SinglesByChoice.com

Kay Trimberger has written an interesting article on the differences between the Indian and the U.S. women’s movements as it pertains to single women. Trimberger traveled earlier this year to India to attend a Women’s Studies conference in New Delhi. She used that opportunity to find out more about the Indian women’s movement, in particular why it fights for the rights of single women and tries to bring all single women together (”single, deserted and divorced women”). She writes:

Social structural differences in how single women relate to the institution of marriage might help explain why single women have been organized in India and not in the U.S. Yet, two insights I gained into differences between Anglo-American and Hindu culture in regard to marriage and singleness seem to me to best explain why the women’s movement in the U.S. has not yet recognized singleness as a problem.

Trimberger describes two key differences between the two movements:

1. There is no negative cultural image in India. Single women seem to be almost revered as having special powers for voluntarily submitting themselves to sexual abstinence. In contrast, in the U.S., “spinsters” are viewed rather negatively and the women’s movement created the expectation that women can do it all: Have a career, kids, and be married, too.
2. In the U.S., coupledom is portrayed as essential to happiness. Indian women do not face this “cultural legacy.”

Trimberger explains the second point:

Marriage in India is more highly valued, but its purpose is family ties, not coupled happiness. Compatibility between spouses is not linked to finding a soul mate, but is seen as the result of patient work, along with family support. Personal happiness has less cultural significance, and is not linked to being coupled.

India might offer us ways of moving beyond matrimania to a culture that values every individual no matter what their single status. Of course, Indian culture has its own prejudices and certainly the Indian women’s movement is fighting a lot of them. Trimberger mentions several of those issues. But discrimination of singles because of their single status does not seem to be one of them.

Reading Stephanie Coontz’ Marriage, A History is a fascinating journey through time. Coontz’ main argument is that the shift from “yoke mates” to “soul mates” that started in the late 1700s contained the kernel for the demise of marriage. Her historical account also calls into question whether marriage itself is still serving a valuable purpose in our modern world.  It seems to me that it’s time to move beyond the idea of marriage. That seems to be the logical conclusion of the ideas of the Enlightenment and the shift toward the pursuit of individual happiness and equality between all people. It would also accept reality: marriage is an outmoded institution. The cultural trances that are keeping marriage alive are getting onto thinner and thinner ice. Back in college, I took a very interesting class on economics and women. One of the marriage “undermining” developments we discussed was women’s increasing labor force participation throughout the 20th century. Especially once we started to close the pay gap at least a little, women had the earnings to be able to stand on our own and leave dissatisfying marriages. And we did: the divorce rates increased.

Since the economic necessity for marriage is largely gone, the cultural trances have become more subtle, directly playing to the pursuit of happiness idea. We are bombarded with the messages that we would be happier in marriage, that our blood pressure would be lower (at least when we sleep), and that we’d be lonely and miserable if we’re single. Reality, as usual, is different than the cultural trances: Happiness and marriage are not linked and neither is blood pressure. More and more singles speak out that they’re perfectly happy with their lives and feel very fulfilled without a marital partner. That reality - there is happiness outside of intimate relationships - has helped me leave several frustrating and unhappy relationships. I am sure there are many others who made similar calls.  I suspect that it has raised our expectations but also lowered our tolerance for crap in relationships. At the same time, though, healthy singles are happy because their lives are grounded in community and connections with others, some more intimate than others (see Kay Trimberger’s analysis for more information). This seems to point to new ways of relating that could inform intimate relationships: away from the insane focus on the man-woman nucleus (or the homosexual equivalent) to the integration of such relationships into a bigger network of friendships and relationships - building a new form of community. Ironically, this might make those intimate relationships more stable because we no longer expect a “soul mate” who will meet our every need. Of course, it would redefine relationships - again - but hopefully in a more rewarding way than deluding ourselves about marriage.

You’ve no doubt seen the headlines: Marriage keeps your blood pressure low. Well, at least when you’re happy in the marriage. Yet, even with that after-thought qualifier, the media got it wrong (again). Bella DePaulo took the time to actually read the original published article. Here are some of the things she found out:

• There were NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES in blood pressure [ when averaged across the 24 hours of the observational period] between the married people and the single people.
• There were NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES in blood pressure between the married people and the single people during waking hours.
• Married people look better than single people only if you compare reductions in blood pressure when the participants are unconscious [while sleeping].

