Today fewer people are committing 'til death do they part. Is society on its way to annulling the institution of marriage?

Curiosity contributor Bambi Turner took the pulse of modern marriage to see if it really is on life support.

In 2011, the Pew Research Center released a study showing that just more than half of U.S. adults are married, down from 72 percent in 1960. The report indicates that if current trends continue, married adults will be the minority in a few decades. However, these results don't necessarily indicate that marriage is on its way out. The decline may be due to cultural shifts and changing demographics rather than a rejection of marriage itself.

The rate of U.S. adults over the age of 18 who are currently married has certainly declined since 1960, but this may be in part because young people are marrying later in life, largely due to the demand for increased education. Women married at a median age of 20.3 in 1960, men at 22.8. The median age increased to 26.5 and 28.7, respectively, by 2010 [source: Pew]. Life expectancy may also figure in the declining rate of currently married adults. People live longer, so there are more single seniors, especially widowed women, living alone.

Aside from increased education, why are young Americans waiting longer to marry? One possible reason is that for young people a wedding is now the last step toward adulthood and not the first. People once married young and then pursued careers, homes and families. Now, they're more likely to wait until they find "success" before marrying [source: Cherlin]. In fact, some researchers believe marriage rates have slowed because young people value marriage so highly that they don't think they're ready for it until they've accomplished a list of social prerequisites [source: Gibson-Davis]. They believe in marriage but understand that high divorce rates mean staying married is difficult -- so they postpone it until they're ready.

The Pew study demonstrates that the number of people currently married has fallen dramatically, but it also reveals that marriage remains relatively strong. While just more than half of survey respondents were married, nearly three out of four had been married at some point in their lives. Those who had never been married -- a healthy 61 percent -- said that they hoped someday to marry.