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According to the latest statistics, more American women are living without a husband than any time in the recorded past. Which probably means that, for the first time, more men are living without a wife, but since the stories are all written from the husbandless woman perspective, it’s hard to say for sure. On the other hand, as A View from A Broad so excellently puts it, “This time, however, there's no sob stories about how women are desperate to get married, terrorism, and so forth.â€
Shockingly, every woman quoted by The New York Times in yesterday’s front page article on the findings were happy to not be married. No one was wringing her hands about being an old hag, childless and alone forever. The best quotes in the article:
I have not sworn off marriage, but if I do wed, it will be to have a companion with whom I can travel and play parlor games in my old age. – Sheila Jamison, 45
The benefits [of divorce] were completely unforeseen for me… the free time, the amount of time I get to spend with friends, the time I have alone, which I value tremendously, the flexibility in terms of work, travel and cultural events. – Shelley Fidler, 59
Marriage kind of aged me because there weren’t options… [she is now getting a master’s degree, something her former husband] didn’t want me to do because I was more educated than he was. – Elissa Terris, 59
Probably this lack of panic about being husbandless is because the accompanying chart also notes that only 25% of women have never been married. See, even if we don’t currently live with a husband, it’s not automatically because there never was one. In fact, the chart was very revealing. It indicates that 49% of women and 53% of men lived with a spouse in 2005. Other than whether or not they have ever been married in the first place, the biggest differences in whether men and women live with spouses are due to the death of said spouse (9% of women v. only 2% of men were widowed) and divorce (11% of women v. 9% of men). Men tend to remarry more quickly after a divorce. The really interesting fact – 31% of men (versus 25% of women) have never been married – is not discussed in the article at all.
The media coverage I saw finally treated women with dignity on the marriage issue, but as usual, forgot to cover the male angle, as well as non-heterosexual couples. So here’s what I would like to see: is this the first time in history that nearly half (47%) of men are living without a wife? If so, what does that mean for them? Past studies have shown that men derive more benefits from marriage than women. Has that changed over time as well as marriages have changed with the times? What’s up with nearly one-third of men never getting married? How has marriage itself changed under these terms - more freewill to get married than compulsory marriage; second versus first marriages (and are there more of those these days than at any other time in history?)? How has increasing acceptance of homosexual couples impacted the marriage rate between men and women (i.e. – do fewer homosexuals feel compelled to enter into marriages with the opposite sex)? Would more people live with a spouse if gays and lesbians were finally given the legal right to marry?
The fact that women can live fulfilling lives without husbands isn’t necessarily newsworthy at this point, but exploration of these other questions sure would be new news to me.
Suzanne also asks lots of questions at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants
