According to this article about a U.S. census report, 51% of women are living without a spouse. It’s an historical tipping point: this is the first time that a majority of women are living without a husband.

Between 1950 and 2000, the percentage of women 15-to-24 who were married slide from 42 percent all way down to 16 percent. In the 25-to-34 age group, the percentage fell from 82 percent to 58 percent.

I find the numbers to be good news. Although there are certainly plenty of women who’d like to be married but aren’t – and for them, I hope they catch a good one – it’s a positive development that marriage is less of an automatic choice.

The falling percentages are distinctly good news for the many young women who in the past rushed into ill-considered marriages just because matrimony was the default choice. Think of all those creepy, incredibly immature men they got married to because peer pressure proclaimed “it was time.” (And think of all those good men who got stuck with incredibly immature women due to a headlong rush to the alter.)

In the article about the statistics, the women interviewed talked about the joys of the single life. Like this women:

“The benefits were completely unforeseen for me,” she said, “the free time, the amount of time I get to spend with friends, the time I have alone, which I value tremendously, the flexibility in terms of work, travel and cultural events.”

So women run a little freer. Amen.