Why men wait longer to get married

Jet, Sept 30, 2002

Ladies, have you ever wondered why your significant other hasn't popped "the question" yet? According to a recently released study conducted at Rutgers University in Piscataway, NJ, the average male is delaying his first marriage until he reaches 27, the oldest recorded age in the nation's history. The average woman on the other hand tends to marry when she is 25 years old.

So why are men waiting longer to get married?

Researchers of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers conducted focus group discussions with 60 single, heterosexual men of different backgrounds, ranging in age from 25 to 33. The study reveals that the top 10 reasons why men won't commit are:

1. They can get sex without marriage more easily than in times past.

2. They can enjoy the benefits of having a wife by cohabitating rather than marrying.

3. They want to avoid divorce and its financial risks.

4. They want to wait until they are older to have children.

5. They fear that marriage will require too many changes and compromises.

6. They are waiting for the perfect soul mate and she hasn't appeared yet.

7. They face few social pressures to marry.

8. They are reluctant to marry a woman who already has children.

9. They want to own a house before they get a wife.

10. They want to enjoy single life for as long as possible.

William July II, author of Understanding the Tin Man: Why So Many Men Avoid Intimacy, and Brothers, Lust and Love, says that the new study is "right on target" and believes reason number 9 relates to his theory that one of the explanations for why men are waiting longer to get married is that they want to be financially stable first.

"Men feel high pressure to focus on careers and financial stability," he states. "That's directly tied to the belief that men fill the role of provider and protector. Therefore, his number-one mission is often career-based and he builds the rest of his life around it.

"If a man hasn't taken off in his career, or at least feels that he's moving along the path, his self-esteem could be hampered. As a result, he may not feel he is living up to the role of provider/protector and therefore doesn't want to be married."

July, says that his new book What Men Want Women To Know But Can't Tell Them, scheduled for release in December, touches on some of the very topics given in the study. He says that women who read this study will learn a lot about men and how they think.

For instance, July adds that another example of why men are prolonging the walk down the aisle is because of reason number 4, which notes that men don't feel the urgency of the "biological clock" that women do because men are able to reproduce later in life.

"Men have a longer window of opportunity for having children and don't feel compelled by that factor."

Audrey B. Chapman, relationship therapist and author of Getting Good Loving and Mansharing, agrees with the study's detailed findings that the sexual revolution, which corresponds to reason number 1, hasn't exactly benefited women in their search for finding a husband.

"All that stuff that grandma said about `Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?' is true. Women are making it too easy for men. They're giving sex away.

"Now that there's more competition, women think that sex is the ticket to get a man when in fact it's a sure fire way not to get him at all," Chapman reveals.

"When men get lonely, all they have to do is call up one of their many women. And they call the one that they're going to be able to spend the night with."

She says that nowadays it is common for many men to have a variety of women to cater to their various needs, including sex, companionship, conversation and even meals. "Men can get all the comforts they need without making it legal."

Chapman, host of "The Audrey Chapman Show" on radio station WHUR-FM 96.3 out of Washington, D.C., which tackles issues between Black men and women, suggests that the possibility of divorce and a man's fear of responsibility, which relate to reasons number 3 and 5, are valid factors for delaying marriage.

"I've had men say that they don't think marriage works," Chapman says. "They look around at their friends who have married young and their parents and their aunts and uncles and they don't think those people are very happy. Divorce does have an impact on a man's decision."

In her latest book, Seven Attitude Adjustments For Finding A Loving Man, Chapman writes: "Many Black men are not encouraged by the women who raise them to face the consequences of choices that they make. In other words, they are not taught to become responsible adults. These men are usually taken care of as little boys and never told to respond to the needs of others including women's."

She told JET, "I think that the pressure [Black men] feel being raised in female head of households and with very few men in their lives, played a role in the early developmental years (ages 7-15). It plays a big role in their confusion about how they are supposed to relate once they become men themselves and function in relationships with women."