1 Jul 2008
Alan

‘Get outta here!’ 

('The Spectator'.)

1 Jul 2008
HS
As a bachelor myself, I salute the conclusions of this article.  I have long held that the refined bachelor is a key ingedient in any civilization, albeit an unappreciated one.  I strongly disagree with the sappy views of Gilder, who has always seemed to believe that men are lower, and women higher, than they obviously are.  Gilder doesn't seem to observe much, for instance the point that street gangs and other juvenile crime are caused by an absence of fathers.  What our civilization suffers from most is maternalization and girlification, hence its worship of the shopping mall over intellectual endeavor.

3 Jul 2008
wyatt salt

Very enjoyable! I think the prevailing sentiment for me as a confirmed bachelor is the difference between love and marriage. As Goethe said, the difference between the real and the ideal. 

It always seemed just too sad for me to watch it change. Damn, i'm a sensitive guy! 

3 Jul 2008
Mitch
Nice list.  Now eliminate the homosexuals, the satyrs, the hopeless neurotics, the unmarried but devoted lovers, and what do you have left?  Maybe Beethoven.

Even without disqualifying anyone, for every bachelor on your list, I can give you two married men: Mozart and Bach (who should really count twice) for your Beethoven; Joyce and Tolstoy for your Proust; Einstein and Darwin for your Newton; and Rembrandt and Giotto for your Michelangelo.

I'm afraid I must return a Scots verdict: not proven.

3 Jul 2008
Richard Goldwater MD
I am a psychiatrist and family psychotherapist specializing in work with creative and gifted people. It is regrettable that the article presents only men's' view of women without acknowledging same. Single women are bachelors, too. Women face many of the same conflicts between work and love as men, and lose more "individuality" in marriage than do men. For example, they often lose their names. I am peddling a book that discusses what it means that many more women than men file for divorce. Women like weddings, but not marriages. I hope that no woman you want to love reads this.

3 Jul 2008
Steven Cox
Women tend to marry up financially. As a result, men tend to marry down, since finances aren't usually a factor in their decisions. But, they are a factor in the women who chase them. There is some truth to the idea that the unmarried man is a little crazier than the married man. But, it isn't his being unmarried that caused it. In many cases he didn't get married because he couldn't earn enough money because of some inherent weakness, including craziness. A single, non-crazy unmarried man is no more likely to go crazy, or become a threat to society than is his married counterpart. On the other hand. since women tend to marry up, the most successful, highest income earning women tend to be single because these women can't find men who make more than them. When you compare unmarried women to unmarried men you are comparing the bottom 20% of men, in a lot of the cases, to the top 20% of women. Their being single was not causative to their success or lack of success. Steve Cox

4 Jul 2008
Julian

"Is it generally known that bachelors privately receive encouragement and approbation from married men?"

Sondheim echoed this sentiment exactly in the musical "Company" when the husbands sang,

"Boy! To be in your shoes what I wouldn't give!
I mean the freedom to go out and live!
And as for settling down and all that,
Marriage may be where it's been, but it's not where it's at.

Whaddya like? You like coming home to a kiss?
Somebody with a smile at the door?
Whaddya like? You like indescribable bliss?
Then whaddya wanna get married for?
Whaddya like? You like an excursion to Rome?
Suddenly taking off to explore?
Whaddya like? You like having meals cooked at home?
Then whaddya wanna get married for?"

4 Jul 2008
Toby

Great piece but:

"bitty" should be "biddy, "borders" should be "boarders", and "refusnik" should be "refusenik".  Someone forgot to do the editing!

4 Jul 2008
Shalom Freedman

1) Anne Hathaway would have been surprised to know that Shakespeare was a bachelor.

2) There is a strong distinction between the bachelor in the Christian intellectual and the Jewish intellectual traditions. Ernest van den Haag who was not Jewish once claimed that the most intelligent Christians became priests and did not have children- while the most intelligent Jews were favored Rabbis for whom the commandment of 'Be Fruitful and Multiply' was central.

3) What is good for the lone Genius is not necessarily good for Everyman. In fact most men are lost without a wife.

4) Along the long list of those considerable creators who were bachelors one can make a longer list of those who were married. For every Proust there is a Joyce, and the great Russian novelists , perhaps the greatest mankind has had, Tolstoy, and  Dostoevsky  were married.

5) Perhaps the most tormented bachelor in all literary history Kafka was at the very end of his days planning to marry the last great love of his love, Dora Diament, and set out for a new life in a new world in the Holy Land.

