Szerelem vagy Babaváró?

Love or Loan? Marriage Boom in Pandemic Hungary “It is more likely that a person will give up their ideas about getting married than give up on someone who holds opposing views or is unable to get married for other (religious, legal) reasons.” This is how one respondent to my first Marriage Questionnaire in 2020 explained their rather unusual views on the motivations for marriage. Reversing the quoted thoughts, based on the results of my marriage research in pandemic Hungary I also saw that not only those who wanted to get married, but also those who had previously opposed marriage, those who had previously been “unable” to marry, often changed their opposing views and got married during the pandemic. They did so at a time when organizing weddings became particularly difficult and uncertain due to pandemic restrictions and tightened regulations. While marriage rates fell significantly in most countries around the world during the pandemic, in Hungary, despite the difficulties, the number of marriages not only did not decline, but increased. What could be behind this demographic phenomenon – loan, love, a new renaissance of the institution of marriage? In my paper, I will seek to answer this question by examining public and political narratives, everyday discourse, and personal experiences during the pandemic based on the results of my digital anthropological research (online questionnaires, digital ethnography, and in-depth interviews) that began in 2019.