Across civilizations, marriage has been the seedbed of society— the natural bond from which families take root and cultures are sustained. Though its expressions differ across time and place—whether arranged or chosen, monogamous or polygamous, simple or elaborate—the enduring constants remain: a union meant to last, a partnership between man and woman, and the welcoming and nurturing of children. More than a contract, marriage has always been understood as a school of love where persons are shaped, virtues are learned, and communities find stability.
Within the Christian vision, it is lifted beyond human custom to become a sacrament, a visible sign of God’s grace, calling spouses to mirror the self-giving love of Christ and to make their covenant a blessing for society. If marriage were a civilisational early-warning system, today every dial would be blinking red. What once stood across cultures as a covenant establishing kinship, channeling sexuality, and raising the next generation is collapsing into short-term agreements, fragile arrangements, and even commercial transactions.
The evidence is overwhelming: fewer marriages are being contracted, more children are being born outside marriage, divorce is on the rise, fidelity has lost meaning, and technological substitutes for family are expanding rapidly. What used to be the foundation of social order is now one of its most fragile parts. For centuries, marriage was recognised as the permanent union of a man and a woman, ordered to fidelity and procreation.
Today, its very definition is in dispute. By 2025, about thirty-five countries had legalized same-sex marriage, while many others gave near-marital rights to civil unions or cohabitation. Once the institution is redefined in multiple ways, it loses its centrality, and people treat it as just one lifestyle option among many. The result is fewer marriages, more temporary relationships, and a rising number of children raised outside stable homes.
The collapse of marriage rates
The statistical decline is dramatic. In the United States, one of the most studied societies in the world, a record 25% of adults aged 40 had never married as of 2021, compared to just 6% in 1980. Across Europe, marriage entry has also collapsed, with crude marriage rates falling to historic lows. In Nigeria, while official national data is incomplete, diocesan marriage tribunals report unprecedented numbers of annulment petitions, in some cases outnumbering the marriage banns published in churches. This is evidence of a generation struggling to sustain stable unions.
At the same time, the number of children born outside marriage has sharply increased. In the European Union, 42% of births in 2022 occurred outside marriage, with countries such as France and Sweden recording over 60%. In the United States, about 40% of births are non-marital. The Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS 2018) showed that over one in four births among young urban women occur outside formal marriage, a figure likely to have risen further with urbanisation and economic hardship. Non-marital births are not just a cultural shift— they predict greater instability, as cohabiting unions are statistically far less stable than marriages.
The DNA saga and the crisis of trust
One of the most explosive revelations of recent years has been the so-called “DNA saga.” In Nigeria, laboratories such as Smart DNA Lagos reported that about 25–27% of men tested in suspicion-based cases in 2024 and 2025 were not the biological fathers of the children in question. While these samples are not representative of the general population, the sheer volume of requests shows how deeply distrust now shapes relationships. Globally, scientific studies put general misattributed paternity at about 1–4%, but in Nigeria the conversation is no longer statistical—it is social.
Thousands of men are lining up for DNA tests, and social media amplifies every story of fraud, betrayal, and broken homes. This erosion of trust strikes at the core of marriage. Where fidelity once carried moral and religious weight, it is now verified in laboratories. Fathers doubt their children; wives suspect their husbands; and the bond of confidence that once held families together has been broken. Even if actual infidelity is lower than feared, the culture of suspicion is enough to destabilize marriages before they begin.
Children without marriage
Another alarming trend is the decoupling of children from marriage entirely. Assisted reproductive technology (ART), once rare, is now widespread. In the United States, about 2–3% of infants each year are born through IVF and related techniques. In Denmark and other parts of Europe, the percentage is even higher. Globally, millions of women are freezing their eggs each year, postponing childbearing into their late thirties and forties, and increasingly opting for solo parenting.
In Nigeria, fertility clinics are recording steady rises in sperm donation, egg donation, and surrogacy services, especially among wealthy elites. This allows both men and women to bypass marriage altogether and still have children. The unity of love, sex, and parenthood has been replaced by contracts, clinics, and anonymous donors. Children are increasingly raised without knowing their biological parents, and in many cases, without the stability of a two-parent home.
Commodification and exploitation
At the darkest end of this spectrum is the rise of criminal “baby factories” in Nigeria. The United Nations and Nigerian security agencies have documented repeated raids on homes where women are forced or lured to bear children for illegal sale or adoption. These are not isolated cases but part of a growing underground market where infants are traded as commodities. In such cases, motherhood and fatherhood disappear entirely, replaced by profiteering.
This is not simply marriage in crisis; it is the collapse of family into raw exploitation. Globally, the commercialization of reproduction is also expanding. Eggs, sperm, surrogacy, and adoption markets now span multiple continents, with weak regulation enabling abuses. In many countries, women in poverty are renting their wombs for wealthy clients abroad. The logic is clear: where marriage and family weaken, the marketplace takes over.
Cultural and economic retreat from marriage
The retreat from marriage is also cultural. Infidelity, once condemned, is now normalised. Adultery is seen by many as a “religious issue” rather than a moral or social one. The rise of hookup culture, online dating apps, and “situationships” shows that relationships are increasingly temporary, experimental, transactional and disposable.
A civilisational emergency
The consequences are severe. Children raised outside stable marriages face higher risks of poverty, school failure, reckless delinquencies and emotional instability. In Nigeria, demographic growth is still rapid, but the quality of family life is deteriorating, with rising single-parent households, family violence, and unresolved custody disputes. Globally, fertility decline has become so steep that the United Nations now calls it one of the greatest long-term risks to human development.
Marriage is not just a private choice; it is social infrastructure. When it weakens, the effects are generational and national. The DNA scandals, the rise of baby factories, the surge in ART births, the normalisation of infidelity, and the collapse of marriage entry are not isolated problems. They are symptoms of a deep civilisational disorder.
Final word
One of this is a counsel of despair. It is a fire alarm. The social script that once guided boys and girls toward stable, fertile, fidelity-anchored adulthood has been shredded. What has rushed in to fill the vacuum are apps, clinics, contracts—and, at the grim margins, crime. If we want a future with children who know their parents, communities that can reproduce themselves, and nations that can outlive a single generation, we must re-dignify marriage—in law, in culture, in pastoral practice, and in the everyday economics of ordinary families.
• Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Ãmos is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Uromi and a Lecturer at the Catholic Institute of West Africa, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. To reach him, mailto: okhueleigbe@ciwa.edu.ng
