Abstract
Marriage rates in the United States are declining, but being married remains a potent status marker. In this article, I examine how white, middle-aged, never-married men understand their unmarried status. An analysis of face-to-face interviews reveals that most men in this study use the discourses of self-help, love’s labor, and individual choice to construct narratives that help to explain how they are on the path to marriage, or alternately, how remaining single might represent the best future for them. Findings reveal an instance of a more generic process I call the “identity turn” which describes the transition from one understanding of self to another. Significantly, three men in this study did no identity work around the institution of marriage; thus they required no identity turn. They may represent the vanguard of singles who can lay claim to an identity outside of the married ideal. They rely on the language of self-sufficiency and independence in constructing understandings of self.
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