The British press is littered with articles about single thirty-something women. The bookshops are full of Bridget Jones's Diary - the hilarious "year in the life" of a thirty-something single woman, written by Helen Fielding - and the cinemas have been offering Career Girls and My Best Friend's Wedding. The Singletons, as Bridget dubs them, are the demographic phenomenon of the end of the century. These are educated, independent young women with careers and property of their own. Still, because they have no partner, they are often left feeling their lives are incomplete: "As women glide from their twenties to thirties, the balance of power subtly shifts," muses Bridget Jones. "Even the most outrageous minxes lose their nerve, wrestling with the first twinges of existential angst: fears of dying alone and being found three weeks later half- eaten by an Alsatian."
Networks of other single soulmates, Friends-style, help to stave off the panic: "There's more than one bloody way to live: one in four households are single, most of the royal family are single, the nation's young men have been proved by surveys to be completely unmarriageable, and as a result there's a whole generation of single girls like me with their own incomes and homes who have lots of fun and don't need to wash anyone's socks," declares one of Bridget's single friends.
The most recent Census statistics in this country show that the single adult population is also rising here faster than the married one: in the past 10 years the number of singles rose by 15 per cent, while the number of those married only went up by four. The 1996 figures break down the number of single people into age brackets. Over half the total number of women between 25 and 29 were single. A quarter of those between 30 and 34 were single, a figure that dropped only slightly further for those between 35 and 40.
There were slightly more single men in each age group but there were more separated women. And being separated, although it can often involve rearing children, is not so different from being single, in that you still have no adult partner. With the advent of divorce the same will apply to those who are divorced.
There's little if any literature available about the impact of being single in the Irish context, but Ann Byrne, a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at UCG, is doing her PhD on the subject of single Irish women and their sense of identity in today's society. "The single status is not recognised or respected in this country, and single women in particular are highly invisible to others," she believes.
"Irish society is not sensitive to the needs of the single person. You have to pay a single supplement in hotels. The tax system is in favour of families. Even though we have a history of singleness, there's no cultural preparation given to people. There are very limited lifestyle models available." Byrne interviewed 30 women over the age of 30 as part of her research, which will be published in book form next year: "Most Irish people tend to get married in their late twenties so when you turn 30 and you're single that's when you start realising life isn't turning out for you the way other people expected."
The women she surveyed were frequently asked - by family, friends, and complete strangers - to explain themselves. Bridget Jones wittily describes this double standard, whereby the personal life of the single person is deemed fair game for conversation: "Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to them and roar `How's your marriage going? Still having sex?' " The whole attitude to a single woman is, says Ann Byrne, "What's wrong with you? Why haven't you got a man?"
"The absence of marriage leaves the adult in undefined territory where there is no legitimate social role beyond a certain age," say the authors of a US book, Single In A Married World, Natalie Schwartzberg, Kathy Berliner and Demaris Jacob: "Almost all of our stereotypes about singles are negative, ranging from irresponsible and selfish to unfit or pathological."
"The single woman begins to wonder about her femininity, surrounded by the dominant model of the family, a model she has not reproduced," says Anne Byrne. In order to continue a single life under these circumstances, some of the women she surveyed developed strength and independence: "They rejected the trap of the old family model and all the labels that go with it. They wanted to invent a new language to describe their identity."
This new language went beyond the traditional notion of a single woman being someone who has just not found "Mr Right": "Some were coming out of hurtful relationships. Others weren't looking for a partner. Very few were sexually active, because they had a `been there, done that' attitude about casual sex. They weren't interested in casual encounters because they valued themselves too much," says Byrne.
Intimacy rather than anonymous sex is more likely to be their goal: "Having had the time to discover who they are and what they want, single women in their 30s and 40s are ready for intimacy," says Mary Canavan, a psychotherapist in private practice living in Monkstown, Co Dublin. Many of her clients are single women in their 30s and 40s who feel they are at "the watershed of life".
They have put a lot of energy into their careers at the expense of their personal needs and are becoming aware of how demanding and lonely it is to be "perennially self-reliant", says Canavan.
She notes that, beyond the extremes of the recluse or the pioneer, women have no everyday models for singlehood: "Because there are no structures in place within which single women can define themselves, they are forced to develop their own internal structures to help shape a life that has their own mark on it."
This quest for an identity that is selfdefined rather than the result of peer pressure can be freeing and creative, says Canavan, but also wearisome: "You have to hold your nerve so much of the time."
Many of these brave new single women still yearn for the most traditional of marriages, according to Christina Odone, former editor of the Catholic Herald and the author of a newly published novel A Perfect Wife who has also been publicly pondering the situation: "Despite her modern trappings (the gym, the car, the mobile phone) and her attitude (I can do anything he can), the thirtysomething's vision of marriage has remained rooted in the mushy romances of Barbara Cartland. We want a marriage that is a perfect double act."
Suitable men do exist, says Odone, but they tend to be rooted in tradition which their women peers have just broken free from. It is, she says, a case of yesterday's men facing today's women.
She also points out that this generation of women has grown up surrounded by marital breakdown. If marriage once promised lifelong security it carries no such guarantee today. What of the "fiftysomething women who, having sacrificed their lives to their spouses, find themselves discarded with the estate car while he takes on a bimbo and a red Porsche?" asks Odone. Why, she asks, give up a life of one's own if all this mayhem may lie ahead? Meanwhile, the Irish family is prone to make the unmarried adult feel "they don't need me as much as I need them," says Mary Canavan. Single people are used to carry family burdens on the basis of "Sure what else would you be doing with your time?" Single people are seen to be "flittering away their lives", she adds, a perception they need a great deal of courage and energy to resist. Some of Canavan's clients are women who are learning to accept that they may not have children. "This is an issue for men too but the focus is earlier for women because of the proverbial biological clock. For some, it involves an incredible sense of loss. Others accept it more easily."
She points out that in Ireland people still tend to have limited ideas of when it's appropriate for two people to form a relationship, and she recalls her delight in the courtship of two single people in their 50s whom she knew in London: "I was struck by the liberation of hope always being present for all people of all ages."