Would that he had made it.

6) Having known the pain and difficulty of both states, and too the freedom and joy each can give  I would nonetheless state with Hawthorne who married late and yet loved, "Until the heart is touched we do not begin to be"  Married life in absolute contradiction to what is written in this article may also be filled with a depth of love and happiness , a man alone can never find.

 

 

4 Jul 2008
Zazan
Great article, but biased. That makes it more interesting; however some facts are missing. The bachelors you note lived in times when people had servants. Remember, Berty Wooster had Jeeves. Secondly the assumption is that the bachelor state is by choice. There are many reasons why this is not the case, in addition to those already mentioned - often our guy yearns for exactly the woman who won't marry him, and ignores the one who will.

4 Jul 2008
Rhett
Women, including married women, are always alert to the possibility of a better offer.

4 Jul 2008
Andrew
1) Can individuals make decisions on how to live their lives without liberal arts professors obsessing over them? 

2) Can the same liberal arts professors prove their points without making strings of conclusory statements disguised as real arguments? 
Sadly, it seems the answer to both questions is a resounding "no." 

4 Jul 2008
Peter Taylor

Lets be realistic chaps.

How else can a man of modest or less attribute find a house keeper, nurse, gardener, cook, bed warmer, lover, companion, factotum, and general support, for better or worse (often worse) richer or poorer (usually poorer) in inevitable sickness and only sometimes robust health, do death do part him from her? 

The defining features of the common or garden variety of bachelor: money, looks, time and nothing to lose.

Only for these does fortune smile, the rest must be responsible and secure. 

 

4 Jul 2008
michael roloff
lovely piece! made my 4th of july.  there are some interesting semi bachelors such as peter handke who have had their wives run away from them because they became so emotionally distant but who then proved wonderful at bringing up the daughters the mothers left behind. vide:
a child's story [part of the volume A SLOW HOMECOMING in America]; about him and his daughter amina; and LUCIE  IN DEM WALD MIT DEN DINGSDAY, a fairy tale of sorts about the second daughter; really, a kind of left-over chapter from his MY LIFE IN THE  NO-MAN'S BAY.

http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.html

4 Jul 2008
Ramesh Raghuvanshi

Apart from some saints you rearly find out bachelor in India. because Indian tendency  believe in fusion, reversly   West ` tendency is seperation. Bachlor`s life in India is very tregic. Our religion also apprecipated marraged life.give birth to child without that how can evolulation is possible.?

Those who apprecipated bachlorhood in west they are psychologically defective,Today new tendency is there in west , no marrage or  try-on marrage,that is why white population is dicrease in west ,more drepression high suicid.e

 

 

 

 

 

4 Jul 2008
Lori
Just this week I was reading a list of famous people that were autistic savants. Several people on your list were also on that list. Autism prvents people from establishing relationships with people so maybe that is why they never married

4 Jul 2008
Alastair Norman McLeod Ph.D., J.D.
Why do people enamored of interesting generalizations spoil their own nests by ignoring glaring exceptions to their proposed rules? Obviously, many of the men on Mr. Orlet's list of illustrious bachelors were gay. To me, a reluctant bachelor, and an intransigent heterosexual, the issue is not bachelorhood, but passion. Stability, security, companionship, progeny, and respectability are all desirable things, but never to have loved sublimely and desperately is scarcely to have lived. As for Mencken's comment: he has a point. I have loved a number of women, deeply, and suffered in consequence. But each has been an education I shall never ever regret.

4 Jul 2008
Matthew
"The moral of this story, it seems to me, is this: Bachelors, if you wish to be remembered, borrow irresponsibly." Good to know that I won't be soon forgotten...

4 Jul 2008
Tony Eames
I think it was W. B. Yeats who opined that he knew far more men broken by the honest and sincere desire to keep their families in security and comfort than those he saw wasted by drink and vice. Perhaps a 'distance marriage' is the answer. I think of the doughty explorer Captain James Cook whose brief domestic sojourns were usually preoccupied with preparations for the next five-year voyage of discovery. In my case, our career pathways ensured that my wife and I have lived and worked in different continents for about a third of our 28-year marriage. Our relationship has thrived. Despite or because of these absences? I'm not sure...

