--- title: The Hazards of Searching for 'Marriage Material' description: Whether it's app dating or meeting someone in real life, we are always bargaining for love, writes Myisha Battle. canonical: https://time.com/6254604/marriage-material-myisha-battle/ author: Myisha Battle article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-02-13T12:00:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:40.220Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Hazards of Searching for 'Marriage Material' og:description: Whether it's app dating or meeting someone in real life, we are always bargaining for love, writes Myisha Battle. og:url: https://time.com/6254604/marriage-material-myisha-battle/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77332e71921aaee3/698a3a3a096a946c906ad7a9/Marriage-Material-Consumerism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2053 og:image:height: 1155 og:image:alt: Marriage-Material-Consumerism og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Hazards of Searching for 'Marriage Material' twitter:description: Whether it's app dating or meeting someone in real life, we are always bargaining for love, writes Myisha Battle. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77332e71921aaee3/698a3a3a096a946c906ad7a9/Marriage-Material-Consumerism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Hazards of Searching for 'Marriage Material' > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=544b745e-c988-4bef-92a9-f87bd864b899&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Paramore Revisits Its Expansive Discography, From All We Know Is Falling to This Is Why [Watch (HLS stream): Paramore Revisits Its Expansive Discography, From All We Know Is Falling to This Is Why](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/eqrZmIir.m3u8) (9:44)  _Published 2023-02-06. When Paramore first formed, it was composed of brothers Josh and Zac Farro, who played guitar and drums, respectively, lead singer Hayley Williams, bassist Jeremy Davis, and guitarist Jason Bynum. But over the last 20 years, the band has evolved into its current and arguably best iteration: Williams, Zac Farro, and guitarist Taylor York._ by [Myisha Battle](https://time.com/author/myisha-battle/) ## Myisha Battle Battle is a certified clinical sexologist and sex and dating coach, educator, and speaker. Feb 13, 2023 12:00 PM UTC  Wedding couple and coin rolls. Wedding couple and coin rolls. Getty Images by [Myisha Battle](https://time.com/author/myisha-battle/) ## Myisha Battle Battle is a certified clinical sexologist and sex and dating coach, educator, and speaker. Feb 13, 2023 12:00 PM UTC As a sex and dating coach, I often witness my clients endure the trials and tribulations of app dating with one goal in mind: getting married. They are simultaneously encouraged and overwhelmed by the access dating apps grant them to people they may never have met in their day-to-day lives. These daters have newfound freedom to choose whoever they think will be a great match for their commitment goals. Time and time again, I notice the primal drive toward indicators of financial security in prospective matches over indicators of compatibility like shared interests, values, and lifestyle. “He’s a lawyer, so that’s good right?” a client might ask me, and then we inevitably talk about whether a lawyer’s schedule would work for them long-term. This can also show up as a preference for someone who owns a house, lives alone, or who drives a certain kind of car, which are things that can be gleaned from profile pictures and the bit of text allowed in most dating apps. I’ve even had clients admit that colleges (specifically where someone went to college) is an indicator of compatibility, even if the match graduated from a university with 30,000 students—a sample this size is too diverse to assume anything about one particular person. What it _does_ signal is earning potential, as college educated folks tend to [earn more money than non-college educated folks](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/10/11/new-study-college-degree-carries-big-earnings-premium-but-other-factors-matter-too/?sh=3aab1d8535cd). For some of my clients, the hunt for marriage material includes sifting through dating profiles with laser focus on social status and earning potential. The search for something as meaningful as a life partner has been overshadowed by the need for financial security, or at least the dream of an easier life with two healthy incomes. Despite the access we now have, in the era of app dating, we may be relying too heavily on socio-economic assumptions to help us find long-term love. This includes looking for—or even becoming—”marriage material.” While marriage has [historical roots](https://exhibitions.globalfundforwomen.org/economica/marriage-and-money/brief-history-marriage) in asset exchange, according to [Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/11/06/why-people-get-married-or-move-in-with-a-partner/), love and companionship top the list of reasons why people decide to marry today. In [_Mating In Captivity_,](https://www.harpercollins.com/products/mating-in-captivity-esther-perel?variant=32122437468194) the sex therapist Esther Perel discusses this evolution. “Marriage used to be primarily a matter of economic sustenance, and it was a partnership for life,” Perel explains. “Mating today is a free choice enterprise, and commitments are built on love. Intimacy has shifted from being a by-product of a long-term relationship to being a mandate for one.” She’s right that we have far more freewill in the process of choosing partners, sexual and otherwise—but economic sustenance remains a [top priority as well](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/11/economist-shares-the-surprising-money-benefits-of-marriage.html). The term “marriage material” itself is materialistic. It reflects a need for concrete, “good on paper” qualities that are socially valuable. But what the notion of someone being “marriage material” misses is that every person is valuable, and dating should be a practice in finding what qualities someone has that are valuable to _you_ and that allow you to fall madly in love with them. But this is where things get tricky—while we know that value is a relative term, most of us also know what has the greatest value under capitalism: money, status, and power. The truth is, we want it all. In modern dating, we are sold the idea that this is possible—that we can have love