Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

"Married or Single-Be Person First"

When Popeye, the Sailor Man, married Olive Oyl this year, single people, male and female, lost two important standard bearers for their cause. After 70 years in the King Features comics as perpetual models for the unmarrieds, they succumbed to the pressures of some unknown social dictates. Was it the IRS marriage penalty? Or maybe sexual properness? Did dear Olive finally work out her anorexia problem? Popeye, unable to escape to his corncob-pipe addiction any longer, must have gotten in touch with his loneliness. Even with his penchant for violent behavior, Popeye once had more national popularity than Mickey Mouse, if you can believe that. Then he was known for his patience, simplified moral values, and physical strength all derived from, my most unfavorite childhood vegetable, spinach. So what happened to the heroic ideal of being bravely unattached?

Despite being abandoned by the new Mr. and Mrs. Popeye, there are still plenty of American adults clinging to their single status, some by default and some by design.Would you believe that 44% of American adults are unmarried, divorced, or widowed? This is a large segment of the nations's population, and somebody has to pay attention to them.This goes for the relationship-helpers, particularly. Beyond the niche-market analysis, we marriage therapists need to take this trend as a red alert and not believe everything we read in the funny papers. Unmarrieds are people too, and, what's more, deserve status as persons. Whether they achieve personhood depends on them . They can do it remaining single, but there is a lot of data working against them.

In the University of Marital Ideals, the debate is heating up about the relative advantages of married vs. single. Author Robert Orenstein says that people in intimate relationships live longer and happier lives. This makes marriage look like it is built into human nature. OK, I know"intimate" is not technically "married", but I doubt that serial intimacy does much for emotional health. Score one point for being married. Then there are many singles-by-choice who are trying to buy into the advantages of the relationship benefits without actually marrying. I have to give a little credit to these wily hold-outs. They have looked around at their married peers and not seen many heart grabbing advertisements for the state of matrimony. "So-what if the married bunch live longer", singles ask, "are they really happy?" The number of divorced seems to say some have tried marriage and prefer it not. The fact is there's a 50/50 chance that the single becoming married become single again. And they often end up poorer and more emotionally discouraged than when they started. Yet plenty of the never-married believe they can beat the odds. Score one for persistent optimism.The debate goes on.

Personally, while I enjoy marriage and promote it professionally, I wouldn't want to say that everyone should be married, because it doesn't automatically qualify you as a real person. I say settle this debate and be a person first. In my university (Standby U.), Becoming a Whole Person 101 is the basic core course before being admitted to either Getting Married 201 or Staying Single 202.

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