I’m not kidding<\/a>.<\/p>\n Coincidentally, the\u00a0Pew Research Center released 2010 data showing that just 51% of all American adults were currently married<\/a>. This is an all time low, down from 72% in 1960.<\/p>\n Comparing this data with the\u00a0essay above is a nice illustration of\u00a0the difference between “normative” and “normal.” \u00a0Normal is what is typical in a statistical sense; it is what actually holds. \u00a0Normative is what is believed to be good and right in an ideological sense; it is what it is believed <\/em>does or should hold.<\/p>\n If you go by the essay, written by the thrice married and now single Tracy McMillan, marriage is an ideal state that we all should, or do, desire. \u00a0In her reality, if you aren’t married, it’s because you’re doing something wrong. \u00a0Marriage is normative. \u00a0In actual reality, though, the state of being married is not any more normal than the state of being unmarried.<\/p>\n Only if marriage is normative does the non-normality of marriage become something that needs explaining. \u00a0McMillan jumps in with hateful stereotypes, but social science has much better explanations.<\/p>\n And, just for the record:<\/p>\n After reading some of the great comments, I’d like to add that I’m not married because of several points of privilege:<\/p>\n I could go on, but you get the idea.<\/p>\n The point is that when the normal and the normative don’t align it often leads to social conflict over the meaning of the gap. \u00a0Some people, like McMillan, may jump in to tongue-lash the deviants. \u00a0Others may revel in defending non-conformity. \u00a0In any case, it will be interesting to see how the conversation about marriage continues, especially if, as the trend suggests, married people become a minority in the near future.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Earlier this month I read an essay that explained to me why I am not married. These reasons included: I’m a bitch. I’m shallow. I’m a slut. I’m a liar. I’m selfish. I don’t think I’m good enough. I’m not kidding. Coincidentally, the\u00a0Pew Research Center released 2010 data showing that just 51% of all American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,229,2056,23384,2095,2102,2088,2098,272,304,283,42,54,293],"class_list":["post-42929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-consumption","tag-crimelaw","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-history","tag-gender-marriagefamily","tag-gender-prejudicediscrimination","tag-marriagefamily","tag-the-state","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-religion","tag-sexual-orientation","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42929"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58206,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42929\/revisions\/58206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/12\/112.png\" "\\"\\"")
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