Why Modern Romance Feels Like a Contract and Not a Calling

Israel Centeno

There was a time when romantic love was understood as something fierce and consuming. It was the force that drove people to cross oceans, to write poetry that still aches in the heart centuries later, to build families and communities that outlasted empires. It wasn’t always sweet or easy; it demanded endurance, sacrifice, the willingness to suffer alongside someone and still choose them every day. That love shaped entire cultures. It filled cathedrals with music, inspired revolutions of the heart, and kept societies renewing themselves through children born of passion rather than calculation.

Today that vision feels almost foreign. In much of the Western world, especially in societies shaped by Christian ideals of covenant and self-giving, the endurance of love is no longer celebrated. It is viewed with suspicion, even pity. Long-term commitment is frequently described as risky, burdensome, potentially toxic. The promise “till death do us part” sounds less like a vow and more like a trap. People want flexibility, exit ramps, the legal and emotional right to walk away the moment the relationship stops feeling good. They want love without the parts that hurt, without the parts that ask them to place someone else’s well-being on the same level as their own.

This shift is visible everywhere. Marriage rates continue to fall. The average age of first marriage keeps climbing. Prenuptial agreements, once rare outside the ultra-wealthy, have become almost routine among people in their twenties and thirties. Couples negotiate division of assets before they have even shared a bank account. What was once a sacrament or at least a profound public declaration of mutual belonging now often begins with lawyers and spreadsheets. It is not difficult to see the parallel with traditional arranged marriages in patriarchal societies: alliances formed for security and stability rather than passion. The difference is that today the arrangement is made by the couple themselves, each protecting their individual interests with the same caution one would use in a business partnership.

Alongside this contractual caution comes a growing reluctance to have children. For the first time in recorded history, large numbers of young adults openly state they do not want to become parents. Surveys in the United States and Europe regularly show between 25 and 40 percent of people under thirty-five saying they plan to remain child-free. The reasons given are familiar: the cost of raising a child has become astronomical, housing is unaffordable in many places, careers demand constant availability, the climate crisis makes bringing new life into the world feel irresponsible. All of these are real pressures. But beneath them lies something deeper—a cultural re-evaluation of what family means. Children are no longer seen as the natural flowering of love between two people. They are viewed as optional, as lifestyle choices that compete with travel, personal development, financial freedom. The old dream of building something lasting, of seeing your features and your values carried forward in another generation, has faded for many.

And into that void has emerged an increasingly visible emotional substitute: the pet. Dogs, cats, and other companion animals have come to occupy a place that was once almost exclusively held by children. They receive treatments, attention, and privileges that many human children do not: premium health insurance, specialized daycare, organic menus, emotional therapy sessions, airplane travel in the cabin, even provisions in wills. It is not uncommon to see couples spending thousands of dollars a year on their “fur baby” while declaring they cannot afford a human child. The pet offers what the child no longer seems to provide: unconditional love without the real demands of parenting—no sleepless nights, no teenage conflicts, no astronomical education costs, no risk that the child will one day leave and no longer need you. It is a controlled, clean, complication-free love. And precisely because of that, it has become the perfect substitute for those who have renounced the risk and sacrifice involved in bringing human life into the world.

When love no longer points toward endurance or reproduction, it loses much of its gravitational pull. What remains is a lighter, more provisional version: relationships that serve personal happiness for as long as they do so, and can be discontinued when they cease to. The language has changed accordingly. Terms like “situationship,” “conscious uncoupling,” and “relationship anarchy” reflect a desire to keep emotional exposure minimal. The ideal seems to be maximum pleasure and self-expression with minimum obligation. Loving others as deeply as we love ourselves—the ancient command at the heart of so much Western morality—now feels almost countercultural. It requires putting someone else’s good ahead of your own comfort, and that is precisely what many people are determined to avoid.

This retreat from depth has consequences that reach far beyond individual happiness. Societies built on stable families face demographic strain when birth rates fall below replacement level for decades. Economies that once relied on generational renewal now depend on immigration to keep labor forces from shrinking. Cultural narratives lose their weight when love stories no longer explore sacrifice, forgiveness, or the slow building of trust over time. Art becomes ironic, detached, more interested in fleeting encounters than in lifelong commitments.

And into this vacuum steps technology. AI companions and increasingly sophisticated sex robots are no longer science fiction; they are products being actively developed and marketed. Surveys already show significant portions of younger adults open to the idea of forming romantic or sexual bonds with artificial intelligence. The appeal is obvious: a partner who never ages, never argues, never gets sick, never demands compromise, never asks you to change. No odors, no fluids, no misunderstandings about pronouns or consent, no risk of being accused of anything. The relationship can be paused, customized, or deleted at will. It offers the illusion of intimacy without any of the vulnerability that real intimacy requires.

For some people—especially those who have internalized the fear of suffering, rejection, or moral misstep—this looks like liberation. For others it looks like the final surrender of something essential. When the hormonal, instinctive, sacrificial dimension of love is removed from the equation, what is left is no longer recognizably human. It is a simulation. And simulations, no matter how advanced, do not renew societies. They do not produce children. They do not inspire great art or enduring institutions. They provide comfort, distraction, and the absence of pain. That may be enough for individuals seeking to protect themselves. It is not enough for a civilization.

Those who still feel the older hunger—the desire for love that burns, that costs, that endures—are increasingly looking elsewhere. Digital nomads and expats from Western countries are moving in noticeable numbers to places in Latin America, Southeast Asia, parts of Africa and Eastern Europe where family, community, and unfiltered human connection still hold stronger sway. They speak of seeking “real life,” of escaping the emotional sterility they perceive at home. Whether this is romantic nostalgia or genuine insight, it reveals a hunger that refuses to be satisfied by contracts or algorithms.

The question that hangs over all of this is simple and urgent: can a society that has learned to fear the endurance of love, to see reproduction as a problem, to treat commitment as optional, and to prefer simulated intimacy to the real thing, still renew itself? Or are we quietly presiding over the end of one of the oldest and most powerful forces that ever shaped human existence?

The answer is not yet written. But every day that we choose ease over depth, flexibility over fidelity, self-preservation over self-giving, we write a little more of it.