Where Art Thou Husbands? (and why isn't love enough)

Dearest reader,

People have been talking about marriage for centuries and I have been thinking about it for years, the past four of them I have spent trying to write about it, and since August, I finally realized I should get it out of my system regardless whether it is important or not.

Namenly, at 25, I have at last reached a point where people around me are getting married. My friends in particular have started to look for people to get engaged with, to make potential fiances and ultimately turn these men into husbands. Some of them already have partners, some are hoping to catch one in the next five years and others are planning the big day as we speak.

However, I did not realize the gravity of the situation until my friend, in near desperation, sighed that she "just wants a husband, the ring and the babies". And when Raye happened to release a new song 'Where is my husband' 24 days later my friend's tired confession, I could not help but wonder: why do women want husbands? Especially, when being a wife is so much less glamourous a role than a fiancee or a bride, and definetly not much more than a girlfriend.

Naturally, I did some researched and, to my surprise, found that while we may talk about husbands people are actually less and less likely to marry than ever before, and if they do, the event takes place later in life. In fact, couple of decades previously the average age for women to marry was 20 to 25, while today it is much more common to tie the knot at 25 to 35 (Our World in Data, 2020). So what is the hurry?

However, according to Our World in Data (2020), 64% of all women age 15 to 49 in the world are either in a relationship or married, and those unmarried ones posses nearly the same legal rights as married couples. And "while the share of women in their teens and twenties who are married or in a union has declined significantly, older women today are about as likely to be married or in a union as they were half a century ago" (Our World in Data).

So if marriage, according to data is not neccessarily the norm any longer, why almost two thirds of women are still entering it? And why someone like me – a non marrying type – spends her time writing about marriage?

My first thought? Maybe humans just need a contract to bind them into something bigger than themselves. Maybe, we simply cannot exist meaningfully without external settlements validated before God, confirmed by law and amplified by a sense of eternal romance. And maybe, even breaking that contract feels more thrilling and powerful than shattering a heart that is free in the face of law but engraved in thy name by choice.

However, what data does not provide is insight into how women – married or not, young or old, sinister or delighted – relate to marriage.

Good afternoon, one question: where art thou husbands?!

And in order to make any discoveries, first, we must tackle the question: why women of 25 to 35 want a husband?

We could blame it on the norm, the history, the oppression, the image of a life fulfilled fed to us by Disney movies and Jane Austen novels: that a hushand is the ultimate accessory of stability, status, acceptabiliy and companionship with a side of love, sex and expensive jewellry. But really – if I understood my friends correctly – what seems to be the core consern is not romance (which, however, is taken into consideration) but where to find a decent enough fellow to be the father of your children.

Of course, you could just buy sperm from European Sperm Bank, quit the search and step into single parenthood – a decision not even a successful lawyer Miranda Hobbs was prepared for in season 4 of Sex and the City. In fact, Charlotte York too had to divorce her otherwise perfect husband for not being an eager enough father to-be during the same season.

So single parenthood, while not as threated a path as it used to be, still isn't discussed widely enough as a reproductive option for women nor is it particularly encouraged a choice over husbands by society, even though 85% of primary single parents in Finland in 2021 were already women (YVPL, 2025). What is more, across OECD countries, 10% of children aged 0-5 live (also) with only their mother, but less than 1% live with just their father (Our World in Data, 2020). At least, all I know is that nobody at school mentioned that becoming a parent by sperm donor would be an adequate way to have a child by yourself, since even adoption almost always prefers to put the child into a family of two married adults (Pelastakaa lapset, 2025).

My point being, if you do not technically need a husband to have children or to raise them, but "need" one in terms of support and traditional family values, the issue appears to transcend biological matters, which we, of course, already knew.

As always, money enters the picture, and even in todays girl boss era marriage and most long-term relationships include financial dimentions which benefit both parties materially as well as socially. So when you say you married for love, you did not just marry love, but a legal system favoring couples financially even in death.

Namenly, in Finland, a widow's pension is only granted for couples who, at the time of the other half's death, were married or in a registered relationship (Zmarta, 2025). And when it comes to parenthood, it certainly isn't comforting to know that in Europe 47% of single-parent households were at a risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2017 which, in comparison, was the case for only 21% of two-parent households (Our World in Data, 2020).

Furthermore, considering the rising cost of living, increase in conservative values and far-right leadership literally rocking the boat, financial well being is placed high for a reason, espacially if your are a woman and there is a child involved, hence why finding a husband at 25 suddenly seems like a favorable idea – indeed, if you can find a decent enough fellow to share a life with.