and improve our economic standing all at the same time. And the way we date plays a big role in this belief. Consumerism pervades the entire dating experience. It’s hard to separate our consumer habits from our quest for love and partnership. From matching through an app—an act sometimes likened to [online shopping](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/201912/the-problem-shopping-relationships-online)—to meeting people in real life and hooking up, which is an exchange of time, money, and energy, we are always bargaining. When it comes to settling down with one partner, we may even weigh our “investments” in the relationship to make our final decision. “How long have we been together?” “Is it worth starting from scratch with someone else at this point in our lives?” “Is there a better option who just hasn’t shown up yet?” --- ### More from TIME --- “Bigger, Better Deal Syndrome” abounds as daters wonder if the person they’re seeing is actually the _best_ option in town. I see this in my practice and try to move my clients away from a “What is my date bringing to the table?” mindset to “How do I feel when I’m with my date?” It’s important to follow your curiosity and align with potential partners who may not check all of the boxes for marriage material, but who can co-create really fun, romantic experiences. In fact, so many of us become disillusioned with dates who meet our height, weight, income, and education requirements, because these demographics alone are insufficient data to help people forge the meaningful connection they’re looking for. In most cases, experience is the best teacher, because the world is full of misguided advice about what to look for in a partner or even how we should portray ourselves to be seen as valuable. **_Read More:_**[_How to Use Dating Apps Without Hurting Your Mental Health, According to Experts_](https://time.com/5356756/dating-apps-mental-health/) There’s internet rhetoric about how to be a high-value man or woman. While the [definitions vary](https://dudeproducts.com/blogs/dude-blog/high-value-man), “high value” men and women are those who exhibit the stereotypically desirable traits for their gender, with a new economic twist that reflects our culture’s focus on financial independence. High-value men are meant to be good financial providers with robust social lives. High-value women are self-sufficient (read: financially secure) and provide a high level of emotional care in all of their relationships. Not only is this reductive, it forces people into an impossible bind where just being themselves isn’t enough—they have to be the best, highest-earning version of themselves at all times. And of course, their dating profiles have to show that version exclusively. The term “high-value” as it’s applied to human beings implies that certain people are just more worthy of love, affection, romance, sex, and even respect. But there is so much more to our value as partners than how we have managed to survive or even thrive in a traumatizing system. The reality is that being “marriage material” reflects our culture’s toxic and ubiquitous focus on work and accomplishment, seeing partnership not as intrinsically beneficial, but as something that must be negotiated for. Daters with the best intentions of finding a long-lasting, loving partnership, can get caught in the trap of sizing people up by what advantages they perceive someone can give them. And this judgment also falls on their own heads. Many of my clients feel they don’t have much to offer a partner, even if they seem to be doing quite well by most standards. In today’s hustle culture, it’s hard not to want a partnership advantage. Life is more difficult if you don’t have financial security. The hamster wheel of work combined with our growing tendency toward social isolation, makes dating often seem like a way out. Many people are looking to partners to solve or ameliorate two problems that our culture has yet to solve for us: [loneliness](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/nyregion/loneliness-epidemic.html) and [income inequality](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/income-inequality-increased.html#:~:text=The%20ratio%20of%20the%2090th,a%204.9%25%20increase%20from%202020.). That’s a lot of pressure to put on one’s dating life—or even someone else. But the world is changing. People, [particularly women](https://www.elle.com/life-love/opinions-features/a40835443/women-rejecting-traditional-ambition-2022/?utm%5Fsource=pocket%5Fcollection%5Fstory), are reevaluating their relationship to work and the endless churn of life within capitalism, shedding long hours for more qualitative perks like work-life balance. That said, it’s also time to consider how we can separate consumerism and getting the best “deal” from the deep, human need for connection and love. In this age of swipe-and-match, we need a new framework of partnership and marriage that doesn’t place us back in the old paradigm of exchanging or growing our financial and social assets, if what we’re really after is love. ## Transcript We used to talk about it. We were kids like you make all of us. Feel really lucky that people put like, still consider are older records relevant. And they want to know like what we're, you know, what we're going to make. That's just that doesn't make any sense. Why people should give a shit and I love it. We're going to start out with your first album ever. All we know is falling which is one of my favorites. What was the biggest lesson you learned on your first album? We had no time to make. It was like you know what they used to say to us all the time, they would be like you have your whole life to make your first record. I don't think we'd had the foresight to really understand what that meant. So we made our album in three weeks over the course of probably a year. Just if you include the first few that we wrote, but like a lot of them we wrote after we had, we kind of like relocated to be closer to our label the fuel By Ramen at the time and right back where we made all we know is falling. It made us not second-guess everything. That's something. We attributed that to this day, that helps us make quick decisions. So, going into your next album Riot was when Taylor doing the band. On songs like he had written with us cuz you know, we started playing together the three of us and we were like 12 and 13, I can remember the first time we played, that's what you get. We were in Austria and we