October 14, 2001 NY Times

In My Tribe
By ETHAN WATTERS

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 statement 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.