Tag Archives: married vs single

The Singleness As A Gift Problem

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Today I want to revisit the idea of the “gift” of singleness.  I was reminded of how messed up our theology of singleness seems to be by this post at Relevant.

Now to be fair, the author says some good things so I want to point those out.  He rightly says that the Church is too focused on marriage as the only path.  He also rightly implies that the Church is terrible at dealing with single people.  And he even goes so far as to say that not everyone will or even should get married.  Amen!

However, the problem here is that he links the gift of singleness to all people that are not married.  This idea is rampant and it’s bad.  It’s terrible theology, and it leads to confusion. Now I’ve written about this a ton, but like I said, we need to keep revisiting this.

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Don’t Be A Singlist

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I knew it would happen.  In an era of hash tags and isms it was only a matter of time before our growing unmarried population found a way to play the same card.

It’s finally here single folks.  You’re very own ism.  Singlism.  This is the new word for the way that singles are discriminated against in our society.  I guess the people doing it will be called Singlist?  Man the church for sure is #singlist.  No doubt about that.

Bella DePaulo is a single lady in her sixties and a harvard trained social scientist has “coined” the term.  (Man I wish I had gotten to it first).  She defines it as “the stereotyping, stigmatizing and discrimination of people who are not married”.

Oh but it gets better.  Married people of course have “marital privilege — the unearned advantages that benefit those who are married”

DePaulo actually points out many things that we’ve talked about here.  Married people make more money than single people.  Not only that, but due to tax laws, family leave acts, along with other systemic Singlism issues in the corporate world such as insurance rates and even travel packages, singles end up paying more for things.  All of that is true.

Man, I was a victim for so long, and I didn’t even realize it.

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