Can Taylor Swift make marriage great again?

Taylor Swift is engaged – and women the world over are rejoicing. Not merely because they care about Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce or the Ralph Lauren shorts he wore at the proposal, but because, in a profound way, her story has become theirs.

Swift is not just the world’s biggest pop star; she is the diarist of millennial womanhood. Her lyrics have chronicled the teenage daydreams, the disillusioned twenties, the bitterness of wasted years, and now, at last, the rediscovery of commitment. When she said ‘yes’, millions of women projected onto her their own longing for permanence – and their own disillusionment with the cultural script they were handed.

For six years, Swift lived with British actor Joe Alwyn in a quiet domestic partnership. They were partners, not spouses; cohabiting without covenant. Her music at the time reflected the fashionable disdain for marriage. In Lavender Haze she rolled her eyes at speculation about engagement, dismissing it as ‘1950s sh*t’. This was feminist liberation in song: love without vows, intimacy without permanence. Feminist freedom.

But then came the reckoning. On this year’s The Tortured Poets Department, the mask slipped, as she unleashed her bitter rage at having been strung along by Alywn for years with no commitment. ‘I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free,’ she confessed. In So Long London she sang: ‘You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waitin’ for the proof.’ Speaking of the happiest days in the relationship, she described the pair as wearing ‘imaginary rings’. 

These are not the words of a woman satisfied by independence. They are the words of someone confronting the emptiness of the ‘forever boyfriend’ – the modern man happy to enjoy the benefits of companionship without ever shouldering the burden of commitment. And then came Kelce.

From the moment he publicly joked on a podcast about trying to give Swift his number on a friendship bracelet, Kelce has embodied something countercultural: bold pursuit. Where Alwyn was reticent, Kelce has been exuberant, unashamed in his devotion. His garden proposal signalled a cultural shift: that perhaps marriage is not dead after all.

Why does this matter? Because Swift’s journey mirrors that of her generation. Women raised on feminist slogans were told that independence was strength, that marriage was a trap, that careers would fulfil them more than families. Many followed that script into their thirties – and discovered, like Swift, that the promise was hollow.

A Yale Study confirmed what has been dubbed the ‘paradox of happiness’: despite unprecedented professional opportunities and total ‘sexual emancipation’, women today report being less happy than they were fifty years ago. Marriage rates are collapsing. Birth rates across the West have fallen below replacement. Loneliness has reached epidemic levels, especially among young adults. Cohabitation has replaced covenant, but with it has come less stability, not more.

This is not merely a cultural crisis; it is a civilisational one. A society that forgets marriage forgets how to reproduce itself. Kids benefit from having married parents as much as husbands benefit from having wives and wives, husbands. Population decline, negatively trending mental health and economic stagnation are not abstract risks; they are the predictable fruits of the ‘forever boyfriend’ era.

If Swift’s engagement has captured the imagination, it is because it reveals a hunger that still exists beneath the feminist façade: the hunger for permanence, for covenant, for family. But hunger is not enough. Our public institutions must once again encourage marriage rather than penalise it.

At present, they do the opposite. Britain’s tax system brings no benefit to married couples. Welfare programmes frequently reward single parenthood. Housing costs and student debt delay family formation. Schools and universities prepare students for careers but never speak of marriage as a good worth aspiring to. In popular culture, marriage is treated as a punchline, a trap or a relic.

If we want more Swifts and Kelces – and fewer wasted years with forever boyfriends – we must reverse course. That means tax reform which rewards marriage and child-rearing. Housing policies that make it easier for young families to put down roots. Education that teaches not only employable skills but the virtues of commitment. Cultural investment in stories, films, and music that tell the truth: that marriage is not weakness but the cornerstone of human flourishing.

Taylor Swift’s engagement is more than celebrity gossip. It is a cultural parable. The ‘forever boyfriend’ – the man who strings women along for years without marriage – is dead. And women, far from lamenting his demise, are cheering. They cheer because in Swift’s story they see their own disappointments reflected and their own hopes revived. They cheer because deep down, they know what feminism told them to deny: that being chosen, cherished, and committed to is not oppression but joy.

Swift has, unwittingly, delivered a cultural correction. Now politics must follow suit. For the good of individuals and the good of society, we must once again make marriage attractive, attainable, and aspirational.

If Juliet had her Romeo and Elizabeth Bennet her Mr Darcy, then Taylor Swift has her Travis Kelce. The happy ever after is back. Let’s make sure it is not the rare exception but the rule.