WANTED: Eligible Men in Melbourne

This morning I read a reality-inducing article in today's local paper, Sunday Age, entitled Looking for Mr Right or Mr Impossible-to-Find. The entire text can be read here, but some of the highlights are as follows:

Many 30-something women feel there's more than a little truth to the throwaway line that "all the good men are married or gay". They believe there is a "man drought", and it shows no signs of breaking.

About 20 years ago, Newsweek famously stated that a 40-year-old woman was "more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to get married". The magazine admitted in 2006 that this was bunkum, a hastily written funny aside that somehow made it into print and became accepted as fact.

According to Bureau of Statistics figures, nationally there are more women than men in their 30s. So if we imagine Australia as one giant dance hall and everyone is hetero, were there to be a magic pairing up of people in their 30s, about 15,000 women, including 7000 Melburnians, would be left on the side of the dance floor when the music started.

About 25% of all households are lone-person dwellings. Unmarried women now outnumber married ones in Australia.

...clearly there are many people who are happy being single. The term "freemales" has been coined to describe women who see plenty of positives in being without a man. Some commentators have even wondered if all this talk of desperate, single women isn't actually a feminist backlash in disguise.

Since women with tertiary educations are more likely to delay partnering than other women, there ends up being a large number of educated women in their 30s looking for a partner. But the number of men who match them in qualification levels is much smaller. So the competition for a man with a degree gets fierce.

This sad reality is very true in many churches too. And what I am afraid will happen (if not already) is that Christian single women in their 30s compromise the biblical standard of finding a man who is also a believer in Christ. I bet that the number of men who are mature Christians is even much smaller, only a fraction of the number of eligible, educated men as alluded to above. But flagrantly disobeying God's clear word in this area will only result in disastrous family lives. If you are a mature Christian and your spouse is not, you will surely get into heated debates and an unnecessary rift when it comes to questions like "Should we tithe as a family?" "Should we take our kids to Sunday School?" "Should we take up a ministry in the church?" "Should we care about being submissive to God in whatever circumstances?" "Should we even call your Jesus Christ, God?" etc...