I wonder what these married people dream about…

The other flaw with the media’s conclusion about this study is, as so often, their usage of a correlational study to explain causation: Even if married people had lower blood pressure than singles, that would not mean that one caused the other. As DePaulo points out, we cannot really scientifically study whether there is a causational effect because that would require an experiment with random assignment of people to the marital and single statuses, which would violate a boat-load of ethical standards. One possible way around this would be to look at longitudinal studies, which follow people for years, or even decades. No one has undertaken such a study about blood pressure yet, though the one study about marriage and happiness clearly disconfirmed the myth that married folks are happier than singles (a draft version of that study is available online).

I am also wondering what the effect of this type of media reporting has on our collective blood pressure. Like DePaulo, blatant singlism like this raises my blood pressure…

Part of choosing to be single included for me a conscious commitment to myself and my life. Too often, my life had been hijacked by a relationship and every time I was left to rebuild my path. Well, actually, sometimes I even had to find that path all over again. I half-heartedly had decided to do this before but ended up in yet another detour relationship. So, I decided that this time, I needed to go out all the way. Sasha Cagan talks about marrying herself in her Quirkyalone book. I didn’t quite feel like having a marriage ceremony but I thought I could steal some ideas. I got a cheap ring to wear on my left hand’s ring finger (after all that’s the commitment finger, isn’t it?). I put the ring on every morning while repeating my vow to live authentic to myself. I also spent some time writing up my mission - really more of a statement of intent of where I’d like to see myself in a few years. I found this rather difficult because I was stuck with the idea that I somehow needed to discover my mission, that somehow I had an inborn mission that I simply needed to uncover. Well, despite reading a lot of self-help books that uncovery seemed to be impossible. It seemed no matter how much, I dug, I couldn’t find my mission. It wasn’t until I read Eric Maisel’s Van Gogh Blues that I realized that I had the option of making my own meaning, of deciding on my mission. That shift - from seeking to making - helped a lot and I was able to move forward with writing a mission statement for myself. In the meantime, I stumbled on a silversmith who engraves rings, among other things. I decided that I was worth the expense and engraved a short version of my vow on a ring, which I now wear on my left ring finger.

I am finding that staying true to myself is a continuous experience - it weaves through everything from what I write about to what books I read and, of course, the people I associate with. But it helps me to feel more grounded. It also helps me to figure out my priorities.

I have since discovered a couple of books that might be helpful for others who would like to create their own commitment: Patricia Lynn Reilly’s Promise Yourself, which actually guides you through developing your own self-commitment vow and Mary Goldenson’s It’s Time, which helped me let go of things and start building my own life rather than waiting for Prince Charming.

The assumption that we grow up only if we follow the culturally prescribed life path and get married in our 20s is pervasive. Bella DePaulo addresses this assumption as Myth #4 in her book “Singled Out.”  Karen Gail Lewis also touches on it when she proposes a new lifestyle model in her book “With or Without a Man.” The current model suggests that adulthood is reached when we get married. What happens if we never marry? Well, we never really become adults. The myth is also perpetuated by the idea that we grow the most when we are with another person. Being single is just so much easier than being in a relationship.

DePaulo eloquently debunks the myth by pointing out, among other things, how the current nuclear family structure has evolved into a sort of care insurance. If we’re married, we feel secure to expect that our partner will care for us if we were to get sick. It is a very unreliable insurance, of course (the divorce rate in couples affected by chronic illness is 75%), but the idea nevertheless undermines the larger community. Family comes first. If any time and money is left over, then, maybe friends can expect some help, and then the neighbors, though they probably come up short. As DePaulo puts it: “we have taken a small set of relationships that deserve to be treasured, and turned them into the only relationships worth valuing at all.” (Singled Out, p. 133). Instead she calls for valuing “our common humanity.”

Singles, on the other hand, if they want to be happy, have to rebuild the community (as Kay Trimberger points out in “The New Single Woman”). They are mature enough to realize that without a community, without many friends,  they might be in trouble if they were to get sick.

So, who is more mature? A married person who assumes that her/his partner is going to take care of them (when many call for a divorce at the sign of a protracted illness) or the single person who surrounds herself/himself with many friends? Maybe it’s my bias but I think community building is more mature than (naive) reliance on one person…