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Why Men Aren’t Marrying
Epoch Times ^ | 09/16/2026 | Timothy S. Goeglein

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.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: bachelors; marriage; men; single
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To: T.B. Yoits

Your rage is confusing you, you keep quoting my post about Marines marrying and you keep calling those women “not marriage material.”, repeatedly.

To: ansel12
——”Yep, My guess is that the young Marine males are still talking to females and dating them and getting married to females.”——

The Marines, more than most, know that these women are not marriage material.

287 posted on 9/19/2026, 5:11:51 PM by T.B. Yoits


301 posted on 09/19/2026 5:31:28 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: ansel12
Your rage is confusing you, you keep quoting my post about Marines marrying and you keep calling those women “not marriage material.”, repeatedly.

Rage? The sheer arrogance of you to define anything of mine.

You posted that Marines are marrying these women, but posted nothing to substantiate that.

And these women are not marriage material. Don't take my word for it. Simply take a look at the stats of how many men are unwilling to marry them. These men aren't "afraid" and aren't walking away from prizes.

302 posted on 09/19/2026 5:41:59 PM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: T.B. Yoits

Crazier and crazier, for some reason you think that Marines don’t marry and that their girlfriends, wives, and fiancés are all something low and unworthy in your woman hating mind, unworthy of marriage.


303 posted on 09/19/2026 5:50:14 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: ansel12

Turn off your porn, talk to women, tell them some jokes, get to know some, it will result in a better quality of life, perhaps some romance, maybe falling in love, and perhaps even marriage and a family.

..........

Following you on this thread.

You are mis informed.

Work with men. See them and the social traps that are set against them.

Men who are swatted by their wives and lost houses families and commissions and jobs.

Men who have been asked to leave by wives, who talks to her then are called back for reconciliation. Then the police are called and allegations of abuse.. yes she punched herself... and lost children and house.

Girlfriend vwho has fight with man. She leaves his house and She stops at police station and says he is armed and dangerous. Arrested with the press She called present and he loses prestigious job and everything else.

Woman egges on husband he lashed out and is arrested for dv. When released he suicides in car. She has house kids and marrys her girlfriend.

Wife walks out on husband and leaves him with 3 under ten to go off with boyfriend. Husband retrenches to manage kids and less income. Wife comes back for kids and half of everything. And wins.

I could go on. These are some local stories... details changed to protect the innocent.

Don’t marry young man. In this world I recommend having several kids with surrogates if you have the money. The Musk approach.


304 posted on 09/19/2026 5:51:39 PM PDT by Chickensoup
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To: ansel12
Crazier and crazier, for some reason you think that Marines don’t marry and that their girlfriends, wives, and fiancés are all something low and unworthy in your woman hating mind, unworthy of marriage.

Crazy? That's your opinion.

Woman-hating? That's also your opinion.

And go pull the AWALT card on someone else. I never used it. Your misandry is showing.


As for Marines - you threw that out there, a sad attempt to use the "True Scotsman" fallacy.

305 posted on 09/19/2026 5:55:00 PM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: Chickensoup

I’m not misinformed, I can match the guys story for story, I know the score and if you have been reading my posts then you know that it is the woman hating incels that I am addressing, not those simply discussing feminism, divorce laws, and the minefields of modern sex relations, it is the woman hating crazys, the woman hating latent homosexuals that I am confronting, the neurotic sickos.


306 posted on 09/19/2026 5:58:50 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: ansel12

Do you know that women have websites where they supposedly are warning each other of bad dates? Where they chime in and destroy male reputations.

Women are lethal and vicious.

Women who do not attract a man’s attention will get on the site and lie about him. To get him back for his disinterest.


307 posted on 09/19/2026 5:58:58 PM PDT by Chickensoup
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To: T.B. Yoits

Who knows what an awalt card is, but the Marine post was relevant and made a point about normal people, and has thrown you into a confused rage fit.

