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.
Because of this joke:
“Don’t get married- save yourself a lot of aggravation and just find a woman you hate and buy her a house”
“Might be some correlation with the fact that 60% of college graduates are now women, and women want to marry “up.””
Might be that many come with a six-figure bill for a junk degree. Also, i wouldn’t get married these days without running a credit report!
There was a documentary called “Idiocracy” about that.
yep.
And government incentivizes one party to break that contract to the benefit of the one party and the government. The government, and the power brokers behind it, want debt and tax slaves. Divorce is one of the easiest and fastest ways to control them.
Feminism is related, but not a direct cause for the decline of marriages. Feminism didn't free women from the oppression they were told they were under, it freed men from the oppression they didn't know they were under.
A man asks himself, "What's in a marriage that's worth the risks?" That he even has to ask exposes that marriage with the government is not worth the risks.
There’s absolutely nothing in it for us.
Pornography and birth control are symptoms, not causes.
Birth control has been around for thousands of years. And even pornographers get married.
Chicks have, on average, have porked up, tatted up, and woke up?
On the flip side, modern men are no prizes either (for many of the same reasons). Many seem to lack ambition.
My wife thinks this is a conspiracy to reduce the population size. I’d like to think she’s wrong, but I can’t refute it and what is happening is consistent with it.
Also, incredible hostility towards men. Most young women asked if they need men, would say no.
Then when they decide to look for marriage, women in their early 30's feel they have to "settle" which leads to a high divorce rate.
This is nothing more than the Central Government usurping the role of parents, and subsidizing bad behavior. Also, there’s been an indoctrination of our young to believe they are entitled to whatever they wish, and if they don’t get it it’s someone else’s fault.
Sounds like a question from The View panel.
It started with The Pill, totally changed the whole dynamic.
Men are notvafraid of successful women.
But men also don’t care about a woman’s career, in most cases, they’d rather date their secretary (if those are still a thing, these days)
Crazy ppl are easy to lead around by the nose. They even put rings in them to show you they are tools and marks. Hard avoid. No man in his right man wants to sponsor a woman’s dopamine cycling controlled by her cell phone’s social media feed.
Men generally only care about that women care about them and everything that goes with that.
They’re called “administrative assistants” and I’m not sure they do exist anymore, except for maybe the CEO types.
“Another “it’s all men’s fault” default position essay.”
Yes. He even references a similar essay. I wondered whether it would be such when I read the title. For one, young women are much more depressed than young men but he uses a statistic of young people to support his argument.
When society is gleefully, enthusiastically, repetitively, and sending the message that “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” and that men are violent bullies and oppressors, men aren’t going to fight back the way women would.
If the saying was, “A man needs a woman like a fish needs a bicycle”, women would insist, loudly, longly, and unceasingly that they have value, they can contribute, they are worthwhile, and they would never stop. They would organize groups, have chat sessions dedicated to it, blackball people and organizations that say it, organize economic boycotts, chase politicians out of office, take office, implement affirmative action types of policies, set quotas for men and women in jobs, and so on.
When the message is “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” men just say “I know when I am not wanted” and pack up and leave.
Men are programmed not to fight women. Men will simply vacate the area rather than engage in a fight. And it has nothing to do with whether they are right or wrong on a given issue.
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