Precarious masculinity and colonially deferred manhood: Unchosen singlehood among Palestinian men in Israel

This article examines how prolonged, unchosen singlehood reshapes masculinity among Palestinian men in Israel, a politically marginalised indigenous minority. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 13 never-married men aged 30–40, it shows how settler-colonial governance, economic exclusion and planning/bureaucratic barriers – together with familial expectations – delay marriage and unsettle core markers of adult manhood, particularly provision, home-making and fatherhood. Participants described bachelorhood as a constrained condition structured by discrimination in employment, housing and land access; singlehood jeopardised social legitimacy and exposed the tenuous, publicly validated nature of masculinity. Yet men were not only compliant: some advocated shared financial responsibility, questioned conventional partner preferences and defended the dignity of unmarried women. Conceptually, the article extends existing scholarship by proposing colonially deferred manhood: a condition in which proof of manhood is demanded yet materially obstructed by bureaucratic, spatial and economic control. Situating unchosen singlehood within these constraints, the study shows how structural exclusion reconfigures life trajectories and gender identities, while everyday acts of care and refusal articulate alternative moral orders.