Executive Summary
A special essay on young, not-yet married men’s attitudes on the timing of marriage finds that men experience few social pressures to marry, gain many of the benefits of marriage by cohabiting with a romantic partner, and are ever more reluctant to commit to marriage in their early adult years.
Available evidence on marriage trends over the past four decades indicates that marriage has declined dramatically as a first living together experience for couples and as a status of parenthood. However, in recent years, there are signs that some marriage-weakening trends are slowing or in some cases leveling off.
Key Findings
The mating and marrying behavior of today’s young single men is a topic of growing interest in the popular culture and among young women. To a large degree, this popular interest reflects the delay in the age of first marriage. Both men and women are putting off marriage until older ages. The median age of first marriage for men has reached 27, the oldest age in the nation’s history. (The median age for women stands at 25.) However, it is men more often than women who are accused of being “commitment phobic” and dragging their feet about marriage. Our investigation of male attitudes indicates that there is evidence to support this popular view.
The men in this study express a desire to marry and have children sometime in their lives, but they are in no hurry. They enjoy their single life and they experience few of the traditional pressures from church, employers or the society that once encouraged men to marry. Moreover, the sexual revolution and the trend toward cohabitation offer them some of the benefits of marriage without its obligations. If this trend continues, it will not be good news for the many young women who hope to marry and bear children before they begin to face problems associated with declining fertility.
The ten reasons why men won’t commit are:
1. They can get sex without marriage more easily than in times past
2. They can enjoy the benefits of having a wife by cohabiting rather than marrying
3. They want to avoid divorce and its financial risks
4. They want to wait until they are older to have children
5. They fear that marriage will require too many changes and compromises
6. They are waiting for the perfect soul mate and she hasn’t yet appeared
7. They face few social pressures to marry
8. They are reluctant to marry a woman who already has children
9. They want to own a house before they get a wife
10. They want to enjoy single life as long as they can