Twenty years ago this week, a wave of fear struck single women approaching midlife. Their panic was not due to a stalker who targeted women over 30, nor was it caused by a biological epidemic. The basis for alarm was a cover article that appeared in the June 2, 1986, issue of Newsweek.

That article, "Too Late for Prince Charming?," discussed the findings of a controversial demographic study on U.S. marriage patterns. The article said "white, college-educated women born in the mid-'50s who are still single at 30 have only a 20 percent chance of marrying. By the age of 35 the odds drop to 5 percent. Forty-year-olds are more likely to be killed by a terrorist: they have a minuscule 2.6 percent probability of tying the knot."

In a sharp rebuke to overachieving baby boomer women, the article cautioned that "the dire statistics confirmed what everybody suspected all along: that many women who seem to have it all - good looks and good jobs, advanced degrees and high salaries - will never have mates." Take that, Gloria Steinem and all you other uppity feminists!

Newsweek was neither the only nor the first publication to promote this marriage research in 1986. But the rationality of the debate was not improved by the cover of that issue, featuring the headline: "The Marriage Crunch: If You Are a Single Woman, Here are Your Chances of Getting Married." It was the Newsweek terrorism analogy that got everybody talking.

The use of that particular analogy implied that an unmarried woman over 40 was more likely to find herself dead than wed, and, the Newsweek article insinuated, that fate might be preferable. For, after all, what was education and professional achievement worth without that essential accessory - a husband? The implied answer to this question was: Not much.

In the two decades since publication of the 1986 Newsweek article, it has become increasingly clear that the forecasted odds of marriage were way off. The researchers had erred by attempting to make predictions during a time of social change based upon trends established by an earlier and more stable generation. What these researchers didn't consider was that women who took time to become educated and establish careers would eventually marry, just simply later than the prior generation. While the 1986 Newsweek article speculated that men who were good marriage "catches" were avoiding educated professional women, it seems that those very same women came to be considered good catches themselves. Studies show a majority of young men now agree that they would prefer a future wife who could substantially contribute to the family income.

In its June 5, 2006, cover story, "Rethinking the Marriage Crunch," Newsweek pleads guilty to the charge that the magazine got it wrong 20 years ago. Well, the article pleads partially guilty, anyway. Newsweek writer Daniel McGinn presents follow-up stories of women who were offered as examples in the 1986 issue. Most of these women did escape spinsterhood, despite having been supposedly "over the hill" when they finally did marry. The tone of this follow-up piece is that they have finally achieved "happily-ever-afters." In fact, McGinn finds this the "real story" of the follow-up. I would caution that this conclusion requires a wait-and-see attitude on presumed happy endings. Many baby boomer women have found marriage does not guarantee any such fairy tale.

The Newsweek retrospective article appears to completely ignore the significance of another demographic trend that has accompanied the increased tendency for educated middle-class women to marry later in life. This is the vast and growing economic and social divide between educated professional women who do marry and poor women who don't have their educational advantages. Sociologist Frank Furstenberg speaks for many researchers when he says "marriage is both a cause and consequence of economic, cultural, and psychological stratification in American society."

Marriage is a cause of inequity because, in the current economy, it generally takes more than one paycheck, and certainly more than one marginally employed single mother's paycheck, to support the needs of a family. It is a consequence of inequity because, statistically, those women who grew up poor are less likely to marry as adults, thus passing on disadvantages if they have children. This does not mean that, for poor mothers, marriage solves the problems of social stratification. A marriage license does not automatically enable parents to provide for their children.

What it does mean is that we must ensure that all members of American society have access to jobs that can sufficiently take care of a family. It means that we must commit to societal support of children's needs, regardless of their parents' marital status.

Twenty years after the Newsweek warning regarding the hyped "marriage crunch" among educated professional women, a very real "marriage crunch" jeopardizes poor women and their children. That is the story that deserves our attention.

Jean Elson is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire who studies gender and family.

© 2006 Newsday