At a recent family dinner, my husband observed that when you instill godly ambition, disciplined work ethic, and a robust classical education in your sons, you broaden their pool of potential wives, but when you do the same for your daughters, you narrow their pool of potential husbands. When you raise peculiar, godly, meek, brave, hard-working, well-educated girls, you can expect that it will take an even more peculiar man to be fit for the task of leading her.
Where Are the Peculiar Men?
If you’re that sort of peculiar godly single woman––working hard, gainfully employed, at church every Sunday, serving children, and in want of a husband, you have likely wondered where to find your godly single male counterpart. It’s a common refrain in the broader evangelical church that young men seeking marriage are in seemingly short supply. If cultural trends are any indicator, it’s no surprise eligible men are few, as some have become whipping boys for what’s wrong in the world. Young men are less educated and less ambitious than previous generations. Forbes reports that young women outnumber men for college enrollment in every single U.S. state. More young women graduate from both high school and college. Of the men that graduate high school, fewer go on to college than the women they graduate alongside. Again, Forbes documents, “In 2021–2022, women earned the majority of post-secondary degrees at every level, accounting for 62.8% of associate degrees, 58.5% of bachelor’s degrees, 62.6% of master’s degrees and 57% of doctoral degrees.”
The statistics tell a nightmarish story—perhaps surprisingly one that is not just bad for the young men, but equally terrible for young women in want of a suitable husband. Men and women do not rise and fall apart from one another—all we do is interconnected. There can be no thriving women in the world without thriving men.
If you want one graph to tell the tale of our current decline on many fronts, it’s this one by Nathan Halberstadt, which gives the estimated percentage of 30-year-olds who are both married and homeowners from 1950–2025. In the 1950s, more than half of 30-year-olds were married and owned a home; now, it’s less than one in ten.
What’s a Single Gal to Do?
So, with all that cheery information to chew on, what’s a peculiar godly single woman to do? She wants to be married. She wants to have children. She values the home and would happily forgo a job or career to work and manage it. She can’t help but wonder if she’s put herself out of reach for the average young man in her church. Perhaps she feels a subtle nudge to dumb herself down in conversation, to try not to know so much, and maybe she wonders if her education was a mistake. And while I can’t answer whether any particular education was a mistake (plenty are), I do want to encourage godly single women when they ask with a twinge of despair, “What should I do?”
The answers to this question are quite straightforward. That may sound like cold comfort, but in reality, they are the same sorts of answers that go along with every stage of life for the Christian, and there is wonderful security in that.
1. Join a Local Church
Join one led by the kind of men you would want your future husband to imitate—in other words, men of strong conviction, who unapologetically love and teach all the Bible (even the hard parts for women), who protect the flock from wolves, and are not cowards. Being a part of this sort of church will be good for your soul and it may put you in the pathway of the kind of man you’re looking for. If you are at a super sugary sweet church with lots of nice-guy pastors who are loathe to offend for any reason, you can expect that is the kind of man they will develop through their example and teaching. And while you may find a lot of personal compliments and “you go, girls” at this type of church, you won’t find the kind of fortitude you need to endure your singleness cheerfully, grow in your own sanctification, nor will you be put in the path of the right kind of man.
2. Pray
If you desire a husband and desire to be a wife and mother, ask the Lord to bring you one, and ask the body of Christ around you to pray to this end. Ask your pastors and their wives to pray for you specifically and regularly. Ask wise older saints to do the same. Do not squelch your hope; instead, cultivate a sort of weaned hope—a hope in the Lord. Let Psalm 131 be your anthem:
“O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forevermore.”
And when you’ve prayed, and others have prayed, continue on in wisdom. You may be approached by someone and need to give a firm and clear “no.” Asking for God to bring you a husband does not mean saying yes to the first man who shows a hint of interest—it also doesn’t mean turning up your nose before you have a sense of a man’s character. What it does mean is prayerfully, wisely, and with the help of God’s people, evaluating each situation.
3. Forsake Feminism
Rip up by the seams any latent feminism from the fabric of your life. Most of us have some. Feminism is the air we have all breathed, so do not think that you are the one person immune from its influence merely because you desire to be both married and a stay-home mom. One form it might take in an accomplished single gal is that you may believe that your degrees or a certain kind of smarts makes you out of the league of a blue-collar single man. This is likely untrue—and, while each circumstance must be judged for itself––generally speaking, it is not just likely untrue, but profoundly untrue. The statistics above tell us men have less formal education than women, but don’t let that lead you to believe that they are not capable of leading women. They are and they must.
One lie feminism has told us is that we are all excellent judges of the worth of men, when in fact, we are often terrible judges of it. We may rely on external indicators such as college degrees, how lively or persuasive a man is in conversation, whether he’s as well-read as we are, how many Bible studies he’s been in—and while these might be indicative of his character, they also might be misleading. Godly character is forged in men a thousand ways, but all of them lead to the kind of man whose actions and words match. Better a man who’s been in zero Bible studies, but when he reads God’s word he obeys it, than a man who can recite chapter and verse but flakes on his work obligations.
One other way feminism can creep into the life of a young single woman is that as her status at work grows, her earning power increases, and the praise from her boss and co-workers multiplies, she may start to become indifferent and even a little condescending about marriage and motherhood. It’s not wrong to like your work or be good at it (it’s good to do that!), but don’t let yourself become hardened or embittered or make marriage and motherhood into something small or no big deal. They are a big deal—which is why we ask God to grant them.
4. Seek Counsel
Your church (and godly parents) can and should help you evaluate the character of a potential husband. Don’t go it alone. But beyond this, wise counselors can also help you evaluate yourself. Do you have any blind spots that might be keeping the worthy men away? One problem area that can get glossed over because sensitive topics lurk underneath is self-control. It can be difficult to evaluate oneself when it comes to food, exercise, schedule, and daily habits—these all relate to our self-mastery and are important indicators of our maturity and readiness for marriage and motherhood. If we cannot discipline our own body or schedule, but are gluttonous or disordered, it’s right to consider how we would be able to manage a household full of others. Ask the godly people around you to help you evaluate these areas, and, if there is a problem, ask them to help you grow in greater self-control and maturity.
5. Get after It
Whatever God has put in front of you—assuming it is a lawful vocation for a woman (for example, serving in combat or active law enforcement would not be lawful for a woman)—do your very best and do it with all your might. Aim high. Work hard. Whether you’re a secretary or a nurse or a lawyer or a business owner or a baker or a seamstress or an hourly employee at Chic-fil-A, bring all your talents to the table. Be the kind of woman who can be counted on. And in doing that, do not shrink from making it known to your pastor, your friends, and your church, that you would drop it all in a heartbeat were God to bring you a suitable husband.
Conclusion
Whatever achievements you attain in your singleness will not earn you status or accolades as a wife and mother, but what they can do is prepare you to be the kind of woman who glorifies God in any and every circumstance that God puts you in. God is not asleep at the wheel, it is not by accident he’s appointed you to live during this particular time with these particular challenges—trust him. Being a godly woman is the same endeavor as it ever was and ever will be, so do it, cheerfully. Live your life before his face and give yourself wholly to him—that is the key to fruitfulness and joy in every possible situation. God hasn’t promised you marriage, but he has promised you a fruitful life in his Son. You shouldn’t wait for a husband to start living a life of joy and good works. Yet, as regards a future husband, tend your hope, and not a hard heart.
