Weddings occur every month of the year, but a good portion of them are scheduled for the summer months. Two co-workers of Mister Boomer’s, both over the age of 30, are getting married this month, so it got him thinking about how marriages have changed in the sixty-plus years since the first Baby Boomers were born.
For one thing, the attitudes toward marriage were expressed in songs of the era. Take for example, Chapel of Love, Wouldn’t It Be Nice and Wedding Bell Blues.
Co-written by Phil Specter (along with Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich), Chapel of Love was first recorded by Darlene Love in 1963, then by The Ronettes before it became a huge hit for The Dixie Cups in 1964. The lyrics are delivered from an ecstatic bride’s point of view. She has so romanticized the institution of marriage that she proclaims on her wedding day that bells will ring, the sun will shine … and once she and her beloved are wed, they’ll never be lonely any more. This speaks to the late 1950s and early ’60s cultural norm that marriage was the natural order of things as one exited their teenage years.
Wouldn’t It Be Nice, released by the Beach Boys in 1966, echoes the enthusiasm of Chapel of Love for a marital union, but it’s sung from the vantage point of a younger boy who fantasizes what it would be like to be older and married to his girlfriend. We could be married, and then we’d be happy, he sings, Oh, wouldn’t it be nice.
While this idealized vision of marriage was represented in song, however, cultural norms began to shift. Within the first decade when early Baby Boomers reached what was the traditional age of marriage — the 1960s into the 1970s — the average age for tying the knot was changing. In 1960, the average age for women was just over the age of 20, for men, just shy of 23. By 1970, it was inching upward, so by the time the latest Baby Boomers reached marriage age in the mid-70s into the mid-80s, the average age for both men and women had increased by a full year. Compare the first marriage ages of Baby Boomers to those of today — nearly 27 for women and 29 going on 30 for men — and the upward trend continues exponentially.
There are many reasons postulated for the slow but steady rise in age before marrying in the 1960s. Some speculate it was the introduction of the Pill in 1960, which coincided with the lessening of social mores concerning pre-marital sex that accounted for the increasing age. Others point to the Vietnam War as an interruption in the lives of tens of thousands of young men at the age when they might have entertained getting married, while still others suggest the rise of Feminism saw an increase in the number of women attending college, but also gave women the permission they sought to choose not only whom they would marry, but when. It could very well be these factors melded into a perfect storm on the effects of marriage age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP0ZdZ3RS9A&feature=kp
Wedding Bell Blues was written and recorded by Laura Nyro in 1966, but it is the version released by The 5th Dimension in 1969 that most boomers associate with the song. Like the earlier songs, marriage is a desirable state for the singer, but in this number, the female is speaking to a specific male who may be dragging his feet. She lays out her case to Bill, and emphatically asks, am I ever gonna see my wedding day? She further prods, c’mon and marry me, Bill, because she has the wedding bell blues.
The song was seen at the time as an interpretation of the relationship between Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, both members of The 5th Dimension, though it was not written for them. Ms. McCoo and Mr. Davis had been engaged when the song was released, but no wedding date had yet been set. They did marry in 1969, and are married still.
The song took on a broader appeal for boomer record buyers, and it hit number one in the U.S. in November of 1969. Here, the woman was no longer wishing and hoping, like songs from the beginning of the decade, but making it clear not only what she wanted, but what he should do.
Perhaps what we experience now in people getting married — at an older age, same sex marriages, delaying children, living together before marriage, etc. — is the direct result of the Baby Boomers’ revolution. What people now have that many Baby Boomers did not, especially early Baby Boomers born in the late 1940s and early ’50s, is options. This complete freedom of choice is what we wanted. Today’s generation has it.
Did you get married, boomers? How old were you the first time you married?