The important thing is not how you regard marriage, it's how society regards marriage. It's definitely a transformation - a subtle one, but a transformation nonetheless. Fundamentally, when you're married every acquaintance you make, casual or serious, presumes that your destiny is tied to another person. I suspect your current (healthy) attitude towards marriage is at least partially shaped by your current (healthy) attitude towards destiny: you don't have firm plans and goals so the idea of coordinating your plans and goals with another human being complicates things rather than simplifying them. Kids are the same way, in their own way. They're a collaborative project to expand and transform the partnership, fundamentally. Unfortunately society doesn't tell you this. "Do you want to have kids?" is a question completely divorced from "Are you interested in joining your life to someone else in a collaborative effort intended to better both your lives through decades of intimate, expensive, messy, inspirational and joyful struggle?" because if we phrased the question that way, everyone under about 35 these days would say "fuck to the no."
That's definitely part of it. I also grew up in a household which was persistently frayed and oft on the edge of divorce, grew up with friends who had parents going through divorce, and am currently friends with at least one person going through a divorce. The close proximity to the separation of tied destinies, I think, has also contributed to a mindset that doesn't view it as a leaning-towards-permanent, binding of two people into one, but as a more structured but just as apt to fall apart relationship. I wonder when that graph will level out....presumes that your destiny is tied to another person. I suspect your current (healthy) attitude towards marriage is at least partially shaped by your current (healthy) attitude towards destiny: you don't have firm plans and goals so the idea of coordinating your plans and goals with another human being complicates things rather than simplifying them.
Can relate. There comes a time where you begin to trust your internal compass more than your external influences. Everyone loves to say that half of all marriages end in divorce without noticing that means half of all marriages are truly til death do us part. 26 is also trading season - that's where the people who shouldn't have gotten married early figure out their mistakes and the people who knew better start to wonder what they were missing.I also grew up in a household which was persistently frayed and oft on the edge of divorce, grew up with friends who had parents going through divorce, and am currently friends with at least one person going through a divorce.