June 2, 1986, Cover Story: Too Late for Prince Charming?
 
Rarely does a magazine story create the sort of firestorm sparked 20 years ago next week when NEWSWEEK reported on new demographic projections suggesting a rising number of women would never find a husband. Across the country, women reacted with anger, anxiety—and skepticism. The story reported that “white, college-educated women born in the mid-1950s who are still single at 30 have only a 20 percent chance of marrying. By the age of 35 the odds drop to 5 percent.” Much of the ire focused on a single, now infamous line: that a single 40-year-old woman is “more likely to be killed by a terrorist” than to ever marry, the odds of which the researchers put at 2.6 percent. The terrorist comparison wasn’t in the study, and it wasn’t actually true (though it apparently didn’t sound as inappropriate then as it does today, post 9/11). Months later, other demographers came out with new estimates suggesting a 40-year-old woman really had a 23 percent chance of marrying. Today, some researchers put the odds at more than 40 percent. Nevertheless, it quickly became entrenched in pop culture.

Much has changed since the original story ran. New advances in fertility treatment have made many women worry a little less about biological clocks. Online dating has provided new ways for older singles to match up. And more women are graduating from college than ever before.

To mark the 20th anniversary of this controversial story, NEWSWEEK reporters sought out and and re-interviewed as many of the women in the story as we could find. Out of 14 single women in the article—not counting the therapists, authors and other experts—NEWSWEEK located 11. Among them, eight ended up marrying, and three remain single. Several had children. None divorced.

For her part, Stroebel-Scimeca isn’t surprised. “I’ve watched a lot of people [who married while young] get divorced,” she says. “I think that if you do wait until Mr. Right comes along, you have a much better chance of survival.”