By waiting longer to settle down into marriage, it’s also easier for Millennials to feel the freedom to move from one city to the next, one job to the next, or one church to the next. Singleness is often characterized as a time of liberty during which we can be selfish. The persistent marriage metaphor is “ball and chain.”  No surprise that Generation Me is wary of being tied down.

My best friend and I are both 24 years old, career-driven, and single. We’re also both women who are set on marrying someone who shares our respective faiths — she’s Muslim, I’m Christian. We joke about our singleness a lot — every embarrassing picture, ridiculous dance move and dumb comment is attended by the sarcastic-but-obligatory, “Why am I still single?”

But to my friends who are “nones,” being in your mid-twenties and unmarried is normal, even preferred. Many are closing in on 30 and still in no rush to marry.

They appear to be in good company.

According to the Pew Research Center, only 26 percent of Millennials, those born roughly between 1981 and 1996, are married. This is a decrease from previous generations: by the time they were in the current Millennial age range (18-33), 36 percent of Generation Xers, 48 percent of Baby Boomers, and 65 percent of the Silent Generation were married.

Millennials’ median marriage age is also the highest of any group in modern history — 29 for men and 27 for women. Though most unmarried Millennials (69 percent) say they’d like to marry, they’re not in a hurry.

Yet, if you belong to a religious tradition, it’s easy to feel like you missed the boat by not finding your spouse in college. Religious people just tend to marry earlier. Many a joke has been made about the “ring by spring or your money back” refrain sung by Bible colleges (aka, “bridal colleges”). Still, it seems that an increasing number of faithful Millennials are putting off marriage into their late twenties and beyond.

So, why are religious Millennials waiting to tie the knot? My own Christian perspective frames the following list of five reasons, but I ran it by my best friend, who agreed she’s seen similar situations play out within the Muslim context.

1. We’re driven by our careers.

In the past, women of faith were guided to the ready-made “callings” of marriage and motherhood, but they’re now as free as their secular counterparts to pursue careers and post-graduate education. Not only that, but religious Millennials view their professions as honoring God.

Katelyn Beaty in Christianity Today had this to say: “Jesus and Paul, we know, spoke highly of the gift of singleness, as a chance to devote greater and undistracted attention to their ministry. As more Christian women are both working full-time, and staying single for longer periods than expected, or for life, they will need a positive theology of work.”

Of course, it’s not just women who can honor God in their profession. Men and women alike are choosing to make careers, not marriage, a priority. Marriage, according to the Knot Yet report, is viewed as something Millennials want to do after they’ve sorted out the other aspects of life — it’s “a ‘capstone’ rather than a ‘cornerstone.’”

2. True love isn’t waiting.

The majority (77 percent) of evangelical Millennials agree that sex outside of marriage is morally wrong. But that hasn’t stopped most of them from doing it. In fact, 80 percent of unmarried Millennials who self-identify as evangelicals have had sex, according to a study from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Of that 80 percent, 64 percent reported having sex in the last year, and 42 percent say they are currently in a sexual relationship. So, why aren’t evangelical Millennials putting their beliefs into practice?

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