2023-08-25
6 分钟My name is Peter Coy and I work for the opinion section of the New York Times.
I write a newsletter about economics, business, and finance.
My wife and I have one child.
It so happens that he's getting married two days before our anniversary date.
So we're going to be able to celebrate that for many years to come.
And it got me thinking about the institution of marriage and what an unusual thing it is.
and special thing kind of to take that plunge into the unknown.
Marriage is good for the overall well-being of society.
And with falling marriage rates, I have an argument for how people could think about making such a big decision.
I started looking into how people come about getting married and how they make that big leap.
And I came upon a book by a philosophy, cognitive science professor at Yale named L.A.
Paul.
And the book is called Transformative Experience.
And Paul talks about how marriage is a transformative experience.
And she means transformative in a very serious way, like how it transforms you into a different person.
So today you, in the post-marriage you, are truly two different people.
So when you get married, you,
Are you doing something for the future you, the married you?
And yet it's the today you who's making the decision.
It's kind of mind-bending when you think about it that way.