ABC News: Karen Tong
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At 32 years of age, Anna Hitchings likely to be married with children at this point.
But within the past year, she’s got found herself grappling with a realisation that she may never get married.
“but that is a reality i must deal,” she says. “It not any longer seems impossible that i might never marry. In fact, some might argue it might even be likely.”
The “man drought” is a demographic reality in Australia — for almost any 100 women, you can find 98.6 men.
The gender gap widens if you are a Christian woman hoping to marry a person who shares the same beliefs and values.
The proportion of Australians with a Christian affiliation has dropped drastically from 88 per cent in 1966, to just over half the population in 2016 — and women can be much more likely than men to report being Christian (55 per cent, in comparison to 50 per cent).
Keeping the faith
Ms Hitchings is Catholic.
She spent my youth within the Church and was a learning student at Campion College, a Catholic university in Sydney’s western suburbs, where she now works.
“I’m constantly meeting other great women, nonetheless it is apparently quite a rare thing to meet a man on exactly the same level who also shares our faith,” she says.
ABC News: Karen Tong
“the perfect is always to marry somebody else who shares your values as it’s just easier.”
Not sharing the same faith isn’t necessarily a deal breaker.
Her sister is married to an man that is agnostic while “he’s great so we love him”, Ms Hitchings is quick to admit there have been some difficult conversations that needed seriously to take place in early stages.
Like abstaining from sex before marriage — something that, as a Catholic, she does not want to compromise on.
“It’s extremely tough to find men that are even happy to entertain the thought of stepping into a chaste relationship.”
Looking away from faith community
- Younger Australians are more inclined to socialise with individuals from different backgrounds that are religious older Australians
- Australians are more inclined to socialise with individuals from yet another background that is religious people that are very religious
- Religious Australians tend to be more likely than non-religious Australians to socialise with very religious people
Losing the basic notion of ‘the one’
Ms Hitchings has dated Catholic and men that are non-Catholic.
Her first relationship that is serious with a Catholic guy — they were both students at Campion College, and she was sure he had been “the only”.
“I do not think I’d ever met anybody who I shared such a profoundly strong experience of, and he was the initial person that I fell deeply in love with,” she says.
He was a couple of years younger they were in “different places in life”, they decided to part ways than her, and after coming to the realisation.
They remained friends and though he eventually married somebody else, Ms Hitchings says she learned a lot from the relationship.
“I think i simply thought that that you love and get along with, everything will be fine — and that’s not true,” she says if you find someone.
“You have to work on yourself, you will do need certainly to sacrifice a lot to make a relationship work.”
Supplied: Patrick J Lee
The stigma of singledom
The marriage rate in Australia has been in decline since 1970, and both men and women are waiting longer before getting married when it comes to very first time.
The proportion of marriages performed by ministers of religion has additionally declined from the majority of marriages in 1902 (97 per cent), to 22 per cent in 2017.
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Despite these cultural shifts regarding marriage in Australia, single feamales in the Church — and outside it — still face the stigma of singledom.
Ms Hitchings often feels that whenever someone is attempting to set her up on a night out together, “they simply see me while the person that is single have to get married”.
“there is a large number of anxieties that you can feel — it is possible to feel just like you are pathetic or there is something wrong to you,” she says.
The Church has also provided a place of hope and empowerment for single women, giving those like Ms Hitchings the confidence to live a life that doesn’t start and end with marriage on the other hand.
“I very hope that is much do get married — i am hoping that happens — but I do not genuinely believe that my life is meaningless or purposeless if I do not get married either.”
Surplus women just isn’t a problem
A situation of surplus women just isn’t unique into the Church or Australia — and even this brief moment with time.
The word was initially used during the Industrial Revolution, to explain a perceived more than unmarried feamales in Britain.
ABC News: Jack Fisher
It appeared again after World War I, as soon as the loss of significantly more than 700,000 men during the war led to a large gender gap in Britain.
Based on the 1921 census, regarding the population aged 25 to 34, there have been 1,158,000 unmarried women in comparison to 919,000 unmarried men.
Today, this surplus of women inside the Church means that when they need to get married to someone regarding the same faith, “it statistically will not work out for several of us”, says Dr Natasha Moore, a senior research fellow during the Centre for Public Christianity.
“But actually, it is not a new problem — if it’s an issue.”
Living her best life that is single
It really is a phenomenon Dr Moore is perhaps all too familiar with, both in her professional and life that is personal.
Inside her twenties, she watched those herself wondering, “Am I missing the boat?” around her navigate the world of dating, break-ups, marriage and family life, and found.
