Dictionary

marriage–industrial complex en · NOUN

Etymology

By analogy with military–industrial complex.

Meanings

1. The totality of businesses such as wedding planners, bridal registries, specialized caterers, bridal wear stores, etc. that exist for assisting with holding a wedding.
   • They were eschewing the catered cakes, goodie bags, and hired DJs of the marriage-industrial complex for a simple ceremony followed by a potluck picnic. 2018, Lionel Shriver, The Standing Chandelier:
   • Even when you want to do it for yourself, outside of the marriage industrial complex, it's practically impossible. 2011, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life, →ISBN:
   • Also on the table was a developing critique of "matrimania" – the excessive hyping of marriage and coupling – and the concomitant multibillion-dollar marriage industrial complex. 2018 March 2, Kate Bolick, “All About Women riding the four waves of feminism at the Opera House”, in The Sydney Morning Herald:
2. The set of American institutions such as therapists, self-help books, support groups, etc., designed to respond to adultery.
   • There are strict rules in the marriage industrial complex. Almost all these sites demand the adulterer confess every act of sex, every telephone conversation, and every detail of every assignation. 2007 March, Jardine Libaire, “French Men Don't Get Caught”, in Best Life, volume 4, number 2, page 112:
   • Druckerman relays the story of Julia, whose urban, liberal background does not meet the profile of most marriage-industrial complex supporters, but who has nonethelss mannaged to absorb the values and even the narrative of the marriage-industrial complex: 2009, B. Mousli, E. Roustang-Stoller, Women, Feminism, and Femininity in the 21st Century, →ISBN:
   • The growth of the marriage-industrial complex has not done much to slow the national divorce epidemic. 2004, Briton Hadden, Henry Robinson Luce, Time - Volume 163, page xl:

Forms