I’ve been engaged for 10 years. Here’s why I never plan on getting married

I never really thought seriously about getting married until my now-fiance was down on one knee. Even then, as he pulled the ring out, back-lit by sunset, declaring his deep and unwavering love for me, I never expected we’d actually get hitched.

My disbelief wasn’t a reflection of our aforementioned deep and unwavering love – quite the opposite. I’d felt certain we were meant to be together from the moment we met. I just didn’t crave the validation of a civil ceremony to fortify my commitment. Rather, it marked my introduction into the “forever engaged” club.

That fateful day was more than 10 years ago. Over the preceding decade, my fiance and I have grown closer, travelled, bought a house and had a child. We have weathered both good times and bad, embracing each other in sickness and in health, and stood by for better and worse, richer and (usually) poorer. We’re on track to happily keep this up until death do us part.

We’re not alone in our stance. Other than a brief post-COVID bump, the number of Australians getting married has been in steady decline for five decades. In 1970, the marriage rate (the number of marriages for every 1000 people aged over 16) was 13. In 2023, it was 5.5. We’re also getting married later. When my mum got married in the ’70s, she was 24 – practically an old maid compared with the median bride’s age of 20. In 2024, the median age of brides was 31.

In 2023, China registered its lowest marriage rate since 1986, when published records began. England and Wales have also sounded the alarm over falling marriage rates – leading to outcry from some who still see this holy union as a key “building block of society”.

There are myriad reasons for this global shift. Millennials and Gen Z are more educated than previous generations, and these years of higher education are pushing back wedding planning. Similarly, many young people cite a desire to establish their careers before settling down as a delaying factor. Easing attitudes to pre-marital sex and cohabitation have also slowed the race to the marital bed. Nor does it help that the average cost of a wedding in Australia is about $35,000 – an epic price at any time, but especially during a cost-of-living crisis.

Beyond practical considerations, in 2025, marriage carries personal and cultural baggage. Few are untouched by the pain of a bad marriage. Even if your parents are together, chances are the impact of bickering aunts, uncles, friends and neighbours has reached you at some point.

You don’t need to be a sociologist or historian to trace marriage’s broader dark past. Until relatively recently, it was largely a business arrangement that resulted in women being treated and traded like property. White wedding dresses reflect uncomfortable obsessions with virginity and purity. Fathers regularly walk their adult daughters down aisles to “give them away”. Vows ask individuals to obey each other. Almost 80 per cent of women still take their husband’s last name.

All these factors were relevant to me. Yes, the patriarchal shadow felt icky. No, I wasn’t drawn to the idea of throwing a cripplingly expensive party before having a ring put on it. But even if I were to separate my feelings around weddings and marriage by simply eloping, I didn’t understand why I needed a piece of paper to validate a feeling I knew to be real the moment I saw my partner.

Over a decade into my “forever engagement”, my dull interest in marriage has only faded further. But, somewhat surprisingly, my feelings about engagement have increased. I like being a fiancee; it feels more grown-up than being a girlfriend, but less loaded than being a wife. Where marriage feels like an outdated, declining, expensive, patriarchal institution, engagement feels romantic. Free from so much baggage or expectation, it carries a sense of optimism and joy. In place of a binding legal contract laden with history, it’s a simple agreement and understanding between two people.

I don’t need an expensive, morally dubious wedding to tell me that I’m loved. I don’t need a legal contract to make me feel secure in my relationship. I believed my partner when he told me he’d love me forever when he proposed. Just as I believed him countless times before and after that day. For me, that assurance is enough. And it doesn’t hurt that it didn’t cost $35,000, either.

Wendy Syfret is an author and a freelance writer based in Melbourne.

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