Why Are Girls Turning Away From Marriage? The Alarming Cultural Shift
By PNW Staff November 24, 20
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Every once in a while, a statistic bursts through the noise and reveals something tectonic--something that tells us our culture is shifting beneath our feet. The latest Pew Research-University of Michigan survey does exactly that. For the first time since this question has been tracked, 12th-grade girls are less likely to say they want to get married than 12th-grade boys.
Let that sink in.
Sixty-one percent of senior girls say they hope to marry someday. For boys, the number is seventy-four percent. Thirty years ago, the numbers were flipped--girls overwhelmingly desired marriage more than boys. Now, they are the more hesitant sex.
This has never happened before in modern American life.
And while some pundits laughed it off or tried to cram the data into their prewritten scripts about "feminism ruining everything," the truth is far more disturbing, far more complex, and far more revealing about the world our daughters are inheriting.
The Pornified Culture That Terrifies Girls
Let's start with the obvious: pornography has rewired how boys see girls--and how girls see themselves.
Girls today grow up watching boys scroll through images and videos depicting violent, degrading, and dehumanizing acts against women. They see how boys joke about it. They see how "normal" it has become. And they hear the whispers that these are the expectations for real relationships.
Young women aren't simply disenchanted--they are afraid.
Afraid of boys shaped by porn.
Afraid of intimacy filtered through Pornhub's lens.
Afraid of becoming someone else's object.
Some girls avoid dating altogether. Others attempt to escape femininity entirely, gravitating toward "non-binary" identities as a shield against male desire. It is a quiet exodus no one wants to talk about, but every teacher, pastor, and counselor sees it happening.
And then we wonder why girls aren't dreaming about marriage.
But pornography is only the first crack in the foundation.
1. They Don't Trust Men to Stay
Many girls have watched marriages collapse like tents in a stiff wind. They've watched fathers leave, boyfriends cheat, families fracture. They have learned--far too young--that fathers can disappear, promises can crumble, and love can be conditional.
For a generation raised amid instability, marriage doesn't symbolize commitment. It symbolizes risk.
The cultural message they absorb is chillingly simple: Don't count on anyone but yourself.
2. They Don't Trust That Marriage Will Bless Them
Young women today are ambitious, hardworking, and academically outperforming boys. But that very success comes with a shadow. They fear that marriage will derail their goals--that they will be saddled with responsibility while their male peers drift.
They see a "retreating male" workforce: the men who don't graduate, don't work, don't lead, don't rise. They see stats showing many women now out-earn their partners. They quietly wonder, Will I end up carrying more than my share?
For many girls, marriage feels less like a partnership and more like another burden to manage.
3. They Are Buckling Under the Weight of Anxiety and Isolation
We are witnessing the most anxious generation of teenage girls ever recorded. Depression, loneliness, self-harm--these numbers are skyrocketing. And in that climate, marriage feels overwhelming.
How do you picture a joyful future when you're fighting just to stay afloat?
How do you plan for love when you're drowning in fear?
Girls aren't rejecting marriage because they despise it.
They're rejecting marriage because they can't envision healing.
Where Does This Leave Us?
This crisis is not actually about girls losing faith in marriage. It's about a society that has made healthy marriage nearly impossible to imagine.
We have:
normalized pornography
mocked masculinity
fragmented the family
left girls unprotected
left boys undisciplined
turned relationships into commodities
replaced covenant with convenience
And now we act surprised when girls say they don't want the version of marriage we've modeled for them.
But Here's the Hope
Despite all this, many girls still long for real love--covenantal love. They want emotional safety, spiritual unity, and lifelong companionship. They want a man who honors them, protects them, and stands with them. They just don't believe, in this culture, that such a man is likely to appear.
The burden is now on us--parents, churches, teachers, mentors--to show them something better:
Men who reject porn and choose purity.
Marriages built on faithfulness, sacrifice, and joy.
Christian communities where boys learn to become honorable men.
Cultural spaces where girls feel safe, valued, and cherished.
Because the truth is simple:
Girls aren't turning away from marriage. They're turning away from a culture that has failed to prepare men for it.
And until we rebuild what has been broken, the trend will not reverse.
But it can.
And it must.
For the sake of the next generation--and for the hope of every young woman waiting to believe again that marriage is still worth dreaming about.
