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“I feel like marriage is not a goal for people,” said LaLa Anthony, during a segment as guest co-host on ‘The Breakfast Club’ radio show. “I don’t hear people who aren’t married saying, ‘I want to get married’, you’re just hearing it less and less. The celebrity media mogul was married to NBA star Carmelo Anthony for over a decade before she filed for divorce in June 2021.
Anthony says she believes marriage was a goal for a lot of people before the days of social media.
“I’m not in conversations with people who are talking about ‘I can’t wait to meet someone, and get married’”, she says. She goes on to make the point that she has been in circles of people and conversations of people who date and hope to meet someone and develop a bond, yet don’t feel the need marriage in order to feel complete or successful.
“Generation X and boomers have more of a connection to traditional values with respect to marriage,” says Robert Warmack, MA, and heads LEC Counseling (Love, Empathy, & Compassion).
“When you look a generation Z and millennials, there is a whole different mindset to marriage and monogamy relationships.” Warmack finds one of the contributing factors to marriage playing a backseat amongst these two sets of generations is more access to sex and it being more socially acceptable.
“This particular generation can get online, you have Onlyfans where can get subscription to sex. People can get online dating and interact with multiple persons from different nationalities, same sex, multiple partners.”
Warmack, says in working with individuals and couples in his private practice, he believes women, have become more independent, not having a big dating pool in the Black community, and being more educated and financially secure, he finds are also contributing factors to some women skipping the marriage route.
“I find and they’ve shared with me, women enjoy their independence, they can use multiple men to get what they need.” He says despite societal labels attached to women, through therapy sessions with clients, he has learned women have become more comfortable in who they are, and have options.
As it relates to men and in particular generation Z, he finds marriage as being something in some cases that “handicaps” them.
“They don’t see the system as one that benefits them,” he says. “They say why get married when there’s going to be issues if we don’t stay together in terms of child support, access to children.”
“Often men say, ‘Hey, I can just remain single, or be in a relationship and still get all the things that I need.”
La La Anthony may just be making a clear point as more experts are acknowledging some basis to this thinking.
“I do think there is a rising number of people who don’t want marriage and don’t seek it,” says Dr. Sabrina Jackson, author and motivational speaker, also affectionally known as, “The People Expert!”.
“If I’m being honest, I probably rushed to get married because all my friends were getting married, and they were having weddings and it was just that season.”
According to La La, this is a season where most people aren’t rushing into traditional values and saying, “I Do.”
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