How Taylor Swifts very public wedded bliss could save American marriage

Taylor Swift went viral Sunday for a sweet moment in the stands at a Kansas City Chiefs game.“That’s my husband!” she screamed, pointing to her million-dollar ring, as she cheered Travis Kelce’s first touchdown score of the season.“Gotta make my girl proud,” Kelce said Wednesday in response on his “New Heights” podcast.He and his brother Jason demonstrated how the clip became an instant meme, reading aloud a handful of the thousands of posts social media users made about celebrating their own spouses. “My wife after I killed a spider in our house,” one read.Another: “Me when my husband finds everything at the grocery store without calling me.” Humorous, sure, but that’s the pinnacle of a healthy marriage: Not a pair of people bickering or undercutting one another, but serving as one another’s hype man (and woman).Swift is showcasing marriage as a partnership where spouses are cheerleaders for each other, first and foremost.The cultural implications are great —  and they come just in time.Marriage is in crisis, and it’s because young women are less and less interested in it. According to the University of Michigan’s long-running Monitoring the Future survey, 80% of high-school seniors in 1993 said they expected to marry someday — but by 2023, that figure had fallen to 67%. And almost all of the decline came from a lack of interest among girls: 83% of them expected to marry in 1993, but just 61% in 2023. What’s behind the change? Consider the entertainment young girls and teens were raised on in generations past, and the media diet they’re fed now.Once, Disney tales of girls being rescued by princes and living happily ever after were standard fare for children, while romantic comedies dominated for teens and young adults. In the 2000s, the tone shifted dramatically in an era of female empowerment, and hopes for future happiness became divorced from romantic aspirations. Movies like “Moana” and “Frozen” told youn...