Penna Dexter

The Taylor Swift–Travis Kelce engagement has some people wondering: Will marriage by the world’s most famous millennial feminist accelerate the recent, modest reversal of the decline in marriage rates?

The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman wrote recently of a marriage “comeback.” He cites data that “suggests that the decades-long decline in the proportion of Americans who are married may have reached its low point.” Having hit that nadir during the pandemic, the 2023 marriage rate “was higher than in any year since 2008.”

Could the Swift-Kelce union spawn a marriage boom?

Certainly theirs is “the ultimate capstone marriage” as described in a Washington Post column by Ramesh Ponnuru. He points to sociologist Andrew Cherlin’s description of a trend in which “the wedding is the last brick put in place” in a good life

As nice as it is for a couple to have their financial ducks in a row before marriage, there are downsides for the couple, and for the culture. According to Mr. Ponnuru: “One is that fewer people get married — not everyone achieves a capstone — and the people who do spend a smaller fraction of their lives married.“ Social scientists tell us married people are happier. And, later marriages mean fewer children — often fewer than couples say they want. Of those, more are born outside of wedlock.

In contrast, “cornerstone” marriage provides “one of the first bricks of adulthood” where husband and wife do some of their growing up together.

In our culture, well-educated, economically successful couples are the ones most likely to get married. But the fact that Taylor Swift, an icon of female independence, will be married, might just encourage a marriage boom, hopefully with more cornerstone marriages. Perhaps even a baby boom.

At age 35, if Taylor and Travis want kids, they ought to start soon.

Travis’s father, Ed Kelce sounded optimistic when he spoke of the couple’s “shared values, strong work ethic, and future family goals.”

I’m rooting for them.