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.
If you are reading my posts it isn’t marriage I’m pushing, it is that these timid males get over their fears and shyness and try to connect to the opposite sex, and quit being so freaking weird and self absorbed with more and more excuses why they won’t approach pretty girls.
I understand your position.
You believe the males lack character. That is why they dont approach women. You seem to believe that no matter the punishment, loss of job and educational opportunities and even years in prison should be no reason for men to.not gumption up and go talk to women, even if it is 99.999% certain that she doesnt walk to talk to yiu.
I am going to keep my job. I am going to stay out of pridon
I am going to stay in school, if I was in school. We dont live in a society where a male can move on with his life, if she says no. He can literally be at lifelong risk of termination these days if hevasks the wrong women for a date. Thevsystem is set up to believe the woman and never believe the man, no matter the evidence.
It is not all women, of course. But youndo not know which woman will do this to you and the system will act against yiu if it turns out she was thevwrong woman.
Like 3 poisoned chocolates in a bowl, guaranteed to kill you. Out of 100 chocolates, with this knowledge, are you going to take a piece?
In logical discussions seeking to reach objective truths, reliance upon cold, hard facts (based on polls, statistics, and high-caliber articles) is to be preferred over personal anecdotes and unsupported assertions ("Men! Be more courageous and approach women more!" / "Regular joes! Be Catholic seminarians!" / "Shorties! Be six feet four inches tall!").
Or are you seriously claiming that, in conducting this discussion, we should not avail ourselves of the best mathematical models and scientific data we can access?
(Admittedly, polls and articles can be biased, so you are at liberty to express skepticism and question, e.g., the polling methods or the authors' ulterior motives - but it's light-years better than reciting stories about how Grandpa courted Grandma back in 1913, or how Catholic homeschoolers in a remote region of Appalachia have higher marriage rates.
Taking recourse to "individuality" may be fine and dandy when having a tête-à-tête with an individual, about his individual problem, with a consideration of his individual situation and backstory, i.e., personal strengths and weaknesses - but it's pointless when engaging in a public debate in an open forum, where the goal is to arrive at universal truths or to solve vast, societal ills.
Jonty30: It isnt the young men you have to fix. It is thevwomen and system.you have to fix.
True! Women are notoriously more "agreeable" (The "A" in "OCEAN" - Dr. Jordan Peterson). They are more susceptible to societal trends, group pressure, fashions, etc. They can hence be more easily swayed, corrupted. Their natural maternal instincts can be more easily sublimated and/or redirected.
In contrast, the male sex drive is pretty resilient.
(Though I'm perfectly willing to entertain an examination of the possible rôle of environmental contaminants in the secular decline in testosterone levels and sperm counts over the past five decades - although that would greatly expand the scope of this discussion so as to become almost unmanageable.)
ansel12: If you are reading my posts it isn’t marriage I’m pushing, it is that these timid males get over their fears and shyness and try to connect to the opposite sex, and quit being so freaking weird and self absorbed with more and more excuses why they won’t approach pretty girls.
...with the ultimate goal of... exactly what?!
Obviously (since this is a conservative, Christian website), with the goal of marriage!
WWI-era sergeant, shouting at his men in the filthy trenches during the Battle of the Somme: "Look, it's not your wholesale slaughter that I'm pushing here! All I want you to do is fix your bayonets and slowly march across this cratered no-man's land towards the enemy position, in the face of intense machine-gun fire and high-explosive fragmentation rounds! Is that so much to ask?"Do you realize how self-contradictory your statements are?
Regards,
Harcourt Fenton Mudd!
He was supposed to be a recurring character, but it didnt wirk out.
I’m not sure that most men fear rejection itself; it is painful, but relatively easy to handle for most of us. What we fear is weaponized rejection (online humiliation, gratuitous sexual harassment complaints and restraining orders, rejections so “nuclear” that a man does not dare show his face in the same venue again, etc.). Nowadays, in certain circumstances, a perfectly fine approach can cost a man his job.
Your post is so unrelated to mine that it is just too nutty.
I’m speaking to these neurotic men as individuals, start talking to females, and as far as marriage, they can worry about that later, right now my message to them is to start talking to females, interact with humans.
Reading your convoluted rambling posts and their total lack of comprehension and their melodramatic heavy handedness and bizarre contradictions and hypocrisy explains how you got yourself to the state you are in.
Yeah, that is a tough one but life is full of risk, and one has to have relationships with the female sex, to avoid it is mental illness, the normal people in life are still dating each other and partying with each other and even marrying each other, some of these guys need to get out of their own heads and long list of fears and collection of negative articles, and participate in life, put one foot in front of the other, approach that girl.
Isolation and porn is not the replacement for the real life minefields of living and romance, and love, and the joy and rewards of companionship, God wants it, you only have one life, live it as fully as you can, or at least try to be normal enough to want to meet women.
The "male" in western world has allowed himself to become a weak and cowardly creature. Rather than "Bead Winners", we have become bedwetters...
Neurotic, really.
I think you are not familiar with what has been happening.
“The total fertility rate in the US is now projected to be 1.58 births per woman in 2025, down from 2.12 in 2007, according to the latest Congressional Budget Office report.”
Because the elites are attacking all things needed to reproduce because they want to limit the human population to 500 million.
Of course I’m familiar with it, I just think hiding behind a screen full of porn and becoming more and more twisted, isn’t the answer.
I am aware. But women dont want to reverse it. In my view, we have switched things around on women. They should be having children in their twenties. Then, when the kidscstartnseparating themselves to establish their own identities, that is when a woman can start working. My position is taking into account their biology.
The way wevare doing it now, we are minimizing the opportunity for women to have children. Because even at 32 years, it is quite the drop in fertility from when shecwas in her twenties. Not to mention increased health issues from being an older parent.
Neither is the almost certain destruction for the male who marries in today’s environment.
My position is that unmarried males should not concern themselves with marriagecand get on with their lives. They will not miss what isnt posdibke fir them for the first half of their adult lives.
Increased autism when mother gives birth at a later age ...
“”” They will not miss what isnt posdibke fir them for the first half of their adult lives.”””
What does that mean? What isn’t possible for them, and what does the first half of their adult lives mean?
Why buy a cow when milk is present everywhere for free?
Yeah, only the top 20% of males are considered acceptablefor married in the 20’s. The rest havecto wait for their turn when the woman’s intersection of getting attention and beingbdesired gets recalibrated in her 30’s. A man will be 35 years and his importance to her will be in the back, behind whatever children and her pets.
Right, as well as asthma and other health issues including how much nutrition will be given to the unborn child during gestation.
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.