Why marriage isn't for everyone

1. Much of your book 'Spinster' is about you following and exploring the five women you call “awakeners”–Why do these women exemplify your approach to life? Can you think of anyone alive today who might fall into that category?

I was drawn to women who—like me—loved home and family as much as their freedom and autonomy, and tried in various ways to reconcile these competing desires. They were all very different from one another, but at core they were deeply passionate, driven, imaginative seekers who lived with great intention, questioning their motivations and choices every step of the way. Reading their life stories awoke me to new ways of being in the world (hence the term “awakeners,”which I borrowed from Edith Wharton, rather than “heroines,”which implies to me someone larger-than-life, who has it all figured out). There are scores of women who live like this today, including several friends of mine—I just don’t know who the rest are because I don’t have access to their diaries/letters/biographies!

2. Your relationship with your mother has clearly had a huge impact on your life –how did your mom’s life awaken you?

My mother knew early on that she wanted to be a writer, but she didn’t have the confidence or time to pursue that ambition until her late 30s. Once she flipped that switch, she was unstoppable—she was one of the most hardworking, deeply curious, energetic, honest, and compassionate people I’ve ever met, perhaps the most. But at 52 she died suddenly of breast cancer. Losing her awakened me to the fact that life is short and unpredictable, and I decided the best way to honor her was to pick up where she’d left off, and make use of everything she’d given me.

3. Of all of your awakeners, who was your favorite?

That’s like asking me to choose my favorite child! No but really, I love them all for different reasons. The New Yorker writer Maeve Brennan lived alone with great flair during the 1950s and 1960s, the worst time to be a single woman in America (that is, next to the Salem Witch Trials). Neith Boyce, who wrote a column for Vogue in 1898 about her decision to never marry, showed me that smart women have been questioning convention forever. I admire how Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman took their work extremely seriously, prioritizing it above all else, while also making room for deep connections with others, whether friends, lovers, or family.  

4. Traditionally, marriage was part of the equation for a family, but today you don’t have to be married to have kids –do you want to have children? If so, what would you tell them about marriage?

 Children aren’t in the cards for me. But if they were, I’d probably start them with Shel Silverstein's book The Missing Piece, about a circle with a wedge-shaped hole that thinks it will be incomplete until it finds the perfect-fitting wedge (I won't spoil the ending). As they grew up, I’d show them examples of wonderful marriages, and examples of people who are happily single, and try to equip them with the critical-thinking skills that would enable them to decide in their own way, and in their own time, what is best for them.

5. I always felt like Sex and the City was a pop culture phenomenon that ushered in change for the younger generations about what it meant to be a woman today. Which character in Sex and the City is closest to you and your sensibilities?

I loved watching that show, but I didn’t personally identify with or want to be like the characters. I am 100% a Mary Tyler Moore.

6. What’s the difference between a “bachelor girl”and a “spinster,”or is there one?

The term “bachelor girl”arose in 1895 to describe the new breed of middle-class women who were going to college, getting jobs, and living on their own in the city—so unlike her sister the “spinster,”who was closely associated with the home, and therefore already considered old-fashioned. You might say that circa 1900 the “bachelor girl”was to the “spinster”what Carrie Bradshaw was to Bridget Jones circa 2000.

7. What changes in society would you like to see that might usher a greater acceptance, and even appreciation, for women who choose to stay single or refuse to tie the knot?

Many people are lucky to grow up with strong, unmarried women within their own families—aunts, great-aunts, grandmothers who have been widowed for fifty years and thrived. For the rest of us, my hope is that showing more true stories of happily single women will help everyone (male, female, married, single) see that being alone doesn’t have to mean being lonely, and that the single woman doesn’t have to be pitied.

8. Why do you think your article in The Atlantic struck such a chord with people?

Historically, single women were desexualized by society—the classic "spinster" was a frigid, repressed, lonely old woman past her prime, back when a woman’s prime was 23. Today, single women in their 20s and 30s (and 40s—hello “cougar”!) are highly sexualized by our culture, making anything having to do with them—even an article filled with statistics and numbers—sexy by default. I think that's why the article went viral. But the hundreds of emails I’ve received since, even now, four years after the article came out, have also shown me how bottomless the appetite for information and conversation that helps us make better sense of our lives. All kinds of people contact me, from reformed playboys to concerned fathers, insecure college students to powerful, happily unmarried professionals.