The answer seems to be, in practical and empirical terms, no:

Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a
proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a
minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New
York Times.

 

The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau,
found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million
households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without
children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent
five years earlier.

     Similar trends have been observed in East Asia (warning: large PDF)

    There is a moral side to this question as well: should people get married?  Is life better, for individuals and for society at large, when people get married?

     Those are big questions, which for centuries have tended to be answered in the affirmative by most cultures in the world.  But things change, social practices transform, expectations shift.  So, now, young people take longer and tend to live together before they marry, or avoid the institution altogether – though the article states: "The numbers by no means suggests marriage is dead or necessarily that a
tipping point has been reached. The total number of married couples is
higher than ever, and most Americans eventually marry."   But, at the very least, the attraction of marriage, to young people, seems to be weakening (even as gay people struggle to gain access to it!). 

    If that is true, if marriage is, in some ways, declining, is that a good or a bad thing?  Let me do the Taoist v. Confucian thing here.

    A Taoist would probably not see much of a problem here.  Changing social practices might simply be considered a "natural" development of the "Way of humankind."  Nothing, except Way itself, is eternal.  There may be good facets to changing marriage patterns.  Sociologists will point out that the change can be attributed, to a significant degree, to women’s liberation.  With better employment opportunities, women do not need to be married to live a materially comfortable life.  So why rush?  Or why even bother to begin with? 

     Of course, a Taoist would not take a hard-line "anti-marriage" position.  Rather, the sensibility would be: if it seems right, do it.  There can be a kind of "naturalness" to married life (I do not mean to reify "nature" here).   In my own case, I tend toward Taoism but have been married for twenty-six years.  There are various ways in which my married-ness has become an expression of my Te – the integral place I have in the vastness of Way.  It is central to my personal Tao – the path of life that has unfolded before me.  And that’s fine.  A Taoist understanding, however, would not assume that that would be true for everyone.  It just works out that way sometimes.

      Confucians, however, would, at first, seen the decline of marriage as a serious problem.  They understand  Tao as an organic human order, centering of careful cultivation of close loving relationships; and marriage has been central to that order in the Confucian mind.  This is an obvious point: Confucians would hold that we cannot construct a coherent personal identity without being embedded in closely knit social networks.  And, it must also be said, carrying on the family line is something mentioned by both Confucius and Mencius.

    We might  be able to reassure Confucians that changing marriage practices do not spell the end of the civilized world.  At a more abstract level, what matters most for Confucianism is that we have social networks through which we can develop our humanity.  It is conceivable that social networks outside traditional family structures could fulfill this purpose in in the spirit, if not the precise expectation, of Confucian thought.  So, if one attended to other family relationships (parents, grandparents, siblings, relatives, etc.) and also built loving connections to friends and acquaintances, that could be sufficient as an avenue for the cultivation of humanity.   In short, one could work toward Confucian moral good without being married.

     The family line thing might be a bit harder.   Seems to me that this might be one of those things, like the outmoded bias against women, that must be jettisoned from the original Confucianism in order to adapt it to the modern world.   Does that go too far?  If we let go of that must we give up on the project of making Confucius relevant?

    As my daughter would say: whatever.  When I think about the decline of, or maybe we should just say the change in, marriage practices, I do not fret (it’s the Taoist in me).  I think Confucianism is still applicable.  It tells us that our moral selves will not be found in some grand, transcendental experience but, rather, they will be created in our daily interactions with those closest to us.  That works, married or not.