Cherlin describes the de-institutionalisation of marriage, and in the same period marriage acquired new symbolic prestige in several countries. How can a weakening institution become a more prized one?

D. Weakened behavioural scripts leave marriage as an optional achievement marker, not a default.

Losing its status as the taken-for-granted framework is exactly what allows marriage to become a signal. When it is what everyone does at twenty-three, it says nothing; when it is entered at thirty-five after stable employment and a mortgage, it displays those achievements. The prestige rises as the obligation falls, and the two movements are the same movement.