PR NEWSWIRE -- Sept 15 -- 60,000+ people register on Match.comdaily. National Singles Week is September 18-24. According to
recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other research: <1>

We stay single longer; the estimated U.S. median ages at first marriage
in 2004 for women and men are 25.8 and 27.4 respectively, an increase
of 5 years for women and 4.2 years for men since 1970. There are more
than three times as many never-married women and men ages 30 to 34
today as there were in 1970. <2> The number of older single
people is growing; There are 14.9 million unmarried and single
Americans aged 65 and older. People aged 50 and older represent the
fastest-growing segment of the Match.com community. According to Nielsen//NetRatings,
more than 1.6 million men and women aged 65-plus visited online
personals sites in April 2000. <3> Being single doesn't
necessarily mean being alone; there are 12.4 million single parents
living with their children. Between 1970 and 2003 the number of single
mothers increased from 3 million to 10 million; the number of single
fathers increased from less than half a million to 2 million. RELEASE @ YAHOO

Mark Brooks:
It would seem the institution of marriage is out of fashion. Is this
because we have become a throw-away culture? Are we just not
willing to accept or work through a failing relationship? Is this
a bad thing? We're living longer, women are more financially
independent and the 'institution' is losing it's utility. Should
we drift through a series of relationships and forego marriage?

Perhaps we just need more help choosing the right partner...and help in
early identification of incompatibilities and patterns of poor
communication. Online personals strive to help users make better
matches by increasing the selection pool. Sites such as eHarmony, TRUE, Perfectmatch and Tickle are focusing on guiding people to better relationship matches through personality profiling.