In self-help literature, fear of commitment is the avoidance of long-term partnership or marriage.[citation needed] In popular culture and in psychology, the concept is often much more pervasive and can affect an individual's school, work, and home life as well.[citation needed]
The term "commitmentphobia" was coined in the popular self-help book Men Who Can't Love in 1987.[1] Following criticism that the idea was sexist, implying only men were commitmentphobic, the authors provided a more gender balanced model of commitmentphobia in a later work, He's Scared, She's Scared (1995).[2] When aversion to marriage involves fear, it's called "scottophobia".[3] Hatred of marriage is "misogamy".[4]
Criticism
Besides the common criticisms of self-help, Harvard psychologist Deborah DePaulo has written books such as Singlism on the stigmatization of single people.
The use of the term "fear" or "phobia" imparts an inherent linguistic bias. It recasts specific lifestyle decisions (such as bachelorhood vs. marriage, or a conscious choice to remain childfree) implicitly as generalised, irrational phobias while failing to identify, describe or address an individual's specific motives. For instance, the men's rights movement, citing high divorce rates and expensive alimony and legal costs, does speak not in terms of a "fear of commitment" but of a "marriage strike" to reflect their position that non-marriage is an entirely valid, logical position based on rational consideration of the economic factors involved.
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