The Systematic Disadvantaging of Single People and How It is Denied

What’s wrong with claims that married people are doing better and singles are not treated unfairly?

Photo by Taylor on Unsplash

I just had the great good fortune of participating in an hour-long show that will air on many NPR stations, probably in July. The show is Open to Debate, moderated by John Donvan, and “Married or single?” was the topic.

As I challenged the deficit narratives of single life, I pointed to the whole system of inequality that advantages married people and disadvantages single people. The next day, on X (Twitter), my debate opponent, Jonathan Rothwell, posted this:

I agree that single people were treated unfairly at some points in recent history, but I doubt very much that is the case today, in our highly secular culture which now greatly respects (maybe too much!) idiosyncratic individual lifestyle choices.

I was going to wait until the debate aired in July to discuss it, but that tweet stunned me. It shouldn’t have — of course, I know that plenty of people deny that singlism exists, and when it is pointed out to them, they just shrug. But for an expert on marriage, who seems to be the lead person at Gallup heralding their findings, to be so uninformed on this issue — wow! (I’m not criticizing him personally; he was a gracious debate partner, often beginning his responses to me with, “There’s something to that.”)

Let’s take a look at “singlism” — the ways that single people are stereotyped, stigmatized, marginalized, ignored, and targeted with discrimination. The review in the next section will be brief, but for more, you can also read:

· Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life, especially Chapter 9, “The Resistance”

· Jaclyn Geller’s Moving Past Marriage: Why We Should Ditch Marital Privilege, Eschew Relationship-Status Discrimination, and Embrace Non-marital History

· Singlism: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It

· Joan DelFattore’s article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Death by Stereotype?

· This law review article by the legal scholar Naomi Cahn