The Stigma Against Single People

Jan 04, 2019 by apost team

Bella DePaulo thought for a good majority of her life that one day she would get married. She eventually came to the realization that that marriage was not in the cards, and she actually wasn’t interested in it.

Now in her sixties, Bella DePaulo has remained single! She identifies herself as being “single at heart” and thoroughly enjoys the single lifestyle.

She isn’t too happy though, about the prejudices those that remain single face: Discrimination in the media, at work, while going about our daily lives and cultural stigmatization are all prejudices those living the single life may be privy to. Bella DePaulo has spent nearly two decades as a Harvard-trained social scientist, researching this lifestyle in American society and has published her results in blogs, books such as Singled Out, and in scholarly journals.

She wants to let the world know the reasoning behind why the prolific negative connotations associated with a single lifestyle are unwarranted and wants to raise awareness for the real prejudices that single people face.

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In order to aid in discussing her ideas, she has come up with the terms Matrimania and Singlism. Matrimania is the overly enthusiastic praise and glorification of weddings, couplings, and marriage. Singlism is the discrimination, stereotyping, and stigmatization that those who remain unmarried face.

When you make the decision to remain single, DePaulo claims that their home life is seen as less valid and holds less value than one who is married. This often results in single workers having to work while married colleagues get to take extra vacations, travel more, and leave work early. This usually occurs because single people are seen as not having a reason to be home!

When you are single in the US, more noticeable instances of this prejudice occur: pay, social security benefits, and insurance benefits are all usually less for single workers than their married counterparts. A common figure thrown around is that men who are married earn significantly more, up to 26 percent more, than their single co-workers!

For one study, DePaulo and her fellow researchers drew biographical sketches of people who were physically identical. The only difference between the people was that half were married, and half remained single. When study participants judged the sketches, the hypothetical singles were seen as less adjusted, more self-centric, and less mature socially than their married compatriots!

For those who are of the typical should-be-married age of 40, the findings were even more prominent, but notifiable differences in perception were still seen even with younger participants, all the way down to 25-year-olds.

DePaulo claims that “Single people are near half the population and — one of my favorite statistics — Americans spend more years of their adult lives not married than married.”

She says that because of this figure, the glorification of the institution of marriage, and the resultant negative outlook of the single life is out of touch with reality, completely unwarranted, and results in negative effects on a large section of our population.

While conducting a series of housing studies, DePaulo and her co-studies gave a description to study participants of a landlord with two parties interested in the available property. In each of these examples, the person from an often discriminated-against group offered to pay more than the person from the notable majority, but the landlord always went with the majority member!

Whether it was a white person over a black person, a man over a woman, or a married couple over a single person, in each situation the choice the landlord made was described as discriminatory, with one exception! In the case of the married couple over the single person, this was not at all seen as discrimination with the justification that the choice of the married couple was okay “because they were married.”

It is quite obvious that this is a form of discrimination, but study participants did not see it this way.

DePaulo has come to the assumption that our own insecurities are what bring about this discrimination and prejudice against single people and the unwarranted glorification of marriage. She goes on to say “If the benefits of marriage were perfectly obvious to people, we wouldn’t need all this hype around it.”

What benefits one once gained solely through marriage are now attainable in a variety of other ways: A single woman is now able to support themselves, have kids, and sleep with other people, all without facing any stigma. DePaulo suggests though marriage for those that truly want it is indeed a good thing but to go on to say that all single people are better off married is a betrayal caused by a huge disparity between the reality of what marriage uniquely brings to the table.

When DePaulo took a hard look at the research out there that purports to show marriage having benefits and discovered many flaws in experiments across the board. These studies frequently included those who had been divorced previously as a part of the groupings of single people which adds objective bias into the equation and affects the opinions of study participants.

Another unavoidable issue of these kinds of studies is that a study on marriage may never isolate the marriage variable: People cannot be assigned at random as to whether or not they’re going to get married. 

In order to be happy, follow your heart, whether it leads to staying single or getting married. For many though, DePaulo included, the single life is just the thing! She finishes with “If I got married, I would not become happier and healthier!” and “I love living single — except for all the singlism and matrimania.”

Do you agree that there are prejudice and discrimination against single people? If you have been a victim of this plight, or know someone who has, let us know more about the situation!