Bachelors Agree: Marriage Is Irrelevant

Why is it that when you see an article on single women, it is invariably written by a woman, and when you see an article on single men, it is invariably written by a woman? It’s not surprising that these articles typically regard marriage as normal and bachelorhood as deviant.

The article did nothing to address more pragmatic reasons for staying a bachelor, like the fact that the majority of marriages end in divorce. In the past few decades, divorce proceedings have shown that marriage is (in the eyes of the state) purely an economic union. From my own anecdotal experience, divorce almost always means financial ruin for the ex-husband.

The article also contradicts itself by saying first that “these men are so outnumbered by eligible women that the quest for a perfect mate tends to have endless possibilities,” and a few paragraphs later saying “unmarried men over the age of 50 outnumber unmarried women of the same age 20-to-1 in Southern California.” Which is it? Are we picky slobs in a field ripe with opportunity, or are we a vast mob of self-centered men?

DAVID ARMBRUSTER

Vista