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I get asked a version of this question quite frequently: Why is it that, with the number of single people growing and growing, there is still so much matrimania? Both assumptions in that question are true. Every new Census Bureau report shows an increase in single people. There are now more than 100 million Americans, 18 and older, who are divorced or widowed or have always been single. Yet the over-the-top hyping of weddings, marriage, and coupling continues, with almost a whiff of desperation around it.
The matrimania is not an uncomplicated expression of how much Americans love weddings and feel secure about the place of marriage in their personal lives and in society. Quite the contrary: It is an expression of insecurity (some relevant research is described here and here and here). When marriage really was on much more secure footing (in the mid-1950s, for example), there were no Bachelor reality shows, no Bridezillas, and no books making "the case for marriage." The case seemed obvious; no one needed to be convinced.
With the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton looming, matrimania is in full screech mode. In theory, scraping together the media resources to devote to the royal spectacle could be a challenge. There are, after all, other momentous events in the world: in Japan, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Bahrain, to name just a few. CNN has 50 people in Japan and a small presence in the other places.
So how many staffers is CNN sending to cover the Kate-a-thon? Start with 50 from the US and 75 from the London bureau, then toss in additional reporters phoning it in from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and India.
Does CNN's all-in approach match the actual level of interest in the wedding? 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair conducted a poll to assess that interest. See if you can nail the results.
Here are the four answers offered to the participants in the poll; they got to pick one:
1. Interested in all of it - I wish I could go
2. Interested in some of it - it's a harmless spectacle
3. Only interested in whether or not it will last
4. Not interested in any of it
Now here are the percentages - see if you can match them to the options above:
4%
9%
21%
66%
The media seems to be banking on the biggest chunk of the population - the 66% -- being interested in all of it. Wrong! Only 4% are interested in all of it. That 2/3 figure? It belongs to the people who are not interested in any of it. (9% care only about whether the marriage will last, and 21% see the wedding as a harmless spectacle.)
Americans are not just uninterested in royals getting married; many of them are uninterested in getting married themselves. Even those who are headed toward marriage are getting there a lot later. For example, at the time of Princess Di's wedding (1981 - yes, I had to look it up), the median age at which people first married was 24.8 for men and 22.3 for women. According to 2010 figures, those ages are now 28.2 for men and 26.1 for women - almost 4 more years of single life for both men and women.
Much as CNN and so many other media outlets may want to shake their jingly bells and urge us all to look at the big shiny wedding across the pond, most of us just aren't interested. (For a great list of reasons why we are not interested, check out Keli Goff's post.)
The question is not: When will Americans turn their attention to more compelling matters than marriage? We already have. Rather, the question is: When will the media catch up?
