Why aren't women married?

Dear Single Women of NYC: It's Not Them, It's You.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-02-09/news/dear-single-women-of-nyc-it-s-not-them-it-s-you/

Why You're Not Married
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-mcmillan/why-youre-not-married_b_822088.html

An Open Letter to the Women Who Are Telling Me It's My Fault I'm Not Married
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brienne-walsh/an-open-letter-to-the-wom_b_829378.html

Why I'm Not Married
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/22/jessica-ravitz-why-im-not-married_n_826720.html

Rural areas suck for dating or, for that matter, anything the least bit social.

Nobody figures that in.

Come on folks, discuss.

could be the decline of "mature men" in the latest generation...or something
http://www.salon.com/life/gender_roles/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/03/05/manning_up

thx, that was another "argument" I wanted to throw into the mix but couldn't find

these articles are tl;dr

why does women never want to marry?

dearest women of ilx,
i will marry you
one love
ian johnson

I know one more married woman.

it stands to reason that if less women are married, aren't more men single?

WHERE IS A SERIOUS GIRL, WHO REALLY AIMS MARRIAGE?

from the HuffPo article

Probably because for them marriage involves sacrificing their most treasured possession -- a free-agent penis -- and for us, it's the culmination of a princess fantasy so universal, it built Disneyland.

I only know one or two guys who treasure their 'free-agent penis.' Almost everyone I know is more than happy to settle down into monogamous sex - this is going to sound wrong, but then there's a lot less working for it. Fewer STD fears, better sex, all sorts of good things. Relationships are like NFL contracts for the penis - you're going to get an up-front bonus, a little bit of guaranteed money, but you might get cut loose at any time.

i should have restructured and deferred some payments

http://thehairpin.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Picture-12-640x415.jpg

Huh, interesting. No one of the older generation seemed to believe me when I said I felt like I was getting married "early" at 26. I was in fact a couple years below median at the time.

got u motherfuckers beat on the marriage man race, age 22, what up

kinda spooky how constant the distance between the lines remains

i'd like to see an additional line on that graph noting the numbers of folks who remain unmarried, but that might be hard to figure out

men still want younger women, women still want older men on average, i guess

got u motherfuckers beat on the marriage man race, age 22, what up

i did this!

Yeah, the line distance thing is p.amazing - so much social change since the 50s but two-years-older is like 100% rock steady.

That graph is evidence that men are consistently lagging behind women in how quickly they mature, by approx 2.5 years.

I saw some chart last week (that I can't find again) that demonstrated that the average age of marriage was also pretty high in like the 1920s and the 1860s and the point was that it's a number that goes up and down and it's not really valuable to speculate about what makes this moment in time special when really it's a part of a larger historical trend. in 20 years it might be down again

yeah and if yr gonna do any serious speculation you would need more data — incidence of marriage for different age groups rather than just "median age of all ppl getting married"

because they havent met me yet

Huh. I got married five years older than average to a dude three years younger than average. Take that, statistics!

http://m.jezebel.com/5765202/10-more-reasons-youre-not-married

No. Two years younger. Sorry, Jeff, I forgot ow old you were for a second.

Whoops, typo. Meant to say, "Forgot 'ow old you are, luv! Cheers!"

You are confusing me.

kinda spooky how constant the distance between the lines remains

It's because they're all waiting for return missionaries.

Brienne Walsh
Author, 'A Brie Grows In Brooklyn'

that jezebel article is excellent

kinda tempted to change my dn to 'free agent penis'

fap?

i was unmarried into my 30's and nobody ever asked me why i wasn't married. or anything like that. nobody cared. no pressure. you can live with someone for years and nobody expects you to get married. and for men, if there's no pressure, well, they just don't tend to force the issue a lot of the time. they're good.

it used to be kinda thrifty to get married. combine forces. but, jeez, add kids and it's insanely expensive. it just adds up so quickly. it's scary. people are being very sane when they put that off.

rufus does seem to have expensive taste in vinyl

Can't see myself ever getting married, not sure what the point is tbh, but its possible.

don't see marriage as anything more than a legal/financial arrangement, thankfully so does the girl

or so she claims!

I'd marry a bf if it was for something like citizenship or other neccesary legal reasons (in fact I almost did so in 2001)

i've never been completely against the idea, just haven't loved anyone enough yet apparently. wouldn't say never.

was for it when i was younger, in an earlier relationship. Can't see myself ever doing it now. Gf feels the same.

got u motherfuckers beat on the marriage man race, age 22, what up

23 here, just so I, not his mother, could be his legal next of kin. (It's a complicated story--it has to do with the DUI he had in the early Nineties, and I need to tell all of you that story sometime soon.)

*waits patiently*

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/4/

Man why was I so "never get married" upthread? I must have been pissed off at someone haha.

x-post - That article was pretty great.

I wish I had been able to go through that fun, running-around period of being single!

loooooved this article. reading it felt like being in conversation with it, because each tangent threw up its own obvious discussions and caveats - what does marriageable mean!; is wanting a physical-only relationship 'bad'?; is gender parity only economic?, &c - but the overall picture she was painting, & conversation she was starting, was so interesting and cohesive. synapse-firingly great article. there is an interesting q&a w/her at the hairpin, also.

we had one of those, but the handle was less . . . carroty . . . and it never worked that well

Ours was green. I seem to remember it working ok.

I am one of the taller women at work, so I have to get things down/put things back on the shelves.

just finished the article, that was really great

Well! I just read a good bit of the comments to the Atlantic article and wasn't that fun.

― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, October 14, 2011 3:27 PM Bookmark

Sigh, it is depressing, isn't it?

"Every single liberal professional woman I know is actually a dirty GOLDDIGGER"
"Ahem well actually I don't think that's true, I think some women are not..."
"NOPE! WRONG! THEY'RE ALL GOLDDIGGERS!"

guys, never read the comments for anything

that way lies madness

thehairpin.com is the exception! Their comments are amazing! But MODERATED, which is clearly the key here.

guys, never read the comments for anything

that way lies madness

― mookieproof, Friday, October 14, 2011 10:48 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

TRUTH

i really like the hairpin (more than the awl, actually) but i can't keep up. i am glad to hear that the comments are grebt!

i often feel like we at ilx would be better A Dude or A Clean Chick or A Whatever

Nah, our advice would be like "Break up with him yesterday while wearing a top hat." Which is not BAD advice, necessarily, but maybe a little unnecessarily...opaque.

c'mon that is the best advice

you really can't go wrong wearing a top hat.

or skull cap/wimple

haha wimple

never read comments ever is my motto

top hat & nothing else imo.

needs a bow tie too imho

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ee/Zatanna-hughes.png

hey now

i was mostly thinking about ivan tbh :(

pls post ivan pics

ivan ivan ivan

can't go wrong with a tuxedo cat

more cats plz

i was mostly thinking about ivan tbh :(

― bene_gesserit

this screen name makes me want to lift a character from dune for a screen name, like padishah emperor shaddam corrino IV. that one's too clunky, tho.

I read comments for the rubbernecking gold, but otherwise? Ugh.

i still don't have a digital camera, but ivan is doing fine and sats mrrrroow to all of yous!!!!!

where is the cat. ugh.

pen pen is missing??? ivan is sitting in the window.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/68/189834511_ba24ab0b7b.jpg

i can produce.

lol squinty kitty.

post ivan pix pls

i don't has a digital camera!!

Get Ivan to post.

he needs to.

valuable new posters

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/68/189834511_ba24ab0b7b.jpg

catt meo)))

can i increase the gain by kissing the cat's nose?

"Unbelieving women...give up the endeavor [of looking pretty] entirely, which is how we get lumberjack dykes."

http://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/on-why-christian-women-are-prettier.html

Nnnnnnope

omg

brb have to print this and present to herself. send flowers to the grave if you want to commemorate me.

http://39b8jr6a5jm2fnus01ukom6q.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Douglas-Wilson-2.jpeg

I was quite looking forward to becoming angry and offended reading that, but as yet it's hard work getting far enough through it to bother

also I was all "Russia???" but no: Moscow, Idaho. That is less confusing. (things which were probably immediately apparent to American ilxors)

lol I was so confused about that! (Cdn)

I find it so strange how in 2015 people still can't fathom the idea that attractiveness isn't some sort of universal metric we all agree on

But in the course of our dinner, he said to a friend of mine seated near him that he had never seen so many beautiful women as he had here in Moscow.

Russian women are particularly attractive tbf.

they're a very pious people after all

rip darragh

Those women who aren't married aren't married because they either lacked the motive, lacked the means, or lacked the opportunity. There you have it in a nutshell.