In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000. Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.
Bold emphasis is mine. The evidence is clear that divorced men are more willing to remarry, and I find that fascinating. (Lord knows, I've contributed to that statistic!) For years, we've heard that marriage tends to benefit men more than women; the old saying was that single women lived longer than married women, but married men lived longer than single ones. (No doubt someone can point to census bureau statistics to tell me if that remains true in this country.) But real benefits and perceived benefits are not always the same thing, and the greater willingness of men to remarry after a divorce fascinates me.
I suspect that one reason that men are more likely to remarry is, frankly, the distribution of household labor. In a world where women are still doing the ¡°second shift¡± of housework on top of their jobs, it would make sense that a newly divorced woman would be extremely reluctant to walk right back into the same sort of situation from which she just extricated herself. On the other hand, a newly single man trying to sort out the mysteries of shopping and laundry might well be eager to find a new partner to share the burden of keeping him dressed and fed. One would have thought we'd be past this by now, that modern egalitarian marriages would involve equal amounts of effort and labor, both in and out of the home, by both partners. But the striking statistical eagerness of divorced men to remarry, and the equally striking statistical eagerness of many divorced women not to do so, suggests that things may not have improved as much as we would like.
But I think there's more to this than housework. I'm going to catch it from all sides for saying this, but I'm convinced that one reason that so many divorced women are so reluctant to remarry (and so many women unwilling to marry in the first place) is that frankly, marriage doesn't seem to be a very appealing deal for most women. And one of the reasons why marriage seems unappealing is that the sacrifices of marriage are many, and the benefits increasingly few ¡ª especially considering that an extraordinary number of men may not be worth marrying!
Mind you, I'm aware that saying ¡°more women would surely marry if more men were worth the trouble¡± has anti-feminist implications. I'm wary of revisiting the problematic thesis that feminism is rooted in a profound disappointment in men. But surely, the reluctance of so many women to marry or remarry might also have something to do with the men they are choosing not to wed! No, it's not all about men; there are many outstanding reasons not to marry that have nothing to do with the caliber of available husbands. But surely, there are many women who are unmarried who might consider marriage if they met the right man, but for whatever reason, don't seem to be finding him. ...
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http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2007/01/16/why...
Posted By: Jen Fad
Saturday, May 12th 2012 at 10:32PM
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