were sound checking it for our friends, in The Sandlot Stallone that were opening for us. And I just felt so proud of it because I had remembered Taylor and Josh working out those guitar parts in like one of our rooms like childhood bedrooms, basically and like, feeling all of us being there together. Playing it was, it was nice. It was a kind of still really early in our career. So yeah, there was so many first for us with Riot and it was like stressful and hectic, and exciting all at once. The next album there was like another two-year period before brand new eyes came out, which has least and out all I wanted, which is not an easy song to sing live. I can imagine on it one time, Kind of found that song a little bit late like this generation is discovering that song over decade later. I love the fans, love it. I, it's such a special song in the way that like the music of that song takes me back to the Garf, earliest days of the band. When we would like gush over a lot of like, like failure, like heavier, but like how to explain it sounds really exciting for us to experiment with and we got to do that on a couple of other songs later, but all I wanted was the first time I felt that feeling subtitled is there. So many songs on that album that I really do love. The last hope we need to talk about everything, the process that went into it, the writing like what it means to you guys, cuz it means a lot to me. So nicely a sad time because it was the first album that we had written without Zack in the band. And we even though we had proven ourselves a little bit, since then, we still had a lot of self-doubt about what our purpose was. And if we were going to be able to sustain this thing that we care so much about. And so I just can remember feeling really sick when we wrote that. Like, I was in a hotel room when I wrote the lyrics and I was just sad, you know, it was this late Blankets, that kind of feels like it's been thrown over you. And I love that song because now it like, it has very triumphant feeling. And then going into after laughter, I know this was a point when you guys were thinking about a break as you explained and interviews like, you know, we're getting tired and it's, I mean, it isn't so tell me about that. Like being a thing about taking a break. I don't think when when we think back on that time, that we really were Paul. Needing to take a break and I think that's coming off these last four years. Were you actually took a break? You know? Cuz I am truly, we were on the road for a few months, couple months before we started riding on the road and swearing, but I do think that still occupied a lot of our mental headspace. And we haven't, we haven't quite learned. It's always hard to detach from whatever you're passionate all really feeling, but I don't think you should really stay away from it for that long. And then, I think the minute you start telling your team that you're riding is like, the whole machine starts up again, quicker than you even meant for it to, you know, so we probably could have used a longer break. But just kind of all started back up again. That's kind of like a great segue into. I was talking about your new record. Like, how did you guys figure out the sound for this album? And, you know, talking with the producer, Carlos am like, figuring out, you know, how to go from after laughter to. This is why I never really think it was sweet. Just kept writing and every song kind of like let us somewhere else and we definitely, I think wanted to scratch this playing some rocky or music, you know? But I remember there was a time where me and Zack. We're starting to write any songs like a man. Can we play something more chill. And I take a break and I'll see ya. Who is winging it the whole time, I felt like its own. It sounds special Lane do well, and I think, you know, especially the first couple rounds vocals in Lake Perry Lake. Really step outside of that, too much of elements of play vocals her. You know, like a certain elements on each song. And and with that you kind of do kind of have your guidelines and in a good way it's kind of like this what we do so we sound like every song I got its own attention because we are kind of like waiting to see what it told us. Everything you guys Envision yourself making music as a band in like your fifties and sixties. I'll even like that. I hope so. Yeah, I hope that I still but our bodies are are changing rapidly. Play me some slow, nice into. If we still make music in my fifties or sixties, would you be bummed? If we made like an acoustic records, would you be like, hey, you should have hung out back there? No, I would listen to everything you guys put out and say it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6254604/marriage-material-myisha-battle/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6254604/marriage-material-myisha-battle/"},"headline":"The Hazards of Searching for 'Marriage Material'","datePublished":"2023-02-13T12:00:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:03:40.220Z","description":"Whether it's app dating or meeting someone in real life, we are always bargaining for love, writes Myisha Battle.","url":"https://time.com/6254604/marriage-material-myisha-battle/","keywords":["society","freelance","Evergreen"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77332e71921aaee3/698a3a3a096a946c906ad7a9/Marriage-Material-Consumerism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Myisha Battle","jobTitle":"Battle is a certified clinical sexologist and sex and dating coach, educator, and speaker.","url":"https://time.com/author/myisha-battle/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77332e71921aaee3/698a3a3a096a946c906ad7a9/Marriage-Material-Consumerism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Marriage-Material-Consumerism","caption":"Wedding costs","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/society/","name":"society"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6254604/marriage-material-myisha-battle/","name":"The Hazards of Searching for 'Marriage Material'"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Paramore Revisits Its Expansive Discography, From All We Know Is Falling to This Is Why","description":"When Paramore first formed, it was composed of brothers Josh and Zac Farro, who played guitar and drums, respectively, lead singer Hayley Williams, bassist Jeremy Davis, and guitarist Jason Bynum. 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