I have a new column this week on OnlySky. It’s about the prospect of marriage going extinct, whether it can be saved, and whether it deserves to be.
Contra the princess fantasies and cottagecore dreams of the wedding-industrial complex, marriage is becoming an endangered species in America. More and more American women are happily single, and fewer girls than ever say that marriage is their aspiration. Even in red states, divorce rates are rising.
The decline in marriage is the direct result of women recognizing that it’s a bad deal for them. All too often, married women end up working outside the home and bringing in an income, while also being expected to run the household, do all the chores and raise the children. The demands of modernity have increased, but the expectations of tradition and culture haven’t decreased to compensate. Top this sexist sundae with the cherry of more-conservative men doubling down on demands to limit women’s autonomy, and it’s no wonder that women are heading for the exits.
The good news is that men can still change this. But it won’t happen through cheap machismo or obnoxious preaching about what God wants. It will only happen when men learn to be better partners, husbands and fathers. Are we up to the challenge?
Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but members of OnlySky also get special benefits, like member-only posts and a subscriber newsletter:
All these factors converge on one result: increasingly, women are finding marriage unappealing. They see it as a ticket to second-class status where they’re expected to subordinate their own lives and dreams to the desires of men.
The data bears this out. According to a new poll, for the first time ever, 12th-grade girls are less likely than 12th-grade boys to say they want to get married. Significantly, the number of boys who aspire to marriage has been unchanged for thirty years, but the girls’ numbers are dropping.
Another poll finds that male conservatives now rate having children and being married as among their top priorities, while for progressive women, both of those have dropped to the bottom of the list.
More and more American women are staying single by choice. According to a Wall Street Journal article reporting on analysis by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, over half of women ages 18 to 40 are single. And they’re happy that way: Pew data suggest only 35% of single women are looking for a relationship, versus 50% for single men.
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