According to the old cliché, in many communities there is no place for the bachelor or for the single woman except as an extra man at a dinner party or as a baby-sitter for married relatives. It is also popularly assumed that men and women who do not marry will be lonely, unhappy, and thwarted in their normal desires for sex, parenthood, affection from an admired member of the opposite sex, and the prestige that marriage and family living provide. Furthermore, because early adulthood is a lonely time during which radical adjustments must be made in every area of life, many adults feel the marriage will help them to make these adjustments.
There is no question about the fact that in a culture in which marriage is the normal pattern for adult life, most adults want to marry and come under strong pressure from parents and peers to do so. During their twenties, the goal of most unmarried women, whether working or not, is marriage. If they have not married by the time they reach their thirtieth birthdays, they tend to shift their goals and values toward a new lifestyle oriented toward work, success, and personal pleasures.
Thirty has been called a “critical age” for an unmarried woman. As Campbell has put it, “For women, age thirty is still the Great Divide”. The reason for this is still unmarried. This stress usually reaches a peak at thirty and then gradually decreases as she makes adjustments to new goals and a new pattern of living. For many women, a desire for marriage and a family decrease after thirty as they realize they are not likely to achieve their goals. Furthermore, many become disillusioned with the thought of marriage as they see the unhappy and unfavourable experiences of some of their contemporaries.
How women feel about being unmarried varies according to the communities in which they live. Those who live in rural, small-town, or suburban areas are far more handicapped by singlehood than are those who live in urban areas. As one young women put it, “I would never live single in the suburbs again. It’s deadly boring, and people make you feel as though you should apologize for being single.”
Single men do not, as a rule, experience the stress that single women do. They know that if they want to marry they can do so. Many men remain single throughout their twenties or even thirties because they want to enjoy the freedom of singlehood of because they want to devote their time and energy to becoming established in their careers. Some may have obligations to parents or they may be conditioned against marriage by unpleasant family conditions or by the experiences of their friends. This conditioning may even start in childhood.
Reasons for Singlehood
Whether voluntary or involuntary, most unmarried adults have what they regard as valid reasons for remaining single. Some of these are environmental in origin and some are personal. The most common reasons are these:
Reasons Why Young Adults Remain Single
- An unattractive or sex-inappropriate appearance
- An incapacitating physical defect or prolonged illness
- Lack of success in the search for a mate
- Unwillingness to assume the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood
- A desire to pursue a career that requires working long and irregular hours or much traveling
- Residence in a community where the sex ratio is unbalanced
- Lack of opportunity to meet eligible members of the opposite sex
- Lack of opportunity to meet eligible members of opposite sex
- Responsibilities for aging parents or younger siblings
- Disillusionment as a result of unhappy earlier family experiences or unhappy marital experiences of friends
- Sexual availability without marriage
- An exciting lifestyle
- Opportunity to rise on the vocational ladder
- Freedom to change and experiment in work and lifestyle
- Belief that social mobility is easier when single than married
- Strong and satisfying friendships with members of the same sex
- Homosexuality
While reasons for remaining single may hold for any time during adulthood, for the most part they are likely to affect behaviour only during the twenties. After that, the reasons are either modified or changed. A man, for example, who remained single during his twenties because he felt he had financial obligations to care for elderly parents or to help educate younger brothers and sisters, may now be in a financial position to both carry out such obligations and to marry. Or, a woman who elected not to marry because of a strong drive to rise in her chosen career, may now decide that she can combine marriage with her career and still rise on the vocational ladder.
Effects of Singlehood
Not all unmarried women, by any means, are willing to resign themselves to being single, nor are they all willing to allow themselves to be lonely because of lack of companionship with members of the opposite sex. They may become active in church and community-service or social organizations where they will come in contact with members of both sexes; they may join clubs where members of both sexes engage in various sports or social activities; they may spend their vacations at places where they are likely to meet eligible men; or they may become part of a commune of single men and women and cohabit with men they like but whom, at the present, they either do not want to marry or who do not want to marry them.
It is usually easier for a man to adjust to being single than for a woman. A single man is in great social demand and has little time to feel lonely. Furthermore, unless he is single because of responsibilities for family members, he is usually financially able to pursue a pattern of life that is to his liking.
Finding a satisfactory outlet for the sex drive, which is especially strong during early adulthood, is the most difficult problem the unmarried person faces. The unmarried man usually finds sexual gratification either by engaging in autoerotic practices or by having intercourse with women of his acquaintance or with prostitutes. Although women, like men, engage in autoerotic practices, they have less opportunity for sexual encounters, which are still not condoned for women in all segments of society, and they must always face the possibility of pregnancy. However, with the growing trend toward cohabitation, many young women who are single and feel sexually thwarted move to areas, such as large cities, where unconventional behaviour will be unacknowledged or uncriticised. And, with improved methods of contraception and the legalization of abortion, the single woman who becomes pregnant and does not want to marry the father of her child or he, for one reason or another, does not want to or cannot marry her, can submit to an abortion and thus eliminate the social stigma that is still attached to illegitimacy.
