The Christian Science Monitor reports on the comback of the couple. Teresa Mendez writes (excerpt):
Despite rising numbers of singles, Ms. DePaulo says her studies underscore the stigma long associated with singledom. Single people are seen as sadder, lonelier, and less mature than their coupled counterparts. And as sad, lonely, and immature as young singles may seem, she says, the 40-year-old single appears even more pitiful.
“I think it’s fine to be single until you’re 35, but then you’re supposed to be coupled,” says Kay Trimberger, a professor of women’s and gender studies at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif., who studies the lives of single women. “For anybody over 35, the message is still pretty heavy that there’s something wrong with you.”
Elayne Rapping, professor of women’s and media studies at the University at Buffalo in New York, disagrees with the idea that America is becoming a society that accepts singles. She senses a return to matrimony – “big marriage, big wedding, the big gown, and the diamond ring.”
“There are more single people than ever before, but culturally those people are not happy,” she says. “The idea that it’s a great way to live is not what I see being true.”
****
Men feel the pressure, too, experts say, although maybe not as intensely as women.
“The key difference is that as a culture we’ve always had a story for the value of what men can do during a marriage delay,” says Ethan Watters, author of “Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment.”
“There’s been a story for the meaning of what a man can do outside marriage and that is usually to establish himself as a full-fledged person, a successful man.”