Great point!
While I was never discouraged from being married by family/friends and while I saw evidence of strong black marriages growing up, marriage was always painted as something that would just "happen," not something I should really think about or pursue.
My parents (I love them, but...
) would always get on me when I'd get upset about the latest dating relationship that went awry, telling me I was too focused/obsessed with having someone and just to let it go because it wasn't my time, I wasn't ready, God would eventually come through, blah blah blah.
After the last bad incident over the summer, I pointed out to my mother that while I have dated quite often over the last 10 years, I haven't had an official boyfriend in almost a decade. Just these little 3-month things here and there... and a little bit of me would seem to die inside after each one.
Suddenly, mom was like, "hmm, that has been a long time."
I sent her the excerpt from the Maken book and she was also blown away by it. It changed her whole point of view as well on my singleness and she and my dad are now fully committed to helping me in this area, rather than blowing off my concern as obsession.
You know what else helped me change my thinking? All those darn interracial marriage blogs! Whether or not one wants to date interracially (and NO, I am not turning this into an IR thread, don't worry!), the blogs bring up great points about how black women should NOT feel that they must be single all their lives if they don't want that. The blogs encourage black women to start working toward marriage NOW and not waste time questioning their desires to have husbands and families. All this time wasted with "getting ready" and questioning God's will only delays the process.
I also think that many churches simply have no answer to many black women about why so many of us aren't married, and that's why they focus on this "gift of singleness" doctrine and its various offshoots... which seems to keep us even more single than ever!
As for white/other women, someone pointed out on a different board that she was watching a documentary about the widows of 9/11 and noticed that many of those white women were already remarried!
The wife of the "Let's Roll" guy got remarried three years later, as did the wife of one of the other famous victims on that flight... they sure didn't waste time!
And yet, some of us can't even seem to get one man to marry us, let alone two!
This is why things must change. As for me, all I know is that while I'm still single right now, I have never felt more optimistic about getting married than I do after reading Debbie Maken and Candice Watters. All this talk about being fulfilled as a single only made me feel less likely that I would ever find anyone... but not any more!