The cost of weddings in the United States has soared to a point some of today's younger generation may be turning away from the ritual.

Courtney Martin, whose article on marriages appears in the Christian Science Monitor, seems to be one. She says a typical wedding in 1990 cost $15,208, compared to $4,376 in 1980.

Martin, who has no immediate plan to wed her friend of seven years, says that wedding today will set a couple back $22,360, or enough for private college tuition for their future child if that sum is invested at 10 percent return.

"Truth be told, we (she and her boyfriend) avoid the topic of walking down the aisle because it is so inextricably tied up with gross, conspicuous consumption," she writes. "We have watched friends get sucked into the tidal wave that is the emotionally manipulative wedding industry -- now totaling $50 billion in sales a year."

Saying the marriage ritual has turned into "a circus of decadence," Martin says, "Not only is the egregious spending offensive in a world where too many have too little, but the meaning of the ritual is all but lost amid the designer dresses and lobster dinners."