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Stop telling single people to get married

Chinese

• 我的要求可能不太含蓄：别再催促单身人士结婚了。二十年前，我为自己举办了一场单身派对，那时我刚升为加州大学博尔德分校的教 授。拍背寒暄，分享故事，举杯共饮。但问题是，我并没打算结婚。我的理由就是—— 没有婚礼就不能派对吗？只有结婚的人才能享受所有乐趣？我都不知道，那晚我其实加入了一个运动，单身运动，单身不仅是可以被容忍的 ，而且是值得被庆祝的。单身并非不如其它，也不是更好，只是另一条道路，处处充满 非凡生活的机会。

1960 年，美国90％的成年人都会结婚。如今，美国有50％的成年人未婚。预计25%的 千禧一代永远不会结婚，更别提 Z 世代了。但是我们仍活在为成双成对的人打造的世界里。已婚人士可以获得 1,000 多项单身人 士无法获得的法律优惠。比如税收减免，社会保障福利。单身人士不断为别人的婚姻大事买单。当年人人都结婚时，这还说得通。但现在我 们这些终身单身的人，连炖锅都必须自己买。还有，莎莉阿姨，她一直在问，“那么，你有喜欢的人了吗？”我们当中多少人有 位“莎莉阿姨”？最近，媒体都不再用莎莉阿姨的问题了，而是直接开出“处方”。就是：结婚吧。 你不信？有一本书就叫做《结婚吧》。自然，它是在情人节问世的。“结婚”倡导者喜 欢用数据显示已婚人士报告的生活满意度高于单身人士。他们的结论？结婚，就会幸福。还有额外收获：拯救人类文明。现在你可能想知道，但答案是否定的，我并不反对婚姻。我甚至有几次差点就结了 。

但我反对过分强调婚姻。根据关联数据，“主婚派”有点过于固执了。认真研究这 些数据的科学家都会得出相同的结论。那就是，要结婚的人在一开始已经感觉更幸福一 点了。

但是数据中确实存在幸福效应。婚礼当天幸福感会有一个高峰，但很快就会消退。每场平均要3万美元，如果在美国举行婚礼。这个花费够你度15个假期了，而且不用 带着你的公婆。

但真正令人不解的，也是主婚派群体无法回答的问题，是这个。如果结婚能让你开 心，为什么地球上最幸福的地方会有最多的单身人士？在斯堪的纳维亚半岛上尤其如此 。与其将单身人数上升视为一种缺陷，不如将其视为一个特征。社会进步的特征，特 别是对女性而言。

包办婚姻 4,400 年前就发明了，目的是在艰难的农业时期结成商业联姻。妇女被视为 财产而不是伴侣，丈夫在婚礼祭坛前，从岳父那里接过对妻子的“所有权”。幸好，如今婚姻更强调爱情，而且越来越成为一种自主选择。单身人士崛起的故事 就是女性崛起的故事。纺车的发明是女性崛起的开始。使用它的未婚女性可以自己赚钱，逃避被丈夫或父 亲所拥有的命运。随着节育措施的发明以及获得教育和经济机会的增加，“我愿意”正在变成“我愿 意吗？”昨天的未婚女性， 已演进为今天的猫女郎——

最后，让我们把单身生活提升到与已婚生活相提并论。不是更好，也不是更差，只 是一条充满非凡生活机会的不同道路。

我一直以为我不想结婚是因为我有什么问题。想到结婚，感觉就像我会穿件不合身 的西装，或者更糟，穿件直筒夹克。别误会，我确实有很多问题。我有很多缺点。但是戴上戒指并不能解决我的问题。当我有一次没结成婚而心碎疗伤时，忽然意识到一件事。我并非半个灵魂等待他人 来弥补成全，我本身就是整个灵魂，完整无缺。我很健康，财务状况稳定，我从事有意 义的工作，拥有一群联系广泛而深厚的朋友。我感到完整充实，希望你也一样。

