No Date this Valentine’s Day? You’re not alone studies say.
At one point in time a little girl’s fantasies may have chiefly consisted of planning every last detail of her future wedding. She may have agonized over the choice of gown or hairstyle and spent hours analyzing the exact color scheme that would best match her complexion. Of course those were the days when a woman’s top priority was finding a mate. Now, however, more and more women are choosing the single life.
A 2013 study conducted by Bowling Green State University’s National Center for Marriage and Family Research found that the marriage rate in the U.S. is the lowest it has been in more than a century and down 60 percent from the 1970s. A Pew Research Center study echoes these results; barely half of adults in America are married, a momentously low fraction. Single adult women are a demographic to be reckoned with. The spinster label of centuries past that plagued any lady lacking a ring has been turned on its head. Women are enjoying life, their careers, families, and friends, without the looming pressure of securing a husband.
Political giants are aware of this modern trend and some have even voiced distaste for it. Conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh goes so far as to blame unmarried mothers for the problems of taxpayers saying, “They don’t pay their child support; we will. They don’t pay your prenatal, your postnatal; we will.”
Limbaugh is not along in his opinion. Comedian Steve Harvey has a perspective straight out of the dark ages. In a statement to women from the monthly magazine Essence, he suggested single women stop looking for a mate, a task he deems against a women’s nature, and settle for the men that come to them first.
So what exactly causes the anxiety expressed by individuals like Harvey and Limbaugh? Perhaps it is because the recent shift in marital status among women signifies a great turning in society; something that is unwelcomed and even seen as a threat to extreme conservatives.
Change has always been a source of discomfort to those unprepared for it. American history is nothing but change, however, and those unfamiliar with that notion had better become accustomed to it fast because, like it or not, more and more women are staying single and embracing their independence. So if your Valentines Day plans this year consist of Netflix and take-out, don’t feel bad; you’re one in a movement of women embracing life with no strings attached.