I have decided to shake you a bit this weekend ;). Are you jumping up or worried about your kids marriages after your read the tittle? I guess it depends up on how your current experience and your beliefs are. Anyway, the topic is not about marriage system is good or bad.
This is about how marriage systems will get re-designed in-line with every advancements that is taking place. Lets ask a fundamental question – why we need a marriage system?. Not based on any order but…a) for companionship b) kids c) Physical desires/needs d) society compliance (esp in India) & to make parents happy and e) economic support are the main reasons for marriage.
In future companionship is going to be more short term basis rather than life long commitments. Already this is the case in many countries. With the advancements in IVF and Surrogacy a new way of fulfilling the desire for kids (if one choose to not marry but still wants to have kids) will appear. Future generations will care less about making society happy and living for society. With both genders becoming economically independent there will be less support required from the spouse. These are new ways just from human angle.
With more breakthroughs coming in cognitive and virtual reality (VR) area a whole new way of experience will be given to human beings. People will end up spending more time with machines and get virtual experience. This means reduced need for human interactions. Right now, how much time are you spending with humans? How many devices do you have at home? Each family member already spending more time on devices. Why? Because machines are able to entertain and give much more experience. Can you imagine any human being come and entertain you for more than couple of hours? You will get bored to the death.
Fast forwards to 50 yrs +. May be more time for India. Eventually, Technology is even going to disrupt even marriage system. Humans can not replaced by machines fully so at the peak of disruptions we will take 1/4th U Turn with craving for real human to human interactions.
YK