Posted on 09/16/2026 9:48:38 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) recently estimated that the gap between unmarried and married men under the age of 40 continues to widen—with 15 million more bachelors than husbands between the ages of 20 to 39 in 2025.
The gap has widened by 12.4 million since 2000, when the gap between married and unmarried stood at 2.6 million.
IFS also reports, according to a General Social Survey, 11 percent of young adults in the early 2000s said they were “not too happy.” That percentage is now at 26 percent. During the same period, the number of married men ages 20–39 dropped by 15 percent.
Leading the unhappiness charge are single men, who are either postponing or rejecting marriage, or not perceived as a suitable marriage partner by single women because of various societal changes.
This is a serious problem for American society.
In his book, “Men and Marriage,” (an expanded edition of his 1973 work “Sexual Suicide”) George Gilder wrote: “Men lust, but they don’t know what for; they wander, and lose track of the goal; they fight and compete, but they forget the prize; they spread seed but spurn the seasons of growth; they chase power and glory but miss the meaning of life.”
Brad Wilcox of IFS agrees with Gilder: “Such men are more likely to be lonely, prone to deaths of despair and unhappy. It’s never good for a society to have large numbers of unattached, dispirited, and unhappy young men.”
A Wall Street Journal article from last year titled, “American Women are Giving Up on Marriage,” touches on several reasons why women are not getting married—whether it be trouble finding a suitable man or choosing a career over marriage.
Disillusioned with the current state of what they perceive to be suitable and available men, they say they are more content with singleness than their male counterparts. A commonly heard complaint is that in their search of a suitable man to marry, they are only finding a world of “man-children.”
So, why has this happened? Why are there so many unmarried young men and why are women having a hard time finding a suitable partner in what would seemingly be an abundant harvest?
First, many of these young men have no idea of what it takes to be a husband or father because they had no one to model that for them. This is just another symptom of the breakdown of the family, a culture of divorce, and a society that has economically awarded single parent families while placing financial burdens on traditional two-parent families.
Secondly, especially among working class men, the jobs that would have traditionally provided for a family have either not kept up with inflation, or in some cases, simply disappeared. In addition, our educational system is no longer providing the needed training for these men to enter the workplace and succeed. Meanwhile, the number of men attending college, the ticket to good paying and stable jobs, continues to decrease.
Finally, numerous voices in our culture have sent a message that women can succeed without having a husband—“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” as the saying goes. But when men are not marrying, there is a ripple effect that impacts all aspects of our society.
For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the percentage of children born outside of marriage has risen from 33.2 percent of all live births in 2000 to 39.5 percent in 2024. This means a much higher percentage of young people are growing up in single parent households. And single parent households are often more dependent upon government assistance, with boys who grow up without a father often ending up failing socially and economically.
Those numbers also indicate that we’re hurtling toward a demographic disaster. Married couples not only provide a nurturing environment for children but also are more likely to have children.
It is not that young men have given up on marriage. Pew Research reported in 2023 that 74 percent of teenage boys want to be married someday. The problem is that many have no internal road map or GPS to help them get there.
As a society, we need to equip these young men with the skills, personal discipline, and sense of purpose to make them “marriage material.” It is a time for us, as a society, to return to a time when men have purpose—to be faithful husbands, loving fathers, and good providers.
This is going to be a long process, and it will require a long-term societal investment in affirming healthy, traditional two-parent families with engaged fathers who model such discipline and purpose to their sons. Boys do not have a choice when it comes to the families they are born into, but adults can make the right choices to help them flourish and thrive.
Men, women, and our society will be much better off as a result.
I’m admittedly not good with women myself, but one thing is for sure: I’d rather have a live woman who burps, farts, gets emotional (but hopefully not too many “headaches”), rather than a sex-bot or pornography. I’ve met enough of them not to desire a substitute, even if they do seem mean at times.
The Wall is undefeated.
You are correct. I am trying to remove myself from that self-discouraging mindset as well.
The “fart barrier” is the unspoken milestone in a romantic relationship when a couple becomes comfortable enough to pass gas in front of each other.
The Timeline
2 to 6 Months: Surveys (such as one widely cited from Mic) show that about 29% of people feel comfortable breaking the barrier during this window—often around the same time they first say “I love you”.
6 Months to a Year: Roughly 25% wait between six months and a full year to let go of the inhibition.
Under a Few Weeks: About 20% of people don’t sweat it and let one loose almost immediately.
Never: A small percentage (around 7% to 9%) maintain strict decorum or actively hide it for years, if ever.
Weird post that has nothing to do with my posts, a couple of you guys are outing yourselves as oddballs, neurotics, high strung complainers and victim whiners, the kind of guys who most turn off women.
You have to, pursuing women takes big balls, courage to walk across that room in front of everyone, and women notice that, combine it with a likable guy who really likes women and finds them interesting, and that will be a guy who starts finding himself running into occasional successes, and finding that some females are starting to strike up conversations with him.
Are young women capable of a conversation? I mean with a live person.
So many young women seem glued to their smart phones, checking their social media.
I understand discussions on divorce laws, on females and politics, females in the military, conversations about the female sex in general, but these threads always reveal some guys who just don’t like women and are bitter, bitter, bitter, about a sex that they don’t understand and aren’t really curious about or interested in, and who are certainly not fascinated and intrigued by, which is the timeless natural state of a healthy male.
>>I understand discussions on divorce laws, on females and politics, females in the military, conversations about the female sex in general, but these threads always reveal some guys who just don’t like women and are bitter, bitter, bitter, about a sex that they don’t understand and aren’t really curious about or interested in, and who are certainly not fascinated and intrigued by, which is the timeless natural state of a healthy male.
************************************************************************
Beautifully articulated. Thank you.
“””””Are young women capable of a conversation? I mean with a live person.
So many young women seem glued to their smart phones, checking their social media.”””””
There is no replacement for a real live woman, young males need to learn how to get them, and step number one is, walk across that room and strike up a conversation.
>>o according to you, today’s state of affairs with our epidemic of broken families, single mothers, etc is entirely the fault of “loser men”, with women never guilty of any wrong-doing and never having any individual or collective responsibility for their behavior and actions?
*************************************************************************
You do raise a very valid point as well, ek. Thank you.
Not valid to any of my posts, and he made up that ridiculous and dishonest fake position for me.
“I understand discussions on divorce laws, on females and politics, females in the military, conversations about the female sex in general, but these threads always reveal some guys who just don’t like women and are bitter, bitter, bitter, about a sex that they don’t understand and aren’t really curious about or interested in, and who are certainly not fascinated and intrigued by, which is the timeless natural state of a healthy male.”
Meaning no disrespect, but this is your fantasy. I take this to read you feel entitled for men to interact with women like they are a god, which they are not. The Bible is clear that women were created to keep men from being lonely and it is not good for man to be alone. Both men and women are to be “curious about or interested in...fascinated and intrigued by”...God...”which is (their) timeless natural state”.
You get to decide what you believe. But your post strikes me as classic female self centeredness and manipulation.
What the hell are you talking about?
LOL, you guys and your total lack of comprehension, it is amazing the things you guys come up with.
That’s about what I expected in response.
Of course, you probably hear it a lot.
College is no longer a guarantee of of good paying employment. A lot of untruths in the article, and a few gems.
The article also concludes, from my quick read, that men have to change - but not women.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.