Why Do Evangelical Women Not Want to Marry Evangelical Men?

A reply to Al Mohler

Are evangelical women hesitant to marry evangelical men?

On March 26 during an episode of his podcast The Briefing, Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, discussed a recent article from the Wall Street Journal: “American Women Are Giving Up On Marriage.” In it, author Rachel Wolfe discussed the change in recent years in women’s attitudes towards marriage. Basically, women now see marriage as a choice, not a necessity, and increasingly women are not willing to make that choice if potential mates aren’t great.

Mohler wasn’t happy.

Here’s what he said,

This is a five-alarm fire. This is a huge thing. And frankly, this headline doesn’t come out of the blue. Many of us watching these things have understood that marriage has been in decline across the American population for a matter of decades now. The age of first marriage has been extended further and further out into the future. We’re now looking somewhere at about age 30 for both men and women. It had been at about age 20, just closer to 20 if you go back, say a half century.

So you can say, “Well, what difference does it make if someone gets married closer to 30 than to 20?” Well, it makes a lot of difference over the marriage cycle. It makes a lot of difference in terms, for instance, of having children. How many children you will have. What the expectation is. What’s the model of marriage? It turns out that that has a lot to do with it.”

Did you notice what he said at the very end? The very model of marriage might change if the women have a job. The implication being that it’s better to get people married off when they’re young—around 19-21 years of age-- before they are established so that they can just start getting pregnant and have tons of kids.

He continues to discuss the plight of poor single men who desperately want to get married but, due to societal changes in how women view marriage, it’s just not happening for them. Women won’t marry men who aren’t educated or don’t make enough money. Women won’t marry men with conservative viewpoints.

And so Christian men are being left behind. It’s a “crisis”, a “five-alarm fire”, “time to hit the panic button.”

Mohler then goes on to summarize the rest of the article about how single women are perceiving the institution of marriage in ways that he finds problematic. At the very end it’s like he’s almost getting it. He says ‘increasingly, these unmarried women think that married women aren’t very happy. How could this possibly be?’

But what’s interesting is what Mohler leaves out.

He quotes at length from that article in the Wall Street Journal, but never mentions one of the author’s major points: women aren’t interested in a man who doesn’t want to be an equal partner and show up in the relationship, and work on himself. They want a man who will do his share of the housework and childcare, and who will become emotionally mature. They don’t want to be married single moms with another child to care for who is supposed to be a partner in marriage.

And Al doesn’t bring that up because Al has been teaching this whole time that men are in authority over women in marriage, and setting up the very marriage dynamics that make women want to run from the institution.

In our new book The Marriage You Want, based on our all new survey of 7000 people, we show how marriages set up the way Mohler wants, with men in authority over women, leave women far less happy (and they hurt men too!). And marriages where she carries all the mental load and housework become disastrous.

Yet instead of talking about how men need to level up and learn to function as full partners, Al Mohler chastises women for giving up on the “created order.”

He refuses to see that he’s contributed to this problem by promoting a model of marriage that hurts everyone.

Here is what our readers have told us about women’s shifting views on marriage

My daughter Rebecca and I recently did a podcast where we dissected Mohler’s arguments and what he left out.

During the discussion around that podcast, many women shared with us why they think evangelical women are less interested in marrying evangelical men. Here’s what they said:

1. Too many men are not interested in behaving like adults who can be equal partners

“When I was dating 20 years ago, the dating pool amongst Christian boys was abysmal. The standard was literally just that they be a “Christian” & go to church regularly. The boys around me/in youth group didn’t have their licences, no jobs, couldn’t fry an egg, had little personal hygiene, were largely unemployable outside of youth pastor roles. And then there I was, planning to go to graduate school, independent w multiple jobs to pay for education as I went, was told I was “intimidating”.”

Another said:

“My daughters do not want to get married. They've watched the women of my generation suffer under the hands of men that just refuse to step up, do their 8 hours at work and then nothing else while women do everything. They aren't interested in relationships and would rather adopt children to raise as single parents than deal with a man making their life harder…

Relationships should be bringing something positive to each other and not the unbalanced hellscape that most of us have lived thru.”

One woman who works at a large urban megachurch gave these reasons:

1. The men are overtly patriarchal and frame male headship as "God's design." The degree of sexism in evangelical spaces is becoming truly toxic.

2. The men are becoming increasingly politically conservative, while the women are becoming more progressive.

3. The women are highly educated and often work as bankers, lawyers, and medical professionals. To insecure men, their professional achievements make them intimidatingly "undateable."

4. Male pornography use is rampant and (rightly) unacceptable to women.

5. Christian men suffer in comparison to non-Christian men, who are often more respectful, more empathetic, less misogynist, less fragile, and less Christian nationalist.

6. Many of the men have underdeveloped social and emotional skills (awkward, passive, silent, low-key creepy). To use Gen Z lingo: they do not pass the vibe check.

2. Many men don’t seem to even like women

“I have a 23 year old daughter who wants to be married and have children. It’s been interesting to observe her dating experiences and I’ll tell you what I often wonder…

Why are so many young men saying they want to get married, but acting as if they don’t like women?

In my daughter’s case: there is no shortage of young men who want to take her out-but a real shortage when it comes to those ready to be emotionally available. A shortage of young men who want to get to know her and…

Show genuine interest in what interests her.

There are a lot who will want to stay in a relationship with her because of how she makes them feel, but few who will talk about how they want to contribute to her life.

Lots of takers, fewer givers.

This gets exhausting. She is dating someone, but is also saving for a house. In her heart I know she loves this guy-but is waiting for a dramatic shift one way or the other. We shall see.”

Another said:

“As the mother of a young woman & as someone who's been married nearly 25 years, I can say with 100% accuracy that these young women don't hate men. They'd REALLY like to meet a good man & have a relationship. But they're not willing to do what we did. They're not willing to tie themselves to men who they'll later discover don't even like them or be married single mothers. They're not willing to bring home 1/2 the bacon & always be the one cooking it. Young men need to grow up & level up.”

3. Women are no longer willing to settle when it comes to marriage

“I only want someone who’s put the same work into themselves and their life as I have. I don’t ask for anything that I haven’t already asked of myself. And until someone comes along that fits that criteria, I will find contentment in the life God has given me to live. I won’t waste it waiting for a person to complete me when God already has that job. And I won’t settle for less than an extension of the true love that I have experienced with God.”

Another woman agrees:

“I’ll add the disclaimer that I am no man hater. Good men are a blessing to our communities, our families, and our lives. But MANY men have gotten by with the bare minimum for too long, and that’s not working anymore. They have to upskill, not just professionally, but emotionally, spiritually, etc. I think they’ll get there because they’ll have to, but I think there are a lot of women in my generation who will give up having a partner if it means showing future generations they deserve better.”

And this woman says:

“I think a good man can bring amazing things to the table. But most have had it too easy for too long in terms of women NEEDING them and therefore having to put up with varying degrees of selfish entitled prideful behaviors. So here we are. They cannot just be NEEDED any longer. They must be WANTED. And that takes a lot of change and effort on their part. Most are not up to the challenge.”

I’ll let this woman have the last word:

“Look, Al, I tried. I did all the things. I followed God’s call while keeping an eye out for who was “running the race beside” me. The problem is there were 3 times as many women as men. There just aren’t that many men who love Jesus that much. And it shows. And since everyone said it was better to be alone than unequally yoked, here I am.”

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You may also enjoy:

• Our new book The Marriage You Want

• Our podcast on why splitting up household chores and mental load matters

• My husband Keith’s series on the Danvers Statement which shows why complementarian marriages do worse