To All the Single Ladies – Singleness is no longer a lack of options but a choice. (from CT)
This is a decent editorial, I suppose, it has its heart in the right place, but I’m a tad uncomfortable with the sub heading on the page, which reads:
- Singleness is no longer a lack of options but a choice.
For Christian women over the age of 30 or 40 or older who had hoped and expected to marry, being single is in fact not a deliberate choice, and was yes, due to a lack of options (as in, no single men their ages in churches they went to, trouble finding single men’s one’s age anywhere).
In- so- far as staying single to avoid being married to a douche bag, yes, there is a bit of choice involved in that, but it’s not like I envisioned myself still being single into my 40s.
I was engaged in my early 30s, but the guy was an idiot, so I broke up with him. I realized if I married him, our marriage would be terrible – the engagement was horrible, so I didn’t see how being married would magically make things better between the two of us.
But I did not choose to remain single indefinitely.
Me passing up a loser or two along the way (such as my ex fiance) to avoid a horrible marriage should not be equated to “choice” by Christian authors, in the way the following editorial makes it sound.
Most Christian literature I read, and even the Bible itself, seems to support the idea that if you trust God enough and pray hard enough, you will, sooner or later, get a half way decent Christian spouse, or whatever thing you are fervently petitioning God for.
It did not entirely occur to me that my fiance’ of my early 30s may be the last shot I had at marriage.
I thought after a few years after breaking up with the ex, God would send some decent guy across my path, and I would be married by age 35, or 36. I did not expect to be single into my 40s. I did not ‘choose’ to be single this long.
From Today’s Christian Woman (from Christianity Today):
(Link): To All the Single Ladies
- Singleness is no longer a lack of options but a choice.
When did our relationship status become symbolic of our status in life? When did someone decide it takes “putting a ring on it” to give a woman value and worth?
And when did single become synonymous with desperate? It seems that although women have had the right to vote for decades, we still get strange looks when we choose single over settling on the ballots of our own lives.
The next time you check the box “S” for single, remember this: singleness is no longer a lack of options but a choice—a choice to refuse to let your life be defined by your relationship status, and to live every day happily, to let your “Ever After” work itself out.
Whether or not you have someone in the passenger seat, you are still the driver of your own life, and can take whatever road you choose.
So the next time you hit a speed bump—otherwise known as the ages-old question, “Why are you still single?”—look ’em in the eye and say, “Because I’m too strong, too smart, and too fabulous to settle.”
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Excerpted from Mandy Hale’s article, All the Single Ladies. Mandy Hale is affectionately known around the world as The Single Woman
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