Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
All The Single Ladies in the Church

All The Single Ladies in the Church

Last updated on: January 8, 2020 at 5:30 am by Andrea L. Turpin

All The Single Ladies in the Church 2020-01-08T04:31:35-04:00 Andrea L. Turpin

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I recently encountered an article that made me yell “Preach!” It was about single women in the Australian church, but everything it said resonated with me as a single woman in the American church. Australia has fewer men than women overall, and this ratio is exacerbated within the church. So many Christian women who assumed they would be married by now have instead found themselves still single.

I assumed similar statistics were true for the contemporary American church. Turns out that’s true. Analysis of the Pew Religious Landscape Survey 2014 reveals this gender ratio among more “pious Christians,” as measured by belief and religious activities:

“For every 100 eligible women, there are 85 eligible men. In other words, large shares of devout Christian women will have great difficulty finding a similarly, or even passably, devout Christian romantic partner.”

Image courtesy of Pexels

The problem may be even worse than that if the American church shares the following trait with the British church: According to a survey conducted by British author Vicky Walker (as reported by Anna Broadway in Christianity Today), two-thirds of church-attending Christian women would only marry another Christian whereas only half of church-attending men said the same thing. Do the math.

The Australian article acknowledges some of the frustrations experienced by single women in the church. A major one is “‘singleness microaggressions’—like when someone at church asks, ‘Why aren’t you married?’ before adding, ‘You’re great!’” And many of these women do long to be married.

But these women also report substantial satisfaction in their single lives. Single women are often able to maintain a larger number of substantive friendships than their married peers. They also appreciate the opportunity to make meaningful contributions to their local church communities, which often serve as their family.

While the ratio of women to men in the American church has fluctuated somewhat, women have always been in the majority—since the mid-1600s. Single women have thus always made up a substantial minority within the church.

This past weekend, I had the privilege of serving as the commentator on a panel of papers on single women throughout Protestant church history at the annual meeting of the American Society of Church History. I had to laugh—I felt particularly qualified! But my more important qualification was my research into American women’s education: most female educators in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century U.S. were unmarried.

Together this panel’s papers made the argument that single women have always both challenged the church’s understanding of womanhood and contributed to the church’s mission in unique ways.

Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg, a guest Anxious Bench contributor, kicked off the panel by examining the place of single women in the early Reformation church in England. The problem, she noted, is finding accounts of such women. These women were in a far more precarious economic situation than their married peers and were therefore more likely to slip into poverty and out of the historical record.

Women in general largely slipped out of early modern Protestant sermons compared to their more robust presence in late medieval Catholic sermons. But whereas late medieval Catholic sermons tended to treat single women as a sexual temptation to men, early modern Protestant sermons did not join in this condemnation—even as the condemnation grew louder in secular literature. But neither did these sermons praise single women. They didn’t mention them at all.

Where single women were mentioned in early English Protestant literature was in psalters, which listed specifically young single women among various groups of people specially called upon to praise the Lord. They were even paid as special dancers in church worship festivals. But later psalters soon replaced this reference to young women with one simply to children and likewise included only children as festival dancers. Renberg is still looking into possible explanations for these findings. Her research points to the marginal position of single women in the church of this era: overlooked in many ways, but respected in a few for their unique service to the church.

Dr. Elise Leal picked up the story during an era for which more sources are available regarding single women’s activities and viewpoints. She investigated single women’s participation in the nineteenth-century American Sunday School movement. Originally, Sunday School meant something different than it does today: in a time without universal public education, volunteer teachers, available on Sundays, provided both basic and religious education to poorer children whose families could not otherwise afford it.

Protestant women of that era participated in various social reform movements like Sunday Schools in the name of extending the unique values of womanhood beyond women’s predominate vocation in the home as wives and mothers. Leal demonstrated that the values of womanhood being extended were not only those associated with mothering—because many Sunday School teachers were single women. These women, often evangelical converts, had a passion for “usefulness.” They wanted to use their time of singleness in service to the church and the world. Their service expanded their church’s conception of womanhood.

Finally, Dr. Aihua Zhang explored the history of the single women who served as the leaders (known as “secretaries”) of the Chinese Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) of the early twentieth century. The YWCA came to China via Western missionaries, but many Chinese women subsequently assumed leadership in the movement. The Chinese YWCA focused on religious education, and, increasingly, on improving the lives of children through activities such as building modern playgrounds and educating mothers in scientific parenting techniques.

Zhang argues that many of the single women who found satisfying work in the YWCA were nevertheless not single by choice. Rather, singleness was forced on them by men who did not wish to marry intelligent, accomplished women—or by the fact that the YWCA provided meaningful work for single women but would not employ married women because it did not believe women could combine family and career. Like the early generations of college women in the United States that I have studied, these educated Chinese women had to choose between family and professional service. But those who chose full-time ministry still contributed to family life—Zhang’s evidence reveals it was single women who were instructing married women on the best child raising techniques!

Image courtesy of Pexels

By standing outside of direct relationship to men, the very existence of all these single women in the church called into question definitions of Christian womanhood confined to women’s relationship to men. In these different times and places, single women conformed to ideals of womanhood in some ways and pushed against them in others. This fusion enabled them to contribute unique service to the church: they didn’t fit into boxes.

So how can the church today best respond to the large number of single women within our midst? First, be part of the solution for those who want to be married: learn from the plight of Chinese YWCA secretaries and train Christian men to value intelligent, accomplished women. Also take the initiative to set up the women who want to be set up—thoughtfully, not just with any ol’ guy who also happens to be single! But most importantly, empower single women to serve the church with their gifts. They need a place within the church. And they have a unique perspective the church needs.

American Society of Church History

China

Early Modern Europe

Nineteenth-century U.S.

Previous Post

January 7, 2020

A Letter to Christian Parents about Christian Colleges

Next Post

January 9, 2020 The Clemson Tigers and the Narrative of Christian Athletic Excellence

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe Guest Post guest post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: Noah's ark was made of cedar wood.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE