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Married at 25: Chloe Rhodes
As of yesterday, I am officially part of a minority group: married women. And, as my wedding took place three months after my 25th birthday, it seems I am even more of an oddity, because for twentysomethings, marriage is apparently going out of fashion.
But though this survey has me down as a bit of a freak, yesterday's statistics are not as clear cut as they look – the numbers of ''single" women include divorcées, widows and those who may be planning to marry, as well as those who never have.
What is clear though is that women are waiting longer before they make that step. In the early Seventies, 85 per cent of women were married by the time they were 30, now, fewer that one woman in three is married by that age.
And yet, I can't think of a single friend who would choose to remain unmarried once they had found the right partner. My girlfriends were thrilled when I told them I was engaged and when we talk about the prospect of their getting married, they unfalteringly use the word when, not if.
In my experience, women in their twenties are just as eager to get down the aisle as their grandmothers were – and because we are so utterly free from the social pressures that forced them into marriage, we often do it for better reasons.
When I decided to get married there had been no disapproving relatives muttering about the perils of living in sin. If fact, our parents thought we'd been sensible to wait until we'd lived together before we tied the knot. I'm not religious so I didn't have to worry about being made an honest woman and I certainly didn't marry to guarantee financial security. I loved the idea of getting married partly because I knew I didn't have to.
In fact, social expectations seem to have swung so far away from tradition that when I tell people in their thirties that I'm married, they seem to find it as shocking as their great-grandparents would have found an illegitimate child. But my friends have watched the Bridget Jones generation stay single – and we've decided we don't need to do the same.
The fact is – for me, being married is wonderful. I had been with my boyfriend for 11 years by the time we made our vows; I knew, absolutely, that he was the man for me and marrying him felt like a natural rite of passage.
I have given away none of my freedoms in exchange for the ring on my finger, I am financially independent (though he does tend to buy the drinks), I have a career that I love and I have just as many girly nights out as I always have done.
Had I been born in a time when marriage would have made me the property of my husband, or diminished my status as an individual, I would certainly have felt compelled to take a stand against it – and I like to think I would have remained a spinster as a gesture of defiance.
There are plenty of institutions that are still bastions of male privilege, but marriage isn't one of them. And when you strip away all the outdated bad bits, all that's left is a celebration of love between two people and a declaration of devotion to each other.
I didn't get married for security or a sign of commitment, I had those things already. My husband and I don't need to be married at all, the beauty of it is – we just want to be.
Unmarried at 39: Julia Stephenson
I’ve been married and I’ve been single – and I know which side of the fence I’d rather be on.
It’s no surprise to me that the Office for National Statistics has revealed that there are more single, divorced and widowed women than wives in England and Wales. But how times have changed since I got married at the age of 24. That was 15 years ago.
I was longing for a ring on my finger, and most of my girlfriends were gasping to wed, too. We believed marriage would be a guarantee of security, commitment and unconditional love.
How wrong we were! Let my tale be a warning to any Bridget Jones pining for Mr Right. I married my first boyfriend, a steady, dependable accountant, and moved out of the chaotic London home I shared with two girlfriends, to a large house in the countryside.
I’m a city girl, but for some bizarre reason I thought it would be great to move to the middle of a dank wood and grow vegetables. As my vegetables wilted and died in the acid soil, so did my marriage.
Yet I felt compelled to become a domestic goddess – and was sucked into the competitive dinner party circuit with my husband’s golfing cronies and their gym-honed wives.
I would spend days preparing these feasts. Most people think that the Galloping Gourmet – the Seventies cookery writer famous for his extravagant creamy recipes – is dead, but let me tell you, his candle was still burning brightly in the Surrey suburbs then.
As it was, I very soon realised I was Married Alive. I really tried to make it work for, um, six months. Then I went blonde with grief and bolted back to the big smoke.
My thwarted husband was enraged but finally (oh bliss!) the decree nisi was signed and I was free.
There followed a wonderful time of excitable and highly unsuitable living. If you don’t get all this out of your system before you marry – which I didn’t – you’ll spend your days at the kitchen sink fantasising about what you’re missing out on.
This is why girls must wait until they are very old before they settle down, so they are sure of what they want. After all, who in their right mind wants security in their twenties? This is a time for feckless fun, binge drinking and unsuitable boyfriends.
As for commitment, what a terrible word it is – she was committed to the lunatic asylum; she committed murder. (And if you’re gasping for unconditional love buy a dog.)
I don’t regret being married. If I hadn’t experienced it, I would still be dreaming of my big day, the hideous meringue I was going to wear – and no doubt scaring all the single men in the vicinity to death with my longing to settle down.
My life since my divorce has had its ups and downs, but barely a day goes by without me relishing my freedom.
I have no desire for children, or to marry again. Instead I’m free to write novels and articles and pursue my environmental interests.
I’m dating a wonderful man who has no interest in getting married. And having no legal tie makes us behave better and not take one another for granted (well, in theory anyway). It’s wonderful to have love, satisfaction and security in your life – but you don’t need to be married for that.
We have the zing without the ring.
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