归根结底，非凡生活并非只有一种，非凡生活多种多样。而且，无论多么大惊小怪 ，或不断催促结婚，都不会把我们拖回过去的“好时光”，说实话，过去其实并没那么 好。总有一天，单身生活和已婚生活将平等共处。同时，单身群体包罗万象。从未结过 婚？离婚了？分开了？寡居了？全部欢迎。我们为你们和支持我们的已婚朋友欢庆。未来关乎自主选择，而非被动接受。因此，让我们举杯庆祝一个既尊重结婚成家 ，也尊重单身的世界。

干杯！

English

My not so subtle request: stop telling single people to get married. Twenty years ago, I threw myself a bachelor party as a new professor at CU Boulder. Backs were slapped, stories were shared, glasses clinked. But there was a hitch. I wasn't getting hitched. My rationale, without a wedding in sight, why do married folks get to have all the fun? Unbeknownst to me, that night I joined a movement, the solo movement, where being single isn't just tolerated, it's celebrated. Not less than, not better, just a different path filled with opportunities to live remarkably.

In 1960, 90 percent of adults in the United States would go on to get married. Today, 50 percent of adults in the US are unmarried. Twenty-five percent of millennials are projected to never marry. And don't get me started on what's happening with Gen Z. Yet we still live in a world built for two. Married people have access to over 1,000 legal advantages unavailable to singles. Tax breaks, social security benefits. Singles invest heavily in marital milestones. This made sense when everyone got married, but for us lifelong singles, we have to buy our own crock pots. And then there's Aunt Sally, who keeps asking, "So, is there anyone special?" How many of us have an Aunt Sally? Lately, a chorus of media voices have traded Aunt Sally's question for a prescription. Get married. You don't believe me? There's a book called "Get Married." And it came out, of course, on Valentine's Day. The "get married" advocates like to point to data that show that married people report higher life satisfaction than single people. Their conclusion? Get married and get happy. Your bonus, you get to save civilization. Now you might be wondering, and the answer is no, I'm not anti-marriage. I've even had a couple near misses.

But I am against overprescribing marriage based on correlational data that the "get married" crowd is a little too wedded to. Any serious scientist who looks at these data comes to the same conclusion. That is that people who get married are already slightly happier to begin with.

But there is a happiness effect in the data. There's a wedding-day bump, but it fades fast. For 30K a pop, the average US wedding, at that cost, you can take 15 vacations. Without your inlaws.

But here's the real puzzle, and it's one that the "get married" crowd can't answer. And that is this. If getting married makes you happy, why is it that the happiest places on Earth feature the most people going solo? This is especially the case in Scandinavia.

I say, rather than treating the rise of singles as a bug, let's treat it as a feature. A feature of progress, especially for women. The arranged marriage was invented 4,400 years ago in order to form business alliances during harsh agrarian times. Women were treated more like property than partners, with the husband receiving "ownership" from the father at the altar. Thankfully, today, marriage is more about love, and it's increasingly optional. The story of the rise of singles is the story of the rise of women. And it really got rolling with the invention of the spinning wheel. The spinsters who used it could earn their own money and escape being owned by a husband or a father. With the invention of birth control and greater access to education and economic opportunities, "I do" is becoming "do I?" The spinsters of yesterday and the cat ladies of today -- And lastly, let's elevate single living to be on par with married living. Not better, not worse, just a different path filled with opportunities to live remarkably. I always thought that there was something wrong with me for not wanting to get married. The prospect of it felt like I would be wearing an ill-fitting suit, or worse, a straight jacket. Now, don't get me wrong, I have plenty of problems. There's a lot of things wrong with me. But putting a ring on it is not going to solve my problems. And as I was nursing a broken heart after one of my near misses, it hit me. I'm not half waiting for a whole. I'm wholehearted. I'm complete. I'm healthy, I'm financially stable, I do meaningful work, I have a wide and deep connected group of friends. I feel wholehearted, and I hope you do too. In the end, there is no one remarkable life. There are remarkable lives. And no amount of pearl clutching or calls to get married are going to drag us back to the good old days, which, to be honest, weren't that good to begin with.

Someday, single living and married living will stand side by side, equal. In the meantime, the solo movement has a big tent. Never married? Divorced? Separated?

Widowed? Welcome. We celebrate you and our married allies.

The future is about options, not prescriptions. So let's toast to a world that honors both the choice to settle down or go solo.

Cheers.