Why Get Married (Subtitle: Marriage Isn't a Choice, It's a Must)
These days there must be a lot of people in their 20s and 30s wrestling with the question of marriage.
Should I get married? And if I should, why?
The birth rate keeps hitting record lows at 0.72, and yet when you actually try to book a wedding venue, they're fully reserved through next year.
Are the young people getting married fools, scrambling to book wedding halls?
If you knew why people get married, and how it would benefit you, you'd probably get married too,
but if you get married you'll have to give up your career,
if you get married you'll have to give up the climbing, traveling, and running you enjoy,
when you think of marriage, the only keywords that come to mind are giving up, sacrifice, and devotion, so it already feels like a burden.
So from here on, I want to talk about why marriage isn't a choice but a must, for men and women alike.
What happens when women don't get married
1. Higher crime victimization
When a woman doesn't marry and simply grows older, her likelihood of being exposed to crime rises anywhere from 2 to 13 times.
According to the U.S. National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) report, unmarried women (especially those 35 and older)
were more likely than married women to experience robbery and sexual crimes, and women living alone were also found to be more vulnerable to home-invasion crimes.
Research from Korea's Ministry of Gender Equality and Family found that women living alone, particularly in studio apartments or officetels, are highly likely to be exposed to crime
through tactics like "approaching under the pretext of noise complaints."
In other words, simply being an "unmarried woman" raises the odds of being targeted by crime.
2. Lower lifetime income
A lot of women probably think, "With what I earn now, I'll be fine living on my own." But Korea's elderly poverty rate is around 41%, an extremely serious level. Did the elderly people who are poor today really have no jobs in their youth? Not at all. Right now you're still young and healthy, so you assume you'll be able to work forever, but once you pass your 30s your body starts showing problems and your stamina begins to decline. And when that happens, if you're unmarried, it means there's no one to cover the hospital bills and living expenses, and no one to care for you, during the time you can't work. Money drains away, and without care, recovery from illness can only be slower. If you can't get back to work quickly, it means your position can be replaced by someone else at any time. And the reality is that past a certain age, finding a new job becomes extremely difficult. Now do you understand a bit better why the elderly poverty rate is so high? Looking at married people, their income was exactly the same when they were single, but ten years later the income gap between those who married and those who didn't was enormous. At its widest, the difference was a full 44%. Why? You'd think married people would spend more because they have children, but people with a family worked without pause and saved, while people without a family spent far more time and money on hobbies, travel, taking breaks, and simply spending. Work two years, travel on the severance pay, and so on: live like that, and your life stays frozen at that price point. What happens when men don't get married
3. A shorter life span.
If you spend time on social media, you've probably seen plenty of videos on "why men die young," right? That meme didn't come out of nowhere. In fact, research shows that the life expectancy of unmarried men is about 15 to 21 years shorter than that of married men. A drop in life expectancy of that size is on par with drinking and smoking every single day. That's how bad being single is for your body. Why? First, once you're married, your spouse looks after your diet and takes care of you when your health seems off, so you end up with a healthier lifestyle than when you were single: a healthier diet, regular medical checkups. On top of that, having a family to be responsible for tends to make you take better care of yourself. And when stressful things happen, you have a dependable partner by your side, so you're emotionally stable and less affected by stress, the root of all illness. In fact, cancer rates are said to be 2 times higher for unmarried women and 3 times higher for unmarried men. That's because whether or not you have a spouse beside you to catch problems early when your health declines determines whether you miss the right window for treatment.
4. Social isolation.
You've probably seen news stories about elderly people dying alone, or men in their 40s and 50s living in tiny boarding-house rooms. The majority of these people are men. Why is that? Women are more social creatures than men, and they often band together with other women, but for men, as their friends get married, they're likely to drift further and further from their existing friends, and as they age, their stubbornness and fixed values make it harder to maintain close relationships. In the end, in a family-centered society, unmarried men are easily left out of social events. With relatively fewer people to turn to for psychological and emotional support, unmarried men experience tremendous loneliness and isolation. And when the financial hardship mentioned above, in the section on what happens when women don't marry, piles on top of that, the likelihood of becoming dependent on alcohol or dying by suicide rises as well. How does hearing all this make you feel? It sounds like the distant future, but it isn't that far off. Whether you're a man or a woman, once you miss marriageable age, finding a spouse becomes extremely difficult, whether by circumstance or by choice. For when exactly marriageable age is, the column below is a good reference
What if you haven't even settled on what kind of person you should marry, let alone found someone? That's truly serious. I hope you'll get help from a professional, even if it means starting today, work through the problem, and find the spouse you'll spend the rest of your life with
