Most people don’t enjoy reading newspaper obituaries, unless it happens to be someone they know.  However, I’ve always found them fascinating  if they contain interesting details about someone’s time on this earth.    My contemporaries are beginning to leave this world at an alarming rate,  and their obituaries reveal a dying culture.

First, it’s important to realize that  obituaries are bought and paid for by the survivors. Newspapers used to publish them for free, but no more.  You can pay anywhere from $200 to $1000, depending on how many lines of copy.  And if the obit is in an extra day, it provides even more revenue for struggling newspapers who are hard up for advertising dollars.

An  obituary of a certain class of  women  of my generation provides a startling glimpse into the marriage customs of the elite during the fifties and sixties.  After the usual bio as to her parentage, we often find that she attended a well known college where she met and married, “the love of her life.”  She belonged to a sorority, which meant she was attractive, and came from a “good family.”  Having landed a college man who could support her, she may have taught school for a year or so before settling down as a homebody and raising her children.  No career for her.  She was a member of  faith based women’s clubs and other feminine circles.  Her highest achievements may have included serving as president of the PTA.  She belonged to a country club, where she played golf, tennis and bridge. If the husband did well enough , they might have spent summers at their Michigan cottage  or winters in their Florida home.

The most salient feature of these obits is the age at which the woman married…a median of 21.  Many of my college friends married after their freshman or sophomore year, before they were even 20! Which brings us back to that “love of her life,” issue.  I guess they didn’t have a chance to find out if  they could  have fallen in love with someone else.

But in the late sixties and early seventies, all that began to change.  The pill, and the subsequent women’s movement, gave women and men the freedom to live together without benefit of matrimony.  Before 1970, few couples would have lived together outside of marriage. But by the late 1990’s at least 50 to 60% of people did.

By the year 2018, only 29% of Americans age 18-34 were married, compared to 59% in 1968,  Men and women aren’t in a big rush to get married.  The average age of marriage has gone from 21 in 1950 to almost 30 in 2020.

The obituary of a millennial woman will probably read more like her male counterparts.  Her life will not be defined by the person whom she married.    She probably won’t have met “the love of her life” in college.  While she might enjoy tennis , golf,  or bridge, she didn’t have the time to pursue them as an important  component of her social life.    She may have had a career as an accountant, doctor, lawyer, or marketing manager. She probably didn’t marry until she was close to 30, and she might have had more than one husband.

Women are no longer living in the shadow of their  husbands. Obituaries of elderly women reveal a dying culture.