found that people in highly-paid jobs are 48 per cent more likely to get married than those with low wage jobs.

How has marriage become something reserved for the rich? When did it stop being an egalitarian experience - something "for richer" rather than "for richer or poorer"?

The research director of the Marriage Foundation suggests poorer people are least likely to marry because of the stress of daily life: "People who get married are thinking about the future and, unfortunately, if you're poor it's hard to lift your head above the grindstone and plan ahead."

I also can't forget the fact that marriage comes with its own inherent privileges. I already explained how being married assumes you have your life "sorted", but it also assumes you're happy. It assumes security and maturity, and that you can emotionally provide for somebody else. It assumes you are confident in the trajectory of your life.

Marriage therefore makes the privileged even more privileged, doesn't it? If there's nothing more middle class than marriage, it's merely another way the well-to-do to prove they remain on top.