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The single serving can be a lonely thing

Date: 2007-01-24

Marriage, I was telling two single friends the other day, is no cakewalk. You have to share. You have to compromise. You have to bite your tongue.

I know it well because I've done it twice, first when I was very young, and later, after being widowed and single for a few years, when I had just edged past 40. Despite the rough patches — and there are always some of those — I like being married, maybe because I've managed to get hitched to the Right Guy.

Mr. Right or no, marriage isn't as popular as it once was. The sanctified union that used to be the essential building block of society now seems to be headed the way of the low-carb diet: something everyone tries but doesn't stick with long enough.

Here's the latest symptom of a growing malady. For the first time ever, as reported by the New York Times recently, more American women are living without a spouse. That 51 percent is up from 49 percent in 2000 and 35 percent in 1950.

Family life changes

Combine that figure with another trend — in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households — and the portrait of our family life is quite different from the one a generation ago — less paint-by-numbers and more free form.

Reasons abound. Today's women, more educated and with better jobs, are less dependent on men — and their role as breadwinners — to survive. Brookings Institution demographer William Frey explained the shift to the Times this way: " ... the culmination of post-1960 trends, associated with greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women."

Interpretation: Here are the consequences of our choices and, surprise, surprise, not all of them are wonderful. In other words, we may have fulfilling jobs, but we're chronically exhausted. We don't need a guy to pay the bills, but we may be sleeping alone the rest of our lives.

Nonetheless, women, young and old, are making peace with their choices. We're putting off marriage longer or choosing to live with a partner instead of walking down the aisle. Widowed or divorced, we aren't hurrying to pronounce "I do," either.

And really, why should we? There is something very liberating about not having to answer to another adult or, in the case of cohabiting couples, when neither government nor religion meddle with your sleeping arrangements.

But there is also something very lonely about the single serving.

Untold story

For all the hype about independence and lifestyle choices, there is an untold story about women — and men — who, while comfortable in their singlehood, still yearn for a soul mate to have and to hold, in good times and in bad. The women who parade alone and proud may be the same who, in the privacy of their souls, admit that they don't want to be girlfriends (or exes) for life.

This is, by no means, meant to demean those single women who have made an honorable and worthy life on their own. I know many admirable ones, some who have been dear and close friends for decades. Yet, many remain unmarried not because their goal was to stay that way but because, after failed relationships, after boyfriends who did not commit and jobs that demanded too much time, after divorces and trial periods of cohabitation, they ended up with a good life — but no spouse.

Let's be honest here, results are as much about choice as default. How else to explain the dizzying proliferation of online dating sites, the popularity of Bridget Jones' Diary and the success of Sex and the City if not because they reflect a societal need? Sure, we enjoy coming and going as we please, but we also love love.

In any case, most women do eventually marry, so I dare say that, contrary to popular belief, marriage has not entirely gone out of style. Nowadays, though, we've made an old Spanish saying a reality: "Mejor sola que mal acompanada." Better alone than with bad company.





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