Loads of props to Psychology Today’s Living Single blog, an excellent source of pro-single advocacy courtesy of perennial BG fave Bella DePaulo, Ph.D. One of their trusty commenters picked up on the singles-bashing embedded in this recent New York Times article about research out of Australia suggesting that  married women may gain more weight than single women. The study in question, conducted over a ten-year period, found that whether or not they bear children, married women tend to pack on more pounds than their never-married counterparts.

It’s not the findings themselves that slant anti-single; it’s the totally facile, clueless quote that another (female) egghead, asked to comment on the study, got away with. I’ll let DePaulo sum up what sucks about it:

“Before I tell you her answer — which was just a guess — imagine what answer would have been proffered if it were the single women who got fatter. Probably that they are home alone sitting on their couches eating ice cream, in a desperate attempt to sugar-coat that bitter man-less taste in their mouths.”

Buh-zing, DePaulo. Here’s the real quote:

“‘It’s interesting and brings out some important points,’ said Maureen A. Murtaugh, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Utah, who has published widely on weight gain in women. Perhaps, she suggested, a more active social life may help explain why women with partners gain more weight.”

Marrieds have more active social lives? Don’t people usually assume the other way around? Oh wait, I get it… because singles, mortified of revealing their grotesque, table-for-one faces in public, eat tear-soggy dinners under the covers of their twin-sized Murphy beds.

“‘Think of going to a restaurant,’ Dr. Murtaugh said. ‘They serve a 6-foot man the same amount as they serve me, even though I’m 5 feet 5 inches and 60 pounds lighter.’”

Okay, I’m thinking of that… that has nothing to do with being married. And btw, way to sneak in an elbow jab toward us glamazonly-tall girls. And also btw, I’m married, not incapable of asking for a doggie bag when I judge that titanic slab of man-meat I’ve just been served too much for my delicate belly.

As the blog entry notes about studies of marriage in general: “Even when marrying has a bad* effect, it will be attributed to something good.” Lots more juicy stuff here.

*Ever non-fat-phobic, we’d stop short of saying that gaining weight always = “bad.” But point still taken.

How soon can we get the world into the hands of this generation?

“It doesn’t bother me to tell kids my parents are gay. It does bother me to say they aren’t married. It makes me feel that our family is less than their family.” — Kasey Nicholson-McFadden, 10

Question #2: Why was this article in the Styles section?

Used to be that when the issue of “green” came up in a relationship, someone had a jealousy problem. But now the New York Times reports that therapists are seeing a growing number of couples with serious disagreements about how far they should go to save the environment. What’s a couple to do when one wants to consume, consume, consume and the other wants to reduce, reuse and recycle?

In my own life, I’ve found myself too environmentally conscious for some and not enough for others. What it really comes down to is clear communication and the ability to gauge whether or not different values equal dealbreakers. Since I am not married, the extent to which I choose to be environmentally conscious is already a part of the whole package; slight variations in the size of our collective footprint are negotiable. Basically, I choose my battles if I really like someone.

As family and marriage therapist Linda Buzzell tells the Times, “The danger arises when one partner undergoes an environmental ‘waking up’ process way before the other, leaving a new values gap between them.” The article makes it sound as if for those already married, this is akin to someone suddenly finding God (and being married to a heathen). While it can be that dramatic in terms of thought process and lifestyle, it can also be explained as just an aspect of personal growth — which is natural over time and especially over the course of a marriage. My question is whether the problems couples are experiencing stem more from an inability to stay connected and cope with personal growth on any level (whether that takes the form of a new environmental consciousness or an interest in hot rods) or if we are looking to scapegoat Mother Nature?

Robert Brulle, a professor of environment and sociology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said that he himself has seen this issue break up a marriage. Typically, “One still wants to live the American dream with all that means, and the other wants to give up on big materialistic consumption, “ he says. “Those may not be compatible.” Maybe it’s time to find a new American Dream and give healthy marriages and a healthy environment a place to grow within it.

Coda: Have you ever grappled over greenness? Share or opine in the comments!

More on marriage: You know how some folks get all, “Ooh, ooh, that will UPSET THE BALANCE OF THE UNIVERSE!” when they hear, stop the presses, that she earns more than he does? Well, welcome to planet topsy-turvy, because more and more, that’s becoming the norm.