5 Jul 2008
Diana
In my opinion both male and female bachelors set terrible examples for the new generations...

5 Jul 2008
Jennifer
Actually, JJR Rousseau was married: after fathering five illegitimate children with her, whom he mercilessly sent off to the Foundling Hospital one by one, Rousseau finally married his longtime lover, Therese La Vassour. Additionally, he had lived with her for some twenty years prior to marrying her: his Confessions is full of an equal amount of recollections of tender moments with her and complaints about her family and her stupidity and low status.

6 Jul 2008
Bronwyn
Very witty but I think you should have considered how many men on the list were actually gay and which others we would diagnose today as suffering from Asbergers which would make them somewhat challenging partners.  They may not have been bachelors by choice.

6 Jul 2008
leboyfriend
Johannes Brahms was a bachelor twice over? Really? I think that was splendid of him - really made the point wouldn't you say?

6 Jul 2008
Maureen
I can only pray that the following was made in jest:

"Men have always made the best soldiers, inventors, scientists, and composers."

It's rather easy for men to be the best at the above pursuits when women were, until very recently, excluded from the militaries, the engineering-works, and the universities, and discouraged from pursuing intellectual pursuits independently by the practice of marrying them off at approximately the age that the mental faculties are said to be at their height, then saddling them with the care and feeding of infants.

7 Jul 2008
PartTimeParent

Today, men (and especially husbands) are treated as the Goose who laid the Golden Egg... particularly by the divorce courts....

Is is any wonder that men are saying "No!" to marriage and fatherhood in the first place?"

Australian Dads work 5hrs a day longer than their wives (Census data). Now, Dads do some house-WORK too, about 1-2 hrs. So, unless homes require 7hrs a day of house-WORK, wives are on a good wicket. 

Then of course, when she kicks him out of the matrimonal home (that he paid the lions-share for), she keeps most of the assets, gets about half of his after-tax income in so-called "child-support'".

Worse than that, ex-wives get to keep their ex-husband on a leash, since they control the one thing he loves - they keep his kids!

Men are sick of "PAYING"" for kids, while their wives and ex-wives get to "PLAY" with then!

7 Jul 2008
Fredrika
As another commentator mentioned your article does not mention female bachelors, or the fact that many of the persons you mention were living in gay relationships. I also notice that your list contains influental persons from western culture only.

There is also a number of facts that's wrong:

Plato was almost certainly gay and not much is known about his private life anyway - it's therefore open for doubt if he should be regarded as a bachelor (the same goes for Leonardo Da Vinci by the way).

Rousseau was sort of married and fathered several children.

It is not even known if Shakespeare was a real person or not, but if he was he was probably married.

The people on your list are only some of the persons who has influenced society - among those you fail to mention are:

Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Karl Marx
Charles Darwin
Pierre and Marie Curie
Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beavouire
Mozart
Mohammad
Julius Caesar
Martin Luther King
Aristotle
Queen Victoria
Frida Kahlo (since painters are apparently included)
Vladimir Lenin
Cleopatra
Ida Noddack
Pythagoras
Confucius
Louis Pasteur
Mary Wollstonecraft
Julius Caesar
Gandhi
John Calvin
Cesare Borgia

Not to forget Bertrand Russell - one of the most  influental modern philosophers who was married four times, had many extra-martial affairs, fathered three childen and still managed to publish his writings at an age of 98.

To conclude: I don't think it's possible to prove that bachelors (of either gender) are able to contribute more to society och produce more writings than those who are in relationships. It all comes down to who we are as individuals.

7 Jul 2008
Author
Rather disturbing to hear "Maureen" use the phrase "saddling [women] with the care and feeding of infants," as though it were akin to shoveling crap for a living and not one of the most important functions a human being can serve.

7 Jul 2008
Maureen
"[Childrearing is] one of the most important functions a human being can serve".

Indeed, but it often prevents the childrearer from becoming a great "soldier, scientist, inventor, or composer" due to the great amounts of time and energy it requires. Furthermore, there are many important human functions - the growing of crops, the preperation of food, the prevention of disease through proper sanitation - that, like childrearing, have transitory results.

Moreover, historically speaking, women have generally not had the choice to bear children or not, or how many children to bear. A woman of wealthy family might prevail upon her family to let her join the convent; a woman of the middle classes might, like Austen or Eliot, remain a spinster. For a woman who married, children were almost inevitable, and the number of children - the number of years tending small children, which leaves little time or energy for scientific discovery - were difficult to control.

