The Changing Landscape of Singleness: Exploring Unconventional Relationship Status in Barcelona

The civil state

Costa’s biography serves to describe singleness in the 21st century. The original definition of “person who has never been married” has evolved to adapt to new ways of organizing life, and limiting oneself to marital status is half the picture. Being single is the only “irreversible state,” because once a marriage is formalized, you will never be single again, emphasizes UAB demographer Pau Miret. Therefore, for statistics the data on cohabitation unions are taken and the question is asked what relationship they have with the residents of the same home.

Administratively, then, Costa has always been listed as single, but for sociology she is now, as long as she does not have “a stable relationship.” Gone are the “golden years of marriage” of the 1950s and 1970s, when young people were in a “rush to get married,” says UNED sociologist Juan Ignacio Martínez, who wrote his thesis on nuptials in Spain between 1970. and 2005. It is from the age of 80 that the age of first marriage begins to be delayed: from 25 years in 1976 to 35 in 2021, according to Idescat. As for the first cohabiting couple, the age is around 27. In both cases, there is a variable that is repeated over the decades: women make the transition about three years younger than men.

Rights outside of marriage

Miret attributes this disaffection towards marriage to the “deinstitutionalization” of society and Martínez also adds that there are now “more rights outside of marriage”, thanks to the equality of de facto couples with legal couples, and that being married “has lost what was previously obtained exclusively,” such as sexual relations or having children.

There are more than 1.8 million Catalans over the age of 20 who are single, according to marital status, with data from the INE from 2021. To have an approximation of what these figures mean, we must look at the Idescat history, which indicates that, From 1996 to 2011, the percentage of citizens who did not live with a partner doubled in the age group between 30 and 50 years old. Experts point out that this trend will continue after the impact of the arrival of a large wave of new migration at the beginning of the century, which lowered the ages of weddings, passes. It remains to be seen how the second generations will behave, but Miret is convinced that they will behave like native young people.

Late emancipation

Young people no longer leave home just to be with a partner or get married and, to the extent that their pockets allow, they launch their autonomy by sharing a home with other people, with whom they do not necessarily have any ties of friendship. However, singleness among young people is lengthening due to the delay in emancipation, which is already around 30, the highest age in the last two decades. This does not mean that they do not have a stable partner, but the economic situation makes it impossible for them to consider a life together.

Without a doubt, there are several factors behind this late independence. Among them, the increase in academic training, especially among women. The equation is fulfilled according to which a higher level of education implies more singleness. The exorbitant increase in rental prices, especially since the brick crisis, and precarious salaries also play a role. Sílvia Blanco’s midlife crisis hit suddenly at 35, when she returned to her parents’ house, where she had left three years ago because with the “fair” salary she cannot afford to rent the apartment where she lives alone. or the entrance to the future officially protected housing that was won in a lottery. She does not have a stable partner and she points out evidence: “Singleness is more expensive than living with a family.”

The price of singleness

Indeed, living a life alone, regardless of marital status, means up to more than 200 euros more than as a couple, especially for the minimum maintenance fees for the home (mortgage, rent and basic supplies). However, for demographer Miret, more than marital status or the company you live with, what determines the economy are dependent children.

Singleness in old age

At the other end of life, the other false singles are elderly widowers and widowers who, even living with a new partner, avoid formalizing the relationship to maintain their pension, especially in the case of women. Eusebio Martínez is a “recalcitrant” bachelor. About to turn 75, he has had two partners (one with a widow) with whom he has not lived under the same roof. “I have always been alone and I have gotten used to it,” he explains and remembers how young he felt “less or different” than his married brothers. Now that he is old, he fears that “maybe he will miss someone,” but he is aware that he is not going to get married: “I am going to die single and in a nursing home,” he laughs.