To: T.B. Yoits
LOL, sure, hiding away with porn and self love is fixing them and society, thank God the majority of people are still interacting and dating.
My guess is that the young Marine males are still talking to females and dating them.
269 posted on 9/19/2026, 1:40:27 PM by ansel12


308 posted on 09/19/2026 6:03:27 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: Chickensoup

Do you agree with these timid incels that the answer is to end marriage and families, avoid women and sit at home and watch porn instead?

Have you been reading the nuttiness on this thread?


309 posted on 09/19/2026 6:05:22 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: ansel12
...has thrown you into a confused rage fit.

The sheer arrogance of you. Now you're an expert?

Confusion? There's no confusion on my part but apparently on yours.

And if you think any of this is rage, you belong with the snowflakes on Democrat Underground.

310 posted on 09/19/2026 6:09:01 PM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: T.B. Yoits

No, you have post after post of confusion, especially noticeable about the Marines.


311 posted on 09/19/2026 6:12:38 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: ansel12

I do not think any men should marry without a bulletproof pre nup. You talk about incels.

What I see are badly burnt men who throw themselves into raising their children if they have them and into their businesses fitness and sports.. Trades and truckers middle management brewers they don’t date.

Sometimes they suicide.


312 posted on 09/19/2026 6:13:03 PM PDT by Chickensoup
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To: ansel12
Who knows what an awalt card is...

You're exposing that you're not even in the minor leagues of any discussion related to men and marriage.

And that you have no clue about online censorship by leftist korporations where AWALT will get you censored so NAWALT is used instead.

313 posted on 09/19/2026 6:13:22 PM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: ansel12
No, you have post after post of confusion, especially noticeable about the Marines.

The posts are not confusing. You're confused. There's a world of a difference.



314 posted on 09/19/2026 6:15:42 PM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: T.B. Yoits

Sure, Marines don’t marry, and their girlfriends, wives and fiancés are too low to be marriage material, you have to be very confused to be posting the things you have been posting.


315 posted on 09/19/2026 6:19:37 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: ansel12
Sure, Marines don’t marry, and their girlfriends, wives and fiancés are too low to be marriage material, you have to be very confused to be posting the things you have been posting.

???

According to you, with no substantiation, Marines are not part of the trend of fewer men marrying. There is nothing in the articles that say that.

As for my comment that Marines would know about marriage, the military divorce rate is already significantly higher than the civilian divorce rate, and in the Marine Corps in particular as of 2019, the divorce rate among female Marines (7%) is close to triple that of male Marines (2.5%).

The interwebs are full of deployed military members discovering their girlfriends, fiances, and wives were cheating on them while deployed. But you go on insisting that you know that Marines are are bucking the decline in men marrying, and are wifing and re-wifing the same women up.

316 posted on 09/19/2026 6:48:57 PM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: T.B. Yoits

This is just too crazy, your mind is mush.

I keep posting “that the young Marine males are still talking to females and dating them and getting married to females.”

and you keep saying no they aren’t, and you add this total lie you claim I posted.
“According to you, with no substantiation, Marines are not part of the trend of fewer men marrying.”

and made up this lie that I don’t even know what it means.

“you go on insisting that you know that Marines are are bucking the decline in men marrying, and are wifing and re-wifing the same women up.”


317 posted on 09/19/2026 7:10:08 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: ansel12
This is just too crazy, your mind is mush.

"A woman's complaint is her confession." - Alexander Grace

318 posted on 09/19/2026 7:17:52 PM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: T.B. Yoits

Another ridiculous post.


319 posted on 09/19/2026 7:21:33 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: ansel12; MinorityRepublican; rollo tomasi; Jonty30
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.

And just what "state" would that be, hmm?

And as for any "bizarre contradictions" or "hypocrisy" you claim my posts contain: You are free to cite specific examples and refute them / hold them up to public scrutiny and shaming!

No, didn't think you could!

Nor are my posts "convoluted ramblings." Rather, I generally dissect the previous post I am replying to and quote bite-sized chunks - each of which I then proceed to individually destroy, using Aristotelean Logic. My posts then perforce evince a certain degree of complexity - which I'll gladly concede some forum members like yourself might find... shall we say: daunting?

Regards,

320 posted on 09/20/2026 4:06:35 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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