Jeebus Golden Delicious, what a downer.
If you want to relate the value of a person to the basic biological rubbish I suppose that theory works, but not everyone wants to be a breeder.
That old school of thought has been rolled out so many times I think that just about everyone and their dog have heard it or some variation of it.
There is this thing called evolution, and one fatctor: species evolve as a result of the interactions with their environment.
I think it is time to step out of the 1950s and move into year 2000.
WebMD Feature from "Psychology Today" MagazineJillian Straus
http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/guide/lone-stars-being-single
The hard demographic fact that you will likely spend most of your life on your own is reshaping singlehood into a satisfying destination rather than an anxiety-ridden way station. Welcome to the richly diversified world of today's singles.
For 23 years—her whole career—Bella DePaulo built a stellar reputation as the go-to expert on the subject of deception, the lying and lie detecting we do in our everyday social life. She published dozens of papers, wrote scores of chapters and found a tenured professional home at the University of Virginia. At the same time, she was building a wide web of friendships, a vibrant intellectual life, traveling extensively and generally enjoying life as a single, unattached human being. Research psychologist that she is, she also began collecting data on attitudes about singles in America.
Two years ago, she went out West on sabbatical. She liked it so much she chose to stay. Moreover, she was ready to put aside her work on deception for a while. "I decided to take a chance on writing a book about singles and not look for a full-time job," she reports. She signed on as a visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara and teaches an occasional course.
Sacrificing her status, following her passion and taking a huge personal and professional leap into the unknown—"I never could have considered that if I were part of a couple," says DePaulo. "Even now I'm not sure it will pay off. But in a marriage, I would have felt that I was not pulling my weight."
DePaulo's own path exemplifies a seismic shift in the place of singles in American culture—in the lives they lead, in the way others see them and, more profoundly, in the way they see themselves. Not only are singles the fastest-growing population group in the country, most of us will spend more of our adult lives single than married. That hard demographic fact is rapidly turning singlehood into a satisfying destination rather than an anxiety-ridden way station, a sign of independence rather than a mark of shame, an opportunity to develop a variety of relationships rather than a demand to stuff all one's emotional eggs into one basket.
"Singlehood is no longer a state to be overcome as soon as possible," says social historian Stephanie Coontz. "It has its own rewards. Marriage is not the gateway to adulthood anymore. For most people it's the dessert—desirable, but no longer the main course." People may still be eager to meet a long-term partner, but they are a lot less desperate, she adds. Increasingly, individuals are finding singlehood preferable to being in an unsatisfactory relationship. In fact, the possibility of singlehood as a viable life path throws into high relief a finding that is slowly emerging from mountains of social science data—that neither the coupled nor uncoupled life is an automatic ticket to bliss; much depends on the achievement of meaningful life goals and quality of the relationships you create.
While polls show that men are warming to the idea of marriage, women are increasingly in a financial, emotional and professional position to weigh carefully all the trappings that come with the institution. Because they are more conscious of the tradeoffs—women still do more of the housework and childcare—they are increasingly unwilling, Coontz finds, "to put up with something that violates their sense of fairness."
Married-couple households have dominated America's demographic landscape since the country's founding. In the 1950s, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, they comprised 80 percent of all households. But married couples make up only 50.7 percent of households today. Any moment now, 86 million single adults will define the new majority, some by design and some by default. While many are actively looking for Ms. or Mr. Right, most are also busy leading full lives, including having children.
Today, unmarried Americans make up 42 percent of the workforce, 40 percent of home buyers, 35 percent of voters. There is even an official holiday dubbed "National Singles Week."
HOLY "MATRIMANIA"
DePaulo believes the growing number of singles is the hidden force behind what she calls "matrimania," the glorification of marriage and, especially, the cultural obsession with weddings. "Americans feel insecure about the place of marriage," she observes. "It no longer appears to be the only path to happiness."
Even as singlehood is becoming the de facto norm, people who choose to go through life solo are deliberately kept in a state of confusion about their own motives by a culture that clings to the marriage standard. Typically, says DePaulo, singles are told that they are selfish for pursuing their own life goals. If you're single and you have a great job to which you devote energy, you're typically told your job won't love you back. Of course, singles are always suspect as tragic losers in the game of love. But most of all they are told through commercials, images and endless articles that they will never be truly happy and deeply fulfilled unless they are married.
"The battlefield is now psychological," says DePaulo. Single women today have work opportunities, economic independence and reproductive freedom. "The things that can be legislated are all done," she notes. "The last great way to keep women in their place is to remind them that they are incomplete. Even if you think you're happy, the messages go, you don't know real happiness." There's a hunger out there for a new view of singles.
Still, we've come a long way since the 19th century, when unmarried women were labeled spinsters or old maids and relegated to an inferior status. In the 1970s, a single Mary Tyler Moore bounced into America's heart with her professional ambition, dream of independence—and an endearing faux-family of coworkers and neighbors. Today television singles like Carrie Bradshaw lead such full, active lives that, like their real-life counterparts, they are sometimes ambivalent about marriage. As a 26-year-old account executive puts it, "I don't need a man in my life. I don't need or want a relationship because I am lacking anything. I want it only to add or enrich."
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