Rise of the freemale

Okay, hands up single ladies! Who wants to be a housewife and mother? No? Come on. Surely you don’t mind giving up watching America’s Next Top Model in your pajamas at 3pm, eating nutella out of the jar and contemplating your Saturday night out with the girls to ferry the kids to soccer training, get dinner ready and pop on another load of washing?
It seems that a new trend is emerging amongst the Bridget Jones set. No longer are they desperate to get Mr Darcy to pop the question and take All By Myself off high rotation once and for all. A new survey indicates that marriage levels are at their lowest since WWI with 51.4 percent of women now choosing not to buy into the meringue dress and Fiji honeymoon.
There are now more unmarried women than married women in Australia and those that are choosing to tie the knot are waiting until they’re much older than an Olsen twin. It seems if Bridget was writing in her diary in 2008, she’d rather be Miss Jones than Mrs Darcy any day of the week.
And whilst living in sin almost equates to marriage these days, it seems shacking up is also losing luster. Studies show single-person urban dwellings (SPUDs) now account for more than a quarter of all dwellings in Australia.
So, whilst some woman simply love having someone to snuggle up with and a couple of rugrats, it appears others are perfectly happy with their single status thank you very much. They’re not crying into a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes night after night, watching The Biggest Loser and praying for the phone to ring. From what RC has seen, the new single girl has a lover or two, is planning a backpacking trip in India and owns her own child-unfriendly inner city apartment.
And whilst I’m scaring you with number crunching ... it seems a baby isn’t the icing on the cake for all women either. Despite those ticking biological clocks, estimates are that up to 25 percent of women will never have children.
So, let’s hear it people. Is getting hitched and having a few rugrats still a priority for single women? Or is it passé? And just how much fun is it being a freemale these days?