“I Would Like to, But My World Wouldn’t End If I Didn’t”: Marital Aspirations Among Sexual Minority Young Adults

Abstract

Despite the legalization of same-sex marriage across the US, research on young adults’ marital aspirations has tended to overlook sexual identity altogether or focus exclusively on those who are heterosexual. To address this, in this article, I draw upon quantitative and qualitative data from an online survey to describe the marital aspirations and motivations of a convenience sample of sexual minority young adults ( N = 256). Descriptive analyses indicate that although a majority of respondents would like to marry someday, a similar number claim that getting married is not “a major life goal.” Those who want to marry cite several primary reasons, including companionship and lifelong commitment, but also qualify their marital aspirations in several ways, including by questioning both the necessity and normativity of marriage. The relatively small number of respondents do not want to marry express similar concerns and critique marriage as a heteronormative institution.