But that’s not all. From NPR today:

The joke used to be that some women went to college to get their M.R.S. — that is, a husband. In sheer economic terms, marriage was long the best way for a woman to get ahead. But a study by the Pew Research Center finds that there’s been a role reversal when it comes to men, women and the economics of marriage. [Emphasis added by fascinated superhero.]

The study compares marriages in 2007 with those in 1970, when few wives worked — and it’s no wonder why. Until 1964, a woman could legally be fired when she got married. Even a woman with a college degree likely made less than a man with a high-school diploma.

“When you think about it from a guy’s perspective, marriage wasn’t such a great deal,” says Richard Fry of the Pew Research Center. “It raised a household size, but it didn’t bring in a lot more income.”

Four decades later, it’s men who are reaping rewards from a stroll down the aisle. Many more women are now working, and in a greater variety of jobs. Add to that the decline of gender discrimination, and women’s median wages have risen sharply in recent decades* even as men’s have remained stagnant or fallen.

On top of this — for the first time ever among those age 44 and younger —- more women than men have college degrees.

The Pew study also finds that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to be married. It didn’t used to be that way.

It’s all turned the marriage market on its head.

“We found that increasingly, women are more likely to marry husbands who have lower education levels than they do, and lower income levels than they do,” says D’Vera Cohn of the Pew Research Center. From 1970 to 2007, husbands whose wives earned more than they did jumped from 4 percent to 22 percent.

/snip/ “I think [the notion that men “should” earn more]  is really an example of an outdated idea,” says Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Coontz says that in a 1967 poll, two-thirds of women said they’d consider marrying a man they did not love if he had good earnings potential.

“Now, women have a completely different point of view,” Coontz says. “They say overwhelmingly — 87 percent — that it’s more important to have a man who can communicate well, who can be intimate and who will share the housework than to have someone who makes more money than you do.”

The numbers might be there, but the man-earn-money culture isn’t yet.

“The tension really surrounds this notion of, ‘I’m the man, so I should be providing,’ ” says Steven Holmes, a freelance photographer in Northern California. He makes far less than his wife, a business adviser for IBM, and often finds himself holding back in discussions about spending money.

“Because I have this guilt that I feel like I am not an equal partner,” Holmes says, “I will let her make the decision, even though I might have had a different opinion.”

While some still wonder how anyone (especially perhaps a feminist) could still, um, buy into such an outmoded patriarchal model in which women are basically property, well, look how — measurably — far we’ve come. But on an individual-couple level, it’s fascinating to me that what seems to persist is this pay-to-play notion that one’s say in the relationship is weighted by income. Tell me, readers: to what degree has this been your experience? And, bonus question, how much does it annoy you that even NPR calls higher-earning women Sugar Mamas?

* Of course, women still make only 77 cents to a man’s dollar and are more likely to take time off from or cut back on work to take care of children.

At the Daily Beast, Hannah Seligson, author of A Little Bit Married: How to Know When It’s Time to Walk Down the Aisle or Out the Door, blogs about the resistance to matrimony among GenX and GenY couples. Among the reasons she cites:

It’s an interesting topic. Among my own friends–many of whom have been married and divorced at least once–the major obstacle to marriage seems to be disenchantment with the institution itself, although I’ve also noticed that even the vehement nay-sayers seem to soften around the issue when their partners want to get hitched. It seems that, even if individuals are ambivalent about making it legal, our society as a whole is still pretty fixated on the idea–or else books like Ms Seligson’s would not exist.

I turn to you, reader: Is there a real difference between living together (or dating someone long-term without cohabitating) and getting married? If so, what do you think it is? And has that made you more, or less, interested in marriage?

Neenah Pickett set herself this goal: find a husband in 52 weeks.  And no, as Lemondrop reports, she didn’t find the proverbial ONE — yet! — but to say she spent a whole year looking for love and not finding it negates all that she did find.

From the sound of it, Neenah actually did find love in many places -– in the support of a community that rallied behind her efforts, and in a new-found knowledge of herself. Love, after all, doesn’t just come in one form.  Non-romantic love can be as significant as the romantic kind.  While marriage and family are worthy endeavors that do require effort to establish and sustain, to look to each as a goal or something to be achieved in X amount of time doesn’t leave room for spontaneity or for the unexpected joys along the way.

