Normalize 'Good‑Enough' Marriages

People increasingly treat marriage as a partly mercenary bargain: choosing partners for stability, parenting reliability, and foreseeable utility rather than peak romantic passion. That framing reframes satisfaction as matched expectations and tradeoffs rather than continuous romantic intensity. — If this framing spreads, it could shift dating norms, influence fertility decisions, reshape gender-role expectations, and change how policymakers and commentators talk about family stability.