8 Jul 2008
Ilaine
As a long-suffering wife married to a Shriner, I can tell you that the men driving those clown cars are all married.  Luckily (?) for me, my husband merely dresses in a kilt and plays the bagpipes for the Shrine.

There are a few unmarried Shriners but the vast majority are married.

Thankfully for me, my husband looks really hot in a kilt.

13 Jul 2008
mjaybee
From "The Manipulated Man" by Ester Vilar:

"If a young man gets married, starts a family, and spends the rest of his life working at a soul-destroying job, he is held up as an example of virtue and responsibility. The other type of man, living only for himself, working only for himself, doing first one thing and then another simply because he enjoys it and because he has to keep only himself, sleeping where and when he wants, and facing woman when he meets her, on equal terms and not as one of a million slaves, is rejected by society. The free, unshackled man has no place in its midst."

"Men have been trained and conditioned by women, not unlike the way Pavlov conditioned his dogs, into becoming their slaves. As compensation for their labours men are given periodic use of a woman's vagina."

"If praise is applied in the correct dosage a woman will never need to scold. Any man who is accustomed to a regular and conditional dosage of praise will interpret its absence as displeasure."

"Someday it will dawn on man that woman does not read the wonderful books with which he has filled his libraries, and though she may well admire his marvelous works of art in museums she herself will rarely create, only copy."

14 Jul 2008
Batchelorized
Gay, gay, gay are lots of those boys. Is bachelor a new code word?

22 Aug 2008
Jason from Canada

Great article. I'm 22, in college for finance and intend to never marry or have children. I want deep meaningful friendships with both men and women and a few older male role models to look up to and mentor me. As far as women for relationships other than friendships go, I only want sex. I know this may seem harsh to some people, but it is hardwired in me from millions of years of evoloution. I want sex, lots of it, with lots of women. I'm being honest about it, and I don't want to hurt anyone while doing it, so I never lie to women or make them believe something that just isn't true. They are all well aware of my stance on relationships, marriage and children, and most have no problem with it, if they do, they simply leave, no hurt feelings, no problems down the road at forty when I come out with the fact that I really maybe didn't want kids and a wife...that maybe I would have enjoyed my life more if I could have devoted more of it to travel, hobbies, intellectual pursuits, accumulating wealth, getting involved with charity etc. I don't think getting married makes any sense for the majority of people. Consider all of the cheating, lying, hurt feelings, and monetary diasaster that comes from it. Why not be honest about who you are and what you want. Society's inflexible opinion be damned.

I think the reader who commented that our culture has become "feminized" or something to the like of that, is completely right. I see it everywhere. It is to the point now that men no longer know how to behave like men, and women now long for a man who knows how to be a man and makes no bones about it. Now, That isn't to say that being a man will necessarily mean sharing my personal views on these subjects. Nor is it implying in any way any sort of mysoginistic behaviour or attitudes. On the contrary, I love women, I absolutely adore them, but I am not a woman, I am a man, and I will act like a man and live my life how I see fit, regardless of what anyone else wants. Some will call this selfish, and that's fine, others, who are less rigid in their view of "the way things are" or "the way things ought to be, will applaude my decision to live my life on my own terms.

It is a great secret of modern (especially western) society, that many people who have children actually wish that they never had children. Now, on the other hand it is no secret that a lot of children (including myself, thanks trojan, lol) are in fact "accidents". Why then, do we view a person who has children but wishes they never did as somehow inherently evil, or heartless? There's no reason for it  I don't want children, but if an "accident" should happen, I would father them to the best of my ability, I would not marry the mother, ( I was raised just fine in a single parent household), and while it is true that I may or may not wish that that "accident" had ever occured, I would feel no guilt in wishing that it had not occured if that is how I felt, because I cannot choose my feelings, I can only choose how I respond to them. So I guess the overall point is, how can you criticize someone for their choices when their choices are rooted in their own feelings? I don't think you justifiably can.

Another point, the article said at the end, something to the effect of "bachelors, if you want to be remembered, go into debt", effectively saying that this is the only way in which a bachelor will be remembered....well...what about that long list of famous bachelors displayed earlier in the article?....they seem to have been remembered pretty darn well.