What next? “Pickett has actually vowed to take a break from dating in 2010,” Lemondrop notes. “But she still believes love is out there.” With all of her new knowledge, let’s hope Neenah doesn’t pursue non-dating in 2010 as rigorously as she pursued a husband in 2009.  If love is out there, you might not need to pursue it daily, or even weekly, but you’ve got to at least be open to it.

Propose via Twitter? That’s so five minutes ago those people are, like, already divorced. (We kid.) Now, two become one via Foursquare*.

Lagniappe: The Greatest Geeky Marriage Proposals of All Time.

*to which BG is utterly addicted.

Struggling with the ultimate romantic choice? The one you’ve got vs. the one that got away? Familiar and stable vs. fizzy and exciting? Veronica vs. Betty?

Well, envy Archie.* Looks like our man in Riverdale may get to have it both ways.

As today’s Times reports: “That perennially teenage redhead…made headlines around the world when word leaked, back in May, that he would propose to his longtime love interest, Veronica Lodge, in issue No. 600 of the comic that bears his name. But that issue, published in August, was only Part 1 of a six-part story. Although Archie did marry Veronica, things will take a turn in November, when Archie proposes to the lady in waiting, Betty Cooper. That’s just the latest twist in the romantic triangle that has thrust this nearly 70-year-old character, and his parent company, into the media spotlight.”

How’s he gonna pull that off? Easy: alternate universe! “The wedding story was written by Michael E. Uslan and illustrated by Stan Goldberg, a longtime ‘Archie’ artist. The first half was called ‘Archie Marries Veronica,’ but issue No. 603, on sale next month, is called ‘Archie Marries Betty.’ The end of bachelorhood began in issue No. 600, in which Archie found himself on a road named Memory Lane, which he has often traveled. This time he walked a different direction and encountered a fork in the road. He chose the left path, which allowed him to see his future with Veronica and their twins, and himself working for her tycoon father. At the end of the October issue, No. 602, Archie goes for an evening stroll and encounters the fork again. In the November issue Archie will find himself back in Riverdale High, this time envisioning a future with Betty as his wife. (A set of twins factors into this destiny as well.)”

(Doctor Who fans will recall when this totally happened to Donna Noble, only instead of twins there was a giant bug. And — Halloween preview — let’s not forget Breakup Girl Friday in Ghost Ex!)

But the question remains: who do you think he should wind up with? (“Jughead” would of course be a revolutionary twist, but I don’t think we’re there yet.)

* And talk to The Guy At The End of the Bar.

Perhaps you recall this no-longer-lovelorn letter from Cheryl, who’d been head over hizzeells with her boss, though he “never gave [her] any reason to think he was the least bit interested.” Well! After moving to a better job, she told us, she — per BG’s advice, ahem — gave it one shot with him, and…cue wedding chapel bells! Here is the happy couple, Cheryl just wrote to tell us, on their happy day, lucky 9-09-09. Congratulations!

Disclaimer: Remember, the goal of life/love/this website is not GET MARRIEDMARRIEDMARRIEDMARRIED. (Or even DON’TBESINGLESINGLESINGLE.) You’ve got enough people telling you that. We just want you to be happy — whatever that looks like for you. Cheers!

Cutting bait on February 23, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been dating the same guy for eight years and we have both been faithful to each other religiously. He says that he loves me. The only problem is that I can’t seem to get him to commit to our relationship (I mean marriage). I’m not getting any younger (I’m 28), and I want babies! Any advice?

— Cameo

Dear Cameo,

This is easy for Breakup Girl (who is older than not getting any younger) to say, but here it is: walk. I don’t mean that you should say, “I’m walking out if you don’t commit! Look at me! Here I go! Yoo-hoo! I’m walking! I am so walking sort of near that door! Waaaaalking! Watch me go…!” I also don’t mean walk out the door, and then walk by his house ten minutes later to see if he’s committed “yet.” I mean: walk.

What, does Breakup Girl believe that a relationship ain’t no thing if it ain’t got that ring? No. Does she want to promote the stereotype that a girl’s best friend is all a woman wants, needs, and hopes for? No. I’m just going with what you’re telling me: that marriage and babies are what you want, and that they may not, alas, be available in your current (eight-year!) relationship. You can’t get him to commit; go get what you want with someone who wants the same thing. And the thing is — I hesitate to say this, because I am in NO way advocating game-playing — but, well, when you walk, this guy just might realize that he is that someone.

Love,
Breakup Girl