At 83 years old, Pilar Capella has a group of “girls” with whom she goes out for coffee, goes to the casal and even a few years ago she still traveled, she had started doing so when her parents died. She was the one who took care of her because she stayed in her family home, but she says that this did not detract from her opportunities. She never considered either getting married or staying single, she says, but life “happened like that.” Her “luck” is that she was surely able to get away from her loneliness and stigma because she has always been surrounded by single friends and now also widows who live alone. “I have made a small group and I have the family, the nephews and the brothers,” she says.

This is definitive singleness, a concept that sociology gives to the fact of living without a partner or having been married. In the last four decades, according to Miret, the percentage of this category has doubled, reaching the current 20%, a percentage similar to the rest of Western Europe.

Stigma in women

When talking about being single, the question is almost obligatory. In a society with more and more singles there are still stigma for those who live without a partner? It depends on their age and, above all, if they are women or men. Those of the generation who are now over 70 years old had to live with the pejorative label (because it was compassionate) of being the aunts that Serrat sang, and that in old age they have been able to separate themselves. As in the case of Capella, many stayed in the family home taking care of their parents. The difference with respect to men of that age who had the same concern is that they were “invisibilized” and socially isolated, says Bruna Alvarez, professor of Anthropology and researcher in the AFIN group at the UAB. This occurs because society does not see them as caregivers and because men, regardless of their status, tend not to open up emotionally, something that women do with their personal networks.

It is clear that today singleness is lived without so many complexes, for the mere fact that one is not alone. However, the sociologist Núria Viladomat, author of Single and delighted (Angle) maintains that “it weighs more among women” because for centuries they have been educated to “please and be valued for their emotional ties”, so, in the absence of a partner, “they don’t feel validated” and, along these lines, he affirms that celibacy among women “is not a choice.” She even points out that a woman who has achieved social and professional success, who may even declare herself a feminist, can “hide” that she does not have a stable partner to avoid inquisitive looks or the annoying “you’ll have one!” However, she predicts that singleness will gain ground.

Blanco, who is at that age when she has her first child, affirms that she does not feel challenged by this image “of a woman desperate for a relationship” nor has she felt pressured to bring a partner home or get pregnant.

Sex and loneliness

Loneliness is not synonymous with being single either. In this sense, Bel Costa confesses that in the last years of living together as a couple she did feel “sad for not taking the step” of breaking the relationship “and because of the fear” of whether she could maintain it. The only thing she reproaches the parents for is their “incomprehension” of her decision to separate.

Apps like Tinder They are a good option to earn a few hours of pleasureas are nightclubs or other leisure spots, but the divorced Santi (he does not want to identify himself) points out that They are not platforms only for singles. What is a single man like him, 42 years old and with two children, looking for on Tinder? “Have fun”. Viladomat has found, reviewing user profiles, that men are looking for “a specific relationship” and make it known directly or subtly, while women enter “longing to find someone with whom to generate intimacy.”

In a society of liquid relationships, very diverse, new links are appearingnew ways of relating: from the LAT (living aparte together), the acronym in English for those who each live at home but form a stable couple; to polyamory, if there is a stable relationship; to the “quality lover”, a concept that the sociologist points to to define a person with whom a sexual-affective bond is shared.

The singles market

Then there are the singles, the word in English that has made a fortune since the 2000s, because “marketing has appropriated” the concept of singleness to make it “more attractive,” explains Sarai Marín, doctoral student in anthropology at the UAB, who emphasizes that it has been a way in which the “neoliberal consumer society” has “destigmatized” being without a partner with the sole objective of selling more. After two years of field work, Marín published Singles. An approach to singles parties (Editorial Bellaterra), and as the quotation marks in the title point out, there were few singles in marital status, there were more divorced, separated and even widowers with children.

At the celebrations, explains Marín, people between the ages of 40 and 70 from a “fictitious middle class” come and dismantle the myth that they are a gold market, and although “they are available to make romantic and sexual ties,” They are not motivated by the desire to flirt, at least there, but rather the participants are looking for a network of friends “after a vital breakup.” “It is not one First Fechas“says the anthropologist in reference to the blind date television program. She also indicates that, rather than claiming to be singlesattendees defended their autonomy and that they were satisfied with their condition.