Single people have long been victims of stereotypes. They were considered unhappy, inferior. However, now many voluntarily decide to live independently, without tying themselves in relationships and marriage, and this choice is less and less surprising. How has society’s opinion of the married and single changed?
We are slowly abandoning the idea that a lonely person is necessarily unhappy, unhealthy and very worried about this. Increasingly, science, and life itself, are taking the side of those who have not yet acquired a couple.
But what about public opinion? Social psychologists from the Kinsey Institute (USA) learned how our stereotypes about married and single have changed. 6000 people took part in the survey. They talked about their ideas about living alone and living as a couple.
Researchers asked study participants the following questions: “Do you think married people have more sex than single people? Do they have more friends? Is the social life of married people richer than that of singles? Do married people spend more time on their physical form?
Participants were also asked three questions about emotional experiences: “Do you think married people are more satisfied with life? Do they feel more confident than lonely people? Do they feel more secure? Let’s see what the volunteers said.
single and athletic
People of all marital statuses agreed that singles are more successful in life, they have more friends, more sex, they take better care of themselves.
The most revealing was the answer to the question about the physical form. 57% of respondents think that married people are much less concerned about maintaining it than single people. As for sex, opinions were divided almost equally: 42% of volunteers believe that married people do it no more often than singles, and 38% of respondents are sure of the opposite.
40% of study participants do not believe that married people have more friends. The social life of singles is more interesting – 39% of respondents decided so. At the same time, it turned out that the majority of participants agreed that married people are more confident than single people. Also, marriage, according to survey participants, gives people a sense of security.
53% believe that married people are more satisfied with their lives than singles; 23% think it is not. 42% said married people are more confident. And only 26% of participants do not agree with this statement.
Illusions of the unmarried
The survey showed that divorced and married people are generally less positive about marriage than those whose foot has never set foot on the threshold of the registry office even once in their lives. But those who have never been married are more likely to assume that married people are happier than single people.
People who are single are now thought to have more friends, more interesting social lives, and more sports than those who are married. In addition, they are doing better with sex.
Those who have ever been married are less judgmental of bachelors. And it is precisely those who have never been married or never married who romanticize marriage more than others.
It turns out that lonely people no longer want to believe in humiliating myths about themselves. And those who have partners do not agree with the usual statements. Who knows what we’ll think about marriage and singleness ten years from now?