The unmarried thirtysomething is a rising star in the West. Some of them might be in common-law relationships, some may have kids, but many of them won’t have either. The future on the horizon is one of greater solitude, an affliction that will likely cost us political stability and economic success, on top of general well-being.
This is an acute issue in Canada: the most recent set of odds given by Statistics Canada peg a person’s chances of ever marrying at a mere 44 per cent — that’s down from 74 per cent in 1991.
Feminism has left middle-aged women like me single, childless and depressed
I increasingly feel that feminism has failed my generation. It is a peculiarity of the West that it is divided into sets which differ profoundly in their beliefs. This state of affairs began with the Reformation and has grown more pronounced ever since. There were Protestants and Catholics who differed fundamentally not only on faith but on practical matters. It was among Protestant communities that feminism first emerged, and it is in Protestant countries such as America and Britain in which feminist beliefs have been at their most vocal and strident in tone, like a religion with no dilution of agnosticism. Margaret Thatcher, though she would have denied it, was a feminist de facto, and no Catholic country could have produced her like.
