Christian Stone's Weblog

In My Tribe

By ETHAN WATTERS
 Jim Goldberg
 The author, center, with his tribe in San Francisco.

 It may be true that 'never marrieds' are saving  themselves for something better. They may also be  saving the institution of marriage while they're  at it.

You may be like me: between the ages of 25 and 39,  single, a college-educated city dweller. If so, you  may have also had the unpleasant experience of  discovering that you have been identified (by the U.S.  Census Bureau, no less) as one of the fastest-growing  groups in America --the "never marrieds".

In less than 30 years, the number of never-marrieds  has more than doubled, apparently pushing back the  median age of marriage to the oldest it has been in  our country's history -- about 25 years for women and  27 for men.

As if the connotation of "never married" weren't  negative enough, the vilification of our group has  been swift and shrill. These statistics prove a  "titanic loss of family values," according to The  Washington Times. An article in Time magazine asked  whether "picky" women were "denying themselves and  society the benefits of marriage" and in the process  kicking off "an outbreak of 'Sex and the City'  promiscuity." In a study on marriage conducted at  Rutgers University, researchers say the "social glue"  of the family is at stake, adding ominously that "crime rates....are highly correlated with a large  percentage of unmarried young males."

Although I never planned it, I can tell you how I  became a never-married. Thirteen years ago, I moved to  San Francisco for what I assumed was a brief  transition period between college and marriage. The  problem was, I  wasn't just looking for an appropriate spouse. To use  the language of the Rutgers researchers, I was  "soul-mate searching." Like 94 percent of  never-marrieds from 20 to 29, I, too, agree with the  statement "When you marry, you want your spouse to be  your soul mate first and foremost." This über-romantic  view is something new. In a 1965 survey, fully three  out of four college women said they'd marry a man they  didn't love if he fit their criteria in every other way.

I discovered along with my friends that finding that  soul mate wasn't easy. Girlfriends came and went, as  did jobs and apartments. The constant in my life -- by  default, not by plan --became a loose group of  friends. After a few years, that group's membership  and routines began to solidify. We met weekly for  dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. We traveled  together, moved one another's furniture, painted one  another's apartments, cheered one another on at  sporting events  and open-mike nights.

One day I discovered that the transition period I  thought I was living wasn't a transition period at  all. Something real and important had grown there. I  belonged to an urban tribe. I use the word "tribe"  quite literally here: this is a tight group, with  unspoken roles and hierarchies, whose members think of  each other as "us" and the rest of the world as  "them." This bond is clearest in times of  trouble. After earthquakes (or the recent terrorist  strikes), my instinct to huddle with and protect my  group is no different from what I'd feel for my  family.

Once I identified this in my own life, I began to see  tribes everywhere I looked: a house of ex-sorority  women in Philadelphia, a team of ultimate-frisbee  players in Boston and groups of musicians in Austin,  Tex. Cities, I've come to believe, aren't emotional  wastelands where fragile individuals with arrested  development mope around self-indulgently searching for  true love. There are rich landscapes filled with urban  tribes.
So what does it mean that we've quietly added the  tribe years as a developmental stage to adulthood?  Because our friends in the tribe hold us responsible  for our actions, I doubt it will mean a wild swing  toward  promiscuity or crime. Tribal behavior does not prove a  loss of "family values." It is a fresh expression of them.

It is true, though, that marriage and the tribe are at  odds. As many ex-girlfriends will ruefully tell you,  loyalty to the tribe can wreak havoc on romantic  relationships. Not surprisingly, marriage usually  signals the beginning of the end of tribal membership.  From inside the group, marriage can seem like a risky  gambit. When members of our tribe choose to get  married, the rest of us talk about them with grave  concern, as if they've joined a religion that requires  them to live in a guarded compound.

But we also know that the urban tribe can't exist  forever. Those of us who have entered our mid-30's  find ourselves feeling vaguely as if we're living in  the latter episodes of "Seinfeld" or "Friends," as if  the plot lines of our lives have begun to wear thin.

So, although tribe membership may delay marriage, that  is where most of us are still heading. And it turns  out there may be some good news when we get there.  Divorce rates have leveled off. Tim Heaton, a  sociologist at  Brigham Young University, says he believes he knows  why. In a paper to be published next year, he argues  that it is because people are getting married later.

Could it be that we who have been biding our time in  happy tribes are now actually grown up enough to  understand what we need in a mate? What a fantastic  twist -- we "never marrieds" may end up revitalizing  the very institution we've supposedly been undermining.
And there's another dynamic worth considering. Those  of us who find it so hard to leave our tribes will not  choose marriage blithely, as if it is the inevitable  next step in our lives, the way middle-class  high-school kids choose college. When we go to the  altar, we will be sacrificing something precious. In  that sacrifice, we may begin to learn to treat our  marriages with the reverence they need to survive.

Ethan Watters is a writer living in San Francisco.