So, while marriage may offer financial stability, entering a realtionship is potentially detrimental for women. According to a study comissioned by European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in 2024, Finland is the most unsafe country for women in Europe. And by another study commioned by Statistic Finland, 50% of all women in Finland have suffered from mental violence in a relationship, and that women are more likely to experience serious and recurring violence than men (Naisten linja, 2025).

Moreover, these are not just faceless stats. I personally know women whose husband's have gone mad, turned out to be psychopaths, abandoned their sons and daughters for another woman and kept their wifes prisoners in their own homes refusing to use contraception and sexually assalting their step-children.

YET, here we also are. Living in a time when women are earning more than ever before, some of us exeeding our partner's monthly income and, therefore, operating as the household's primary breadwinners. The fortunate fact is that not all women can play the poor and unfortunate card any longer. We are simply becoming too powerful and too smart, and perhaps, as a result of this maturity brought by hardwork mixed with yearly declining fertily, women might be ready for marriage earlier than men of their generation. Just a guess! But judging by my friends, women are starting to get tired of dating as early as 25.

Which, in light of all of the above, brings me to question absolutely everything: the lack of self protection for financial gain, the suitability of marriage in general and the struggles of single parenthood weighted against dangers of possible domestic violence.

However, considering our historical past, it is all too obvious: women also want a husband so they can be sanctified. (well, that's my theory anyway)

When Simone de Beauvoir wrote her feminist classic 'The Second Sex' she divided the chapters not by decades in time but by roles each woman would traditionally play during her lifetime: a Goddess, a daughter, a lover, a fiancee, a bride, a wife and a widow. While men would move from Middle Ages to Renaissance or from Reformation to Enlightenment, time stood still for women. Our lifes were already written, and in order to keep the little relevance and heritage we had mustered, women were expected to follow this path, unless she made love making her business (Simone de Beauvoir, 1949).

Needless to say, that the want of performing these roles (especially the bride for its glamorous appeal) are basically coded in our DNA – it is our past, regardless, do you actually want to get married and follow conventions. And I would go as far as to say that every woman, dispite of background, knows what kind of a bride they would be: would they have roses or lilys, diamonds or pearls, a spring or a winter wedding and so on. We simply cannot help but ask "a tiara or a veil", and over the years, our minds have been pregnated with all the images of brides we want and don't want to be, so that when we are together, we nod approvingly at the plans that suit each girls' unique personality and the season of the wedding.

We carry all of this because being a bride is like a dream. It is sacred, serious, brief and eternal at the same time – a holy sacrament. It is like the wedding dress at the end of an haute couture show that makes every dress before look slightly heathen and unremarkable. As wedding magazines would put it: being a bride is the biggest story of your life. And that is what it feels like.

Yet, here is the forever quandry; that becoming a bride, a part saint, always takes finding a husband first.

But what about women who want a husband but don't want offspring nor smell rose petals everytime a word bride is mentioned? What about women who want marriage but refuse to giggle over a Tiffany diamond? What about those women! How can one explain shunning away from accessories?

All I can come up with is that those women have somehow risen above worries of reproduction and feminine myths. It appears that some women (the 64% of as all) just want little companionship in their lives; someone to share this confusing journey and hopefully to avoid loneliness in old age. I asume.

But here is where we – I – arrive to the most pressing point. Namenly, to the fact that you can I have the love, the romance, the companionship, the family without marriage. For those things can exist between people freely without laws, behind closed doors and in a silence of church bells.

So when I look up to the stars or cry into a seashell to ask for my friends "where art thou hushands", what I really mean is: why isn't love enough? Which is ultimately the reason why someone like me has to write about marriage.

If you have made it this far you might be thinking "but what does she know about love. She doesn't even believe in marriage and even she has benefitted from her parents marriage", and you would be absolutely right to question my morality and narrow thought processes presented previously. I do not know your unique situation and needs as a human, but I am also not going to take the world as it is presented just because something is sold as a fairytale.

Furthermore, I acknowledge that marriage can mean very different things: if you're a gay couple marriage would (still) be a revolution, if you're a woman born in 1632 marriage would be a matter of security, if you are a woman in general marriage would be stepping into your heritage and if you are my girl friend I can see that marriage would hold the keys to your domestic happiness, which is why, they have to talk about it in front of someone like me.

Yet, I do not wish to be seen as a sombre soul with a sour taste in her mouth. I too am almost stunned with joy when people tell me they are getting married. I too think it fitting for Cinderella to have found her Prince and for Lizzy and Mr. Darcy to have gotten married, because the cultural context of those stories require it as a means to happiness: a fulfilled life devoid of poverty with a right amount of romance. (But wait, isn't this still true?)

And then, there are stories like 'Little Women' that force an old man in Jo March's arms when she was so clearly born an adventurer; a great mind to roam free accross prose and verse only to be confined into a dusty, mediocore marriage. To me, Jo is made a prisoner. She is trampled and removed from having any chance of freedom or time to find love at least with a man of her age.

Consequently, when I think of marriage I think of Jo March, not Cinderella. I find it impossible to accept it as form of pure love because it has never been so. And while most marriages today are love matches, I am sure, the thread of history is too thick.

So why I am oppose to marriage is not a lack of believe in love but because love is not enough in marriage; because in marriage love co-exists next to settlements. And what if there comes a day when love only exists because of those settlements.

Therefore, before there comes a day when marriage has worn out all of its economic commodities – when women do not become Mrs. – I cannot welcome and embrace it by my chest. Perhaps, it is not a very realistic thought but it is a vision of an idealist. After all, can a life that has rarely been indipendent for women offer independence in love? And should love even be independent? This may be the stumbling rock in my life as a whole which the following scribble will aim to explain:

I don't want to be the sun to your day or a rose to your garden.

But I am your applause, the wind below your wings and stars behind the clouds.

I am the letter unwritten where you say anything you want; the mind that has undressed your shackles. You must not think of me as Queen beside you or as Goddess in your bed.

In love I ask to be your city of freedom, such, you cannot capture in a snow globe.

And would you be all this to me too?

Would you give me a boat to sail towards a measureless horizon?

Could we allow us to be ample and limitless, and unyielding to the laws of marriage by becoming outlaws, defying God and Zeus' bolt of judgement?

Could you understand that love cannot tell about anything else but the blue arch of the sky that is mirrored in streaming waters; that nothing so mobile cannot be barred, separeted or tamed by human customs, human ways.

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With all this said, in some wicked way, I actually mind much less about the bridal fuss, ancient rituals, virgin's purity, the need to wear white, the sacredness of a woman story and the awe inspiring symbolism because after everything that is us. We are symbolism. That is what we know of every single woman in history: that she was a bride in better or for worse, in sickness and in health; that she bore children, raised the next generation of brides and husbands and died forgotten but ever present in art of men. And it also bothers us.

Marriage needs to be discussed, questioned, scrutanised and romantisized because of the very fact that world is changing, women's life's are still changing. And what freedom and security means for one is not always same for the other.

Therefore, I will stand by my friends decision to marry when the time comes, having fought long, ambiguous battles about whether any of it is neccessary. Because when the world is changing we want to be there to make sure it turns into a world where men can say with a good conscience that they might want a wife as much as women may want a husband; where gays can marry before their chosen God; where women are not expected to step into herited roles; where parenthood can be planned fairly and in many ways; where Jo March can take time to fall in love and where Raye can write a song 'Where is my love'.

Yours Truly,

Siiri

P.S. I do apologise for any inaccuracies, limits of perspective and the overall lenght of this post. Marriage as a topic is such a huge mountain to climb and it's something that frequently confuses me – has confused me as long as I can remember. Which is why, I had to write this down imperfect as it may be, in case somebody needs to hear it as well.

P.P.S I have been writing so long that now I am unsure whether we arrived to a conlusion about why women want a husband, so please tell me why do you want one.

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Why do(n't) you want a husband?

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Sources:

Naisten linja. (2025). Naisiin kohdistuva väkivalta Suomessa. https://naistenlinja.fi/naisiin-kohdistuva-vakivalta-suomessa/

Pelastakaa lapset. Haluan adoptoida lapsen. https://www.pelastakaalapset.fi/tyomme/mita-teemme/adoptiotoiminta/haluan-adoptoida-lapsen/

Yhden Vanhemman Perheiden Liitto ry. Yhden vanhemman perheet tilastoina. https://yvpl.fi/meista/yhden-vanhemman-perheet-tilastoina/

Our World in Data. (2020). Marriages and Divorces. https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces

Zmarta. (2024). Yksinhuoltajan talous ja tuet vuonna 2024. https://www.zmarta.fi/vinkit-ohjeet/talousvinkit/yksinhuoltajan-talous

Beauvoir de, Simone. (1949). Toinen sukupuoli 1 & 2. Tammi