One last point, I do realize that I am young, and as a critical thinker, my opinion may change in light of new information, experiences or feelings. All I am saying is that I personally feel like those who think my opinions are brutal, harsh and sometimes mysoginistic, should first perhaps take a more HONEST and unbiased look at themselves and how they really feel and what they really want. ( I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting sex or money, so long as it is not all you want). Secondly, if they do this and still feel the same way, maybe they should attempt to let a life-loving bachelor live his life the way that he wants to and focus on themselves instead of preaching their way of life as somehow more righteous than his. Thank you for your time and interest in reading this somewhat long, very opinionated, and slightly tedious post, lol. Have a wonderful day!

- A young Canadian male batchelor

27 Oct 2008
Bachelor from USA

Very well written piece. Im a 26 year old bachelor that has never been out on a date in my life. Many factors contribute to my bachelordom such as poverty, social anxiety, cynicism towards females, family history and the freedom of being single. I recently gave a women a ride home because her boyfriend had pushed her out of a moving car and she was stranded. She explained she had been at odds with her boyfriend  all day. She said "You know how it is once a women gets her hooks into you. She thinks she can control you". This statement sent shivers down my spine and whats worst she indicated she had a history of dating abusive boyfriends.  The whole situation confirmed my beliefs that women are controlling and nice guys finish last because women would rather date some one who is abusive than a nice guy like myself who would treat her right. Its been my experience women are shallow and look for three things in a man and they are money, confidence and good looks. If you have these traits you are set for life. I would like to think I will have the american dream someday  with a nice paying job, nice house, nice car ,wife and kids that love me. I realize as each year passes my hopes of achieving this dream slip further away leaving me to my own vices to self destruct and die a very lonely death. It  tears me up and makes me heart sick to think I am destined to live a very short lonely life confined to the restraints of solitude. Ive been told I am lucky I am single by married men and I should count my lucky stars. I would have to beg to differ. Its been said by many wise people that "Marriage is like a rat trap. Single people are dying to get in and married people are dying to get out".

19 Dec 2008
Stan REdmond

re: bachelor in USA.

MAN!!!  You gotta sack up.  I'm 35 and  LOVE being single.  You just don't see it right now.  You're a young man.  As you get older you'll get more successful.  You'll be more important in your career and community then you can ever imagine.  Focus on yourself, your carreer, and education and to hell with marriage.  With each passing day you're a more valuable person because you are a single man living ONLY for yourself.  And BELIEVE ME.  When you are in your 30s and you start getting established in the real world with some money, you'll have the girls that you are pining over right now.    Stop beating yourself up and don't give a rats rear end what some chick thinks of you.  And think, when you're in your late 30s you'll see all those babes that rejected you fat ugly and stuck in miserable marriages or alone living with their cat.  You will be so thankful you avoided that.  You really need to listen to Tom Leykis and read sites like "nomarriage" dot com, drhelen dot blogspot "dot" com (refreshing to see an educated and attractive woman who understands the trap laid for men in modern culture) and (one of my favorites) menarebetterthanwomen dot com.  And another thing, unless you plan on marriage with a devout church going girl, give up being a nice guy.  the girl thrown out of her car fell for the jerk didn't she?  You're gonna love being a committed bachelor.  And should you ever want marriage.  You'll be in a financial situation to attract and support a woman that genuinely wants a family and wise enough to pick through the desperate lonely women who are trying to outrun their biological clocks.  And unlike women, we don't have to worry about our seeds drying up.  Chances are though, once you come to terms with your fear of singlehood, you'll be happier then you've ever been and never want to ruin it .   

17 Jul 2009
jonnie luscombe

Orlet the proverbial swollen berries you are every one, erudite, informed and right on the case, not to mention the humour of the man -- we're still reeling here..

Great writing. And remember fokes, the SWM is still the only legitimate target of racism .. 'specially if he's  ginger too!

11 May 2010
disinterested spectator

I never knew what happiness was until I got married.  And then it was too late. 

--An old joke.

25 Dec 2011
Richard Dey

Brilliant. Frew have picked up on Bacon's rhetorical question -- which has nagged me for 55 years, since I first read his essays, even to researching his sources. He got the idea of the essay from his brother Anthony who was saved from being burnt at the stake by Montaigne, who invented them. They were all of them homosexuals.

Has Orlet considered comparing a list of famous bachelors and famous homosexuals or homophiles?

But what is the answer? Was Freud right when he suggested that displaced libido was the engine of discovery and invention? It doesn't seem sufficient to me but, then, I am an unaccomplished bachelor. Notwithstanding, I can see  that Orlet is on the right road. Its just that the signs have signs have been  stolen or are being covered up as if there were a fraternity  prank afoot.