I don't think marriage is considered an oddity in Trek, I just think that people deployed on long term ship assignments are slower to jump into it. Also since people live longer and have more healthy fertile years the average age at marriage is probably much higher. Love existing doesn't imply marriage existing, for marriage to exist you need the cultural norm that sexual commitment should be structured and made into a legal contract.
Which side of mankind is likely to be conservative here, the frontier luddites and Starfleet suicide volunteers or the Earth homebodies? And will conservatism support marriage or free love? We see so little of Earth that we can ill tell: the parents of our Starfleet heroes tend to be frontier folks themselves. Save for Picard's, but he only had maman and papan, without mention of them being married much, or even living together, back when they still lived. Out in the frontier, hardships may promote free love for keeping the colonies alive and for making the most out of the dangerous and potentially short life. But these folks volunteer for the frontier, often for ideological reasons; they may be prisoners to those reasons for their entire lives, the logical approach to hardships be damned. In any case, I can't see any trends whatsoever persisting when mankind moves into the interstellar community in Trek. But I could easily see extreme neoconservative movements being extremely popular, bringing back miniskirts and chastity belts in consecutive turns. The cycles needn't be in synch across the scattered human realm, leveling out the effect; or then instantaneous interstellar communications and very fast transportation will synch the cycles and drive them to even greater extremities (and possibly higher frequency as well). Timo Saloniemi
Both of them! (Joanna's mother and Natira) Even Spock eventually got married, although we're never told the name of his wife (fan speculation says it's Saavik, but it could well be someone else) Ben Childress' two partners got married via subspace radio in "Mudd's Women" (and it's likely that Eve and Childress probably married as well). Oh, not this "moneyless" thing again. They used money in the 23rd century. What they didn't use was cash. There were plenty of references to how much something cost, not to mention a conversation in which Spock stated exactly how many credits the Federation had invested in his Starfleet training (which suggests Spock received free tuition, but he would have been expected to pay for non-Academy-related extras himself). They even use money in the 24th century... or else Beverly should be arrested for fraud or theft (whichever might apply) for saying "charge it to my account on the Enterprise" when she bought the cloth on Farpoint Station.
How will non-traditional family units fit into evolved humanity of the future? What if a particular Earth colony decided that the best way to raise young'uns is communally or by some official agency instead of by one or two parents? What if some humans want to have marriages of four people like the Andorians, or more? What if a colony decides that all of its members are hereby joined together in matrimony in one massive group marriage (except those closely biologically related, of course)? Kor
I can point at just as many instances where the use of money is denied, and I can't think of a single financial transaction between federation citizens being shown on screen. Trading with business and individuals outside the federation is different, and having a personal account for such occasions isn't the same as having money. Money just doesn't make sense when human labour has little intrinsic value, energy is abundant, and all needs and desires satiable on demand with replicators. Infact, it would only make sense if resources were deliberately withheld by the authorised and rationed for the purpose of keeping the people in check. Not sure that tallies with the Federation we've seen so far. By the time of Star Trek, when your labour isn't in demand, and it costs nothing to feed, clothe and house everyone, what's the point of money? And back to marriage, if your basic (and luxury) needs are covered, what's t point of marriage, from a legal point of view?
Doubt it, TOS alone had more instances of money's existance than all the later series denials combined. And when you then include the later series uses and mentions of money, the denials are a small fraction of the total reference to money.
And yet we don't see a single penny change hands. A lot of those references could be taken as metaphorical, its not like a pound of flesh has anything to do with flesh. Scotty says he bought a boat in the TUC, did he mean that literally, or was it more like Kirk and McCoy having done their bit for King and Country? If he said he'd bought the farm we wouldn't take that as evidence of money. Just like an all inclusive resort, money in the federation has no purpose.
I swear to God, Im'a flip a table! We are NOT re-litigating the money issue here. Thank you very kindly.
In Star Trek wouldn't the 'conservative' position be to never go to war, to dress scantily and have sex whenever you want? From the perspective of the Berman era, being warlike, suppressing your sexuality, and not trusting strangers would be the more progressive position. The group in Let He Who Is Without Sin were progressive activists. Conservatives in Berman era Trek would long for a simpler time, 2364, the time they grew up in where everything was simpler.
This! I think as a general rule Star Trek does show Marriage as a fairly common, normal and positive thing. But the environment they are depicting for TV also makes it harder to show. For whatever reason Star Trek has rarely ever succeeded in showing or rather writing for a currently married couple for any extended period of time. O'Brien and Keiko kind of highlight the issues. They just never quite knew what to do with Keiko. They finally got better at it nearer the end, but still never quite got any real momentum to their characterization. But that is more the limitations of writing a type of show like Trek with its broader ensemble cast. It actually comes up on many other shows, typically 1 hour dramas. Think of classic's like Hill Street Blues or St elsewhere. You knew that many characters were married, but it was almost always off camera, just because they could rarely make it work on camera. Actually Star Trek, almost seems to imply the opposite of the OP's hypothesis. Piccard stands out as almost unusual for not seeking out Marriage or a partner. For truly being the classic Captain Married to his ship and the sea. (queue Guardians of the Galaxy 2 Soundtrack!). By the time of the movies Kirk is playing around with that quite a bit. That is one of the sub themes of Wrath of Khan. At the end of a long career looking back and pondering what they missed, what they gave up in order to do what they did. I think the more alarming thing in Star Trek is the number of dead spouses. It's kind of like the old Wesley vs Jake problem. Wesley failed as a character largely because they really never knew what to do with him. Jake worked much better because he wasn't really a distinct character on his own. He was more there to inform and frame the character of Sisco. The Star Trek spouses living or dead are kind of like that. Sisco's dead wife is a foundational and framing element of who he is as a character. Janeway separated from her rarely seen or mentioned fiance w was similarly something that framed and developed her without all the mess of needing to give him something to do. To also add to JirinPanthosa's thoughts. It is also likely yes those on long term deep space ship assignments are not so much slower to jump into marriage. But simply either not yet or no longer tied down to it. A ship is a lousy place to raise a family. It's probably not uncommon for couples to meet on such ships. But when they get married most may simply seek more stable, less mobile and less likely to be blown up job assignments and living arrangements. I mean how well did the Federations whole "Galaxy Class" experiment in sending whole families into space together work out? Yeah, not so much... ("Deanna! Take us out of Orbit!!!"). But interestingly you can read a lot into the Federation's Galaxy class. Their first ship designed to incorporate families. What it means is they were having problems staffing ships for longer deeper missions. That's why you build something like that.