>>13144268That graph is wrong.
In Western Europe and countries populated by people of Western European stock (North America, Australia and New Zealand), about 20% of men and 5-10% of women never married or produced offspring. The reason for the discrepancy is that more women died in childbirth, causing more men than women to remarry. In addition, men from the sub-elite (that is, non-noble wealthy men and clergymen) often kept concubines from lower social strata, leaving more men than women from those strata alone. Funnily enough, if your name is Smith, you are a descendant of such a pairing - a smith was a high-status individual within a village setting, and often kept more than one woman.
The entry for the modern day is also wrong. While you might get the idea that involuntary celibacy is rampant when you browse the internet, the truth is that among people under 30/35, <25% of men and <15% of women are celibate in any way, voluntarily or involuntarily. So here's a corrected version of your graph. If anything, modern-day conditions have made relationships - not counting casual sex, of course, but long-term relationships in any case - more equitably distributed.
