By Summer Stevens

Meet Emma. She’s a kind, young Christian woman. She always thought she’d grow up, get married, and have a family, but she wasn’t in a hurry. There was plenty of time for that!

Let’s say Emma graduates high school in a class with 1,000 people. Half are men, of course, so that leaves 500 possibilities for marriage.

Her first priority is finding a Christian. She’s serious about her faith and wants a man who is, too. About 40 percent of Gen Z-ers attend church, but church attendance continues to be about 60-40 women to men. So let’s estimate that out of Emma’s 500 options, 160 men will attend church.

However, they’re not real options. Barna Research says that about 40 percent of Gen Z-ers identify as LGBTQ, and even 30 percent of Gen-Z Christians identify as LGBTQ. So Emma’s real option of heterosexual Christian bachelors is actually 112.

She goes on to graduate from college and wants to marry a man who did, too. That’s not too much to ask, is it? About 70 percent of people attend college after high school, but only 61 percent of men. Her 112 men dwindle down to 68. And only 59 percent of enrolled men actually graduate, leaving Emma about 40 options from the original 500.

And this assumes that all 40 eligible men will be attractive to her and that she will be attractive to all of them! We still haven’t even talked about interests, personality, values, chemistry, and compatibility.

In reality, she is “competing” (to use that terrible word) with 168 heterosexual Christian women for the same 40 men.

Wait, what? Why that many? How come all the women who didn’t go to college made it into the list? Don’t the men have the same standards?

Here’s where it gets tricky. Emma has a college education. You’d think that the 40 men she’s considering would also be considering only highly educated women.

Research has indicated they’re not.

Highly successful men have, throughout the decades (prior to the 1980s when men and women attended college at the same levels), married women beneath their educational status. And they were fine with it.

Women, however, are not fine with it.

Women do not want to marry men beneath their educational status.

Now I’m not saying men don’t value intelligent women. Of course, many do. I’m merely saying that most men don’t discount as a potential partner a woman with less education than he has, the way women discount as a potential partner a man with less education than she has.

So where does this leave us?

First, people are simply getting married at a lower rate than ever before. The marriage rate is 5.1 per 1,000 people per year. According to the Wall Street Journal, that rate is the lowest since the US government began keeping records in 1867.

Many Americans are content with this and work around these bleak statistics by engaging in casual sex or cohabitating.

But women like Emma are waiting and wondering when God will bring the man they’ve been praying for.

How do we as Christian families and communities prepare women specifically for this reality? Do we continue to repeat the old adage, “There’s someone for everyone,” and promise young women that their prince will indeed come for them?

I feel we’ve done young women a disservice.

Here are five ways to prepare young women for the reality facing them.

1. It’s all about Jesus. This life is not eternity. It’s an opportunity to love and enjoy and share God. We must lift the eyes of our little girls and young women to Jesus—and encourage them to find the satisfaction of their souls in Him rather than in the husband that may be. Jesus is always enough.
2. Create a community of love and support. Regardless of what your future holds, invest in deep friendships, serve your community, take good care of yourself, and keep a sense of adventure. Marriage alone won’t make you happy. Happy single people are generally happy married people, and miserable singles make for miserable couples.
3. Rethink the respectable man. There are an increasing number of well-paying labor and trade jobs. These jobs are a vital part of every community and are in high demand today. You may want to rethink your beliefs on education, money, and employment for a potential partner. You may want to focus more on character and work ethic rather than education and prestige.
4. If you are committed to marrying a man with equal or greater education than you, recognize that higher education may actually reduce your chances of getting married. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying you should avoid that advanced degree. I have a master’s degree and I’m thankful for it. But the percentage of Christian men with the same level of education puts you in a statistical disadvantage because generally those men have a wide pool of (less educated) potential mates whereas you’ve limited yourself to a small pool of highly educated potential mates. The reason your marriage chances are slimmer is not because of who you are; it’s because you are choosing to be more selective. If you do choose to marry a man who makes less money or is less educated than you, it is critical that you not only show respect to him but that you actually believe him to be worthy of your respect. You must marry a man you can respect; if you can’t respect him, you have no business marrying him.
5. There is indeed something going on with men. Young men are retreating from society because our culture has told them that their strength, their masculinity, and their way of thinking aren’t just unwanted, but damaging, toxic, and dangerous. Women, we must stand for Biblical truth and support men. God created men to uniquely reflect His image—His justice, strength, protection, insight, and sacrifice. Men need our encouragement, and they need our appreciation. We must fight the tendency to be dismissive of or condescending to the men in our lives, but rather “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

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Summer Stevens is married to Nathanael and they have five children. She has a Master’s in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary and enjoys running (but mostly talking) with friends and reading good books to her kids.