Forget Dating Apps—the “Marriage Pact” Goes for the Long Haul

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A survey that started as a student project at Stanford University has become a popular dating and relationship tool on campuses across the country. Its goal is to delve deeper than the superficial information found on a typical dating-app profile, connecting people based on deeply held values rather than looks or sports teams. Most apps, says Liam MacGregor, who created the Marriage Pact with a fellow-student, “were designed to solve really specific problems … if you want a short-term relationship. But because they’re the only tools out there, people have tried to use them to solve these other problems.” The Marriage Pact “set out to solve this very specific problem at the beginning: If you need a backup plan for a 50-year-long relationship, who’s right for that?” Would you put an elderly relative in a nursing home? Do you keep people as friends because they might be useful to you later? Would you keep a gun in the house? More than 250,000 students across more than 75 campuses have taken the survey. The Radio Hour’s producer KalaLea talked to students at Princeton University, where the survey was being conducted, to find out what it was all about. Plus, perched high above the ice at Madison Square Garden, the organist Ray Castoldi has conducted the soundtrack of Rangers games and more for thirty years.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:11.7	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. It's June, and that means that a lot of us are
0:17.7	attending some weddings, maybe even having a wedding. Still, the rate of marriage
0:22.3	remains at historic lows, and the median age for marrying continues to rise. That can cause some
0:28.5	real anxiety, both for sociologists and for single people who might like to settle down.
0:34.3	The radio hours, Cala Lea, has been looking at a project to alleviate some of that anxiety.
0:39.4	It came out of an economics class in Stanford University, and is called The Marriage Pact.
0:45.9	Hi, I'm Katie. And I'm Miguel.
0:48.9	Katie and Miguel are the same age, 23. And I am just under a month older. Yeah, I'm also 23. Yeah, we're the same
0:57.2	stars on if that likes a difference. But, I see. Yeah, we're both Pisces, I think. Yeah, we're both
1:01.1	Pisces. Katie and Miguel met while in college around Valentine's Day, just about a year and a half
1:07.5	ago. But they've done a whole lot together in a short amount of time.
1:13.3	We went hiking and camping in Acadia, Maine. That was our first big trip. That was our first
1:18.7	trip that we took together. New Hampshire. We went to New Hampshire, um, skiing. We've been to New
1:24.3	York City twice. Yeah. That was so fun because we wanted to go and...
1:28.7	We did it. It was great.
1:29.7	It was a great day.
1:31.4	We went to Florida to visit her parents.
1:33.6	We went to Costa Rica.
1:36.1	And we went to Ireland.
1:37.3	And then we went to...
1:38.5	It was actually right around our anniversary.
	...

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