Why There Are No Good Men Left: The Romantic Plight of the New Single Woman

A hard-hitting, groundbreaking exploration of the new mating conditions that are changing the face of love, commitment, and marriage as we know it.

A double revolution is at work in modern American love: A revolution in higher education has created the most professionally accomplished and independent generation of young women in history, and a revolution in mating has created a prolonged and perplexing search for Mr. Right. Based on extensive research and interviews, Why There Are No Good Men Left explores the romantic plight of this high-status woman with findings that are sure to rouse debate.

Cultural historian, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead documents the new social climate in which the demands of work, the epidemic of cohabitation, the disappearance of courtship, and the exacting standards of educated women are leading them to stay single longer–and to find the search for a mate even harder when the time is right. From the frontlines of college, where dating is dead, to the trenches of corporate solitude, Whitehead reports on a wholesale shift that has stacked the marriage deck against the best and brightest women.

The thirty-something, perplexed single woman is today’s new cultural icon. Why There Are No Good Men Left is the first book to take a serious approach to analyzing where she came from and to ask how she can realize her dreams of lasting love.


From the Hardcover edition.