The real reason I never got married
On the joy of Miss-ing out
A couple of weeks ago, I read a newspaper article which said that women still need to be married to be taken seriously. As a woman who has never been married, it came as quite a shock to discover that if I want to achieve “ultimate power status” I’ll need to be a ‘Mrs’ rather than a “near Ms.”
Like me, you might wonder what prompted this bold claim. Research on the number of female CEOs? Nope. Data on homeownership, pensions and financial wellbeing? Wrong again. A survey on women’s health and happiness? Ha, don’t make me laugh.
No, this potentially life-changing revelation came about because Kirstie Allsopp got married. Yes, that Kirstie Allsopp. The one who’s had a very successful TV career since the 90s, and possesses a magical ability to construct a festive wreath, a bar of homemade soap and some candles from a few twigs and leaves she found at the end of her (probably) massive garden.
I bet Kirstie was thrilled to hear that her many and varied achievements pale into insignificance now that she’s done the decent thing and got hitched to her partner of 20 years – and father of her two sons – Ben Anderson. She’s always seemed pretty empowered to me, but then what do I know? After all, I’ve never experienced the “prestige of wifehood.”
More to the point, I’ve never wanted to.
As a little girl, I never dreamed of Mr Right slipping a ring on my finger. I never draped the net curtains over my head and imagined it was a veil. I didn’t spend hours imagining what my wedding dress might look like – although I do remember being very taken with the blood red Jasper Conran dress Paula Yates wore when she married Bob Geldof in 1986. Thinking about it, I’m not sure if that really counts. I did have genuine enthusiasm for the diamond jewellery, but that’s why I bought my own.
In my 20s, I remember telling my then-boyfriend that “only toilets should get engaged.” My stance on this matter has always been crystal clear: I’m not the marrying kind. And I’m not the only one. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that the proportion of adults who have never married or been in a civil partnership has steadily increased from 26.3% in 1991 to 37.9% in 2021, and a 2022 YouGov survey found that 29% of unmarried women don’t want to get hitched, either because they don’t see the point, don’t think marriage is right for them, or think marriage is outdated or no longer relevant.
I agree with most of the above, although I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say that marriage is outdated or no longer relevant, if only for reasons of inheritance. I know plenty of people who have married for ‘practical reasons’ – after all, the average UK woman could save a whopping £252 a year in tax just because she says “I do.” Yes, marriage seems to work just fine for some, but it’s never appealed to me – and it would take way more than a £21 per month saving on my tax return to convince me otherwise. And I think I know why.
The real reason I never got married is because, as a child, I never aspired to be a Mrs when the women I admired called themselves Miss.
Let’s start with my mum. She never married, which was a pretty radical move in the 1970s. Come to think of it, lots of people still find it pretty radical in 2025. Often, when she meets women around her own age for the first time, she gets the sympathetic head tilt (you know the one) when they find out she never had the Special Day when she wore the Big White Dress.
I know, because I’ve asked her, that she never had wedding fantasies either. More importantly, she was so content with being unmarried that, to a child – me – it looked like a serious power move. She laughed more than my friends’ (married) mums, and she dressed better. She looked younger. Acted younger. She was more fun.
I was so proud that my mum was a Miss that I corrected my primary school teachers whenever they called her ‘Mrs’. I was painfully shy and seldom spoke in front of the class, but I could never let this glaring error go uncorrected. If I was given a letter to take home, and it said ‘Mrs Roberts’, I’d cross out the ‘Mrs’ and replace it with ‘Miss’. I kept going until they got the message.
My mum wasn’t the only woman who made being a Miss look a whole lot better than being a Mrs. During the 70s and 80s, most famous and high-profile women were addressed as Miss, even if they’d been married for years.
There was Miss Joan Collins (now Dame Joan). Miss Elizabeth Taylor. Miss Shirley Bassey (my uncle’s favourite). Miss Diana Ross. Miss Moneypenny. And, obviously, Miss Piggy. And let’s not forget the woman who was in our living rooms every Saturday night throughout my childhood and teenage years: Cilla Black. Yes, even though she’d been happily married to her husband, Bobby, since 1969, she remained Miss Cilla Black until the end, perhaps because she knew it had a rather more glamorous, showbiz ring to it – if you don’t believe me, just check out this clip. Cilla really knew how to make an entrance.
In fact, ‘Miss’ has been bound up with sex and power for centuries. Research by University of Cambridge historian Dr Amy Erickson found that the title ‘Mrs’ – originally pronounced ‘mistress’ – was once used to address all adult women, whether they were married or not. ‘Miss’ was first adopted by adult women in the mid-1700s, as a way to signify their social ambitions and gentility. Before that it was only used for girls – to call an adult woman ‘Miss’ was to imply she was a prostitute.
Growing up, the women who were addressed as ‘Mrs’ didn’t seem anywhere near as happy or exciting. Fairy tales usually ended with a wedding, but we never got to see what happened afterwards – unless you watched the soaps, which were never the greatest advertisement for married life. And then there was the most high-profile ‘Mrs’ of my childhood: Mrs Thatcher. Say no more.
True, in recent years there have been a few more aspirational women who have made being a Mrs look more appealing, including Mrs Victoria Beckham and Mrs Amal Clooney. However, there are many more who, professionally at least, have continued to be a Miss. Even Beyoncé, who famously rebranded herself as ‘Mrs Carter’ in 2013 has, according to Forbes, recently gone back to being Beyoncé Knowles.
As for me, I won’t be lying awake at night worrying about whether I’m taken seriously. Not least because I thought that we were all well past the point of caring about what Taylor Swift calls “the 1950s shit” that assumes all women are desperately waiting to become wives.
So please don’t worry about me and my “naked finger” (that sounds a bit rude, no?).
I promise you, I’m full to the brim with JOMO*.
*The joy of Miss-ing out