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Why women should be able to propose marriage to men:

Kathy Jesse

Published November 11, 2025

At 70, I Made the First Move

By Kathy Jesse

My partner and I have been together for six years; we have lived together for three. We’ve both been married before and have grown children. Last year, as we approached our 70^th birthdays, I told my best friend that I wanted to get married again. But he hadn’t asked. Her response: “Then just ask him.”

So I did. His response: “I’m not opposed to it.” Not exactly a ringing (if you’ll pardon the pun) endorsement.

I knew his divorce was very different from mine. I’m on good terms with my ex-spouse, and he doesn’t speak to his, even though it would be in the best interest of their children. So I get where he’s coming from.

But still.

“If you propose marriage without knowing what the answer will be, you are either self-punishing or delusional,” says Laurie Gerber, a life and relationship coach with 20 years of experience counseling individuals and couples. “I do believe in discussing marriage. But as a love coach, I don’t like the idea of a proposal. There should be no surprises.”

Older women she sees are less interested in marriage and more interested in what she calls “LAT – Living Apart Together,” in a committed, loving relationship. It’s the men who are more likely to want marriage, perhaps because they’re used to having women take care of them. As Gerber puts it: “Women who have been through marriages that didn’t work out, and have learned how to be financially independent, say, ‘I’m not sharing my money with a man again’.’”

In her own case, even though she considered herself “a non-traditional woman,” her husband ended up proposing to her on one knee in a Burger King. But, she says, “the freedom to propose marriage is an unnecessary place to plant your feminism.”

Amanda Miller, a sociology professor at the University of Indianapolis who studies “relationship progression” – from dating to marriage or from marriage to divorce – says it’s still a very small percentage of women of any age who propose marriage. “It’s in the low single digits. If it’s marriage two or three women don’t expect to give or receive a proposal. Instead, it’s a mutual decision. The woman might say, ‘Where do you see this relationship going?’ There’s no hot air balloon ride or Jumbotron involved.”

Michele Velazquez is co-owner, with her husband, of The Heat Bandits, a Los-Angeles-based proposal planning company. She has also observed that it’s rare for women to do the proposing. “I think women are strong and powerful, but as a whole, they still want to be courted and proposed to.”

Miller, 46 and married for 23 years, says as a sociologist she is interested in the “structural issues” that are wrapped up in the decision to get married. If a woman has a widow’s pension or Social Security benefits, she may not want to wrap her finances up with a man. On the other hand, if the man has health insurance and she doesn’t, that might be a reason to tie the knot.

At any rate, she adds: “if this is something that a woman is considering doing, I say, ‘‘Go for it! If she has life experience and confidence, don’t let social norms drag you down.”

That’s what Melanie Chambers did. Chambers, 53, a British Columbia-based journalist and writing instructor, proposed to her now-husband on her 50^th birthday, at a big party in an industrial space with techno music.

A world traveler and self-described free spirit, she had watched her parents’ marriage dissolve – a marriage that had looked, to her, like a happy one. “I didn’t think there was a narrative for me in marriage,” she says. Until she met the man who would become her husband.

“We had talked about it the month before, and it just popped out of my mouth on the dance floor.” His response? “I know it’s what you want.”

“I thought, ‘Don’t just roll over for me.” But he said yes. Chambers recalled that she had always been the type of woman who asked men out, but resisted the word “aggressive.” She prefers the word “proactive”.

As for me, after some heart-to-heart discussions, I understand better my partner’s reluctance. It has everything to do with bureaucratic red tape, like redoing his will, and nothing to do with his feelings for me. We took Gerber’s advice and talked it through. And he did say yes.

It’s ok that there wasn’t a large, flashing Jumbotron or hot air balloon ride involved. When we do marry, it will be with our eyes fully open, aware that marriage can go wrong, but also that, even in “old age,” it can make a relationship deeper.

Kathy Jesse is a Washington, D.C., based writer, but a Hoosier at heart. She is a former journalist and high school English teacher, whose greatest accomplishments have been raising her two daughters and spoiling her 7-year-old granddaughter. She and her partner are raising a lug head and lovable pit bull.