Never married women and the social difficulties they faced in Turkey in the context of the institutionalization of bachelorhood

Among other things, the modern urban life has changed the dominant norms regarding the family and marriage. The trends of delayed marriage and never marrying after divorce have become prevalent. Relative normalization has followed the prevalence of this trend. According to the basic argument of this study, in the third stage, like the others, the trend of never marrying has also reached to the stage of institutionalization. Especially among women, the trend of never marrying attracts much more attention compared to that of men. While numerous studies have been conducted on this issue in many countries around the world, this topic has not yet been studied adequately in Turkey. The aim of this study is to investigate and discuss the societal pressures and problems faced by the never-married women in Turkey. The data of the study is based on the questionnaires and interviews conducted with a total of 60 unmarried women over the age of 35 from three different cities in Turkey. Thus, it became possible both to obtain quantitative data on this topic for the first time in Turkey and to make a comparison among three Turkish cities with different social and cultural characteristics. The data shows that, as in the rest of the world, never marrying has been institutionalizing in Turkey as well, but parallel to this process, the women face serious exclusion, obstruction, deprivation, and stigmatization from the society.