MINNEAPOLIS – Dallas Johnson sings the praises of single women – literally. After hearing for the umpteenth time from friends that she just “hadn’t met the right guy yet,” the 42-year-old Minneapolis musician wrote a song she hoped would put worries to rest about her status. Its playful title: “Stray Kittay.”

“I’m open to real love but I had enougha that other stuff. Sometimes I get lonely. I can’t tell no lie; but I’m gonna stay a stray until I die.”

Johnson isn’t anti-marriage. She’s in awe of her folks, who’ve been married for 51 years. She isn’t anti-male. She’s dating a swell guy and has lots of male friends, too. Johnson, who has never married, says she simply prefers staying single. And judging from recent census and other reports, she has plenty of company.

Deferred or declined nuptials, combined with more widows and cohabitators, have vaulted the number of American women living without a husband to historical highs; nearly half of women are now in this camp. And their shifting attitudes are rippling across the culture.

“The whole crisis boils down to this,” said Terrence Real, a family therapist in Newton, Mass., and the author of a new book on marriage. “Twentieth-century women have radically changed and men, by and large, did not.”

As the ranks of single women grow, their presence is reshaping everything from the real estate market to health care. Over the past decade, for example, single female buyers have been the fastest-growing segment of the housing market, about 15 percent, reports the National Association of Realtors (NAR); that’s about double the number for men, who remain at around 7 percent.

Single women are also big on buying condominiums, which offer easy upkeep and, often, security systems; nearly half of condos are now owned by single women, according to the NAR. And that choice is creating more financial planners who specialize in advising women, many of whom are “suddenly single,” through divorce or widowhood.

The new power of single women is also evident in other, less obvious ways. Many childless single women are finding a family of sorts through increased church involvement. Nancy Enger, 39, for example, said she “leans on my faith and my friends,” and has high praise for the singles outreach efforts at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn/. where she belongs. “I’m single, but with God I’m never alone,” Enger said.

Then there’s the ballot box. One study after the November election last year suggested that the nearly 50 million unmarried American women, who as a group lean to the political left, played a pivotal role in the outcome of many races.

When the New York Times recently reported census findings that 51 percent of women are living without spouses, the coast-to-coast reaction was swift and loud.

At one extreme, there were cheers: At last, some said, women have a room of their own and a life to boot. But other cultural commentators sounded an alarm: Marriage, they said, is under attack.

For example, Focus on the Family, one of the nation’s largest conservative Christian groups, called the marriage report “another brazen attempt to advance an ultra-liberal social agenda.”

That agenda, the group claimed, “remains intent on disparaging marriage and discouraging young women from even considering it.” Focus on the Family also questioned the validity of the report’s stats.

Both sides have a point. But the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Yes, more women have a room of their own. Single women are the fastest-growing segment of home buyers, second only to married couples, according to surveys by the National Association of Realtors. In 2006, they made up about 22 percent of home buyers, compared with 14 percent in 1995.

But the New York Times’ interpretation of the census numbers was a tad squishy. Why did the counting begin with 15-year-old girls? Ninety-four percent of them live with a parent, according to Trent Alexander, researcher for the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota. If you just count women 18 and older, Alexander said, the number of solo women is 48 percent.

So, marriage is undergoing huge changes, but it isn’t going the way of Kodak film.

“It’s a mistake to see (the New York Times) statistic as indicating the end of marriage,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University. “Americans still strongly value marriage. Eighty or 90 percent of people will eventually marry. What’s different now is that marriage used to be the first step into adulthood. Now, it’s often the last.”

In 1960, for example, the average age of marriage was 23 for American men and 20 for American women. In 2005, it was 27 for men, 26 for women. The clear winners, Cherlin noted, are women and men with college educations, many of whom are white and affluent. Only about 30 percent of black women are living with a spouse, according to the census, compared with about 49 percent of Hispanic women, 55 percent of non-Hispanic white women, and more than 60 percent of Asian women.

Regardless of socioeconomic status, women seem to agree on one thing: They aren’t settling.

Leila Croy, 26, of Minneapolis works 25 hours a week as a waitress at Champps in Richfield, studies nursing at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, and is the single parent of a 6-year-old son. She was in a relationship with her son’s father for four years but, she said, they met too young and “just grew into different people.”

Croy would love to get married, but very few men, she said, “meet my standards. Educated, career-focused, that’s what I want. I’m a good catch.”

If more women are raising the bar, or taking a lifetime pass on marriage, what does this mean for men?

Real, who has been remarried for 21 years after a brief first marriage, laughs when asked.

“What I tell guys dragged into my (therapy) room is that everything you learned growing up about how to be a good man will insure that you’ll be seen as a lousy husband today,” he said.

Things like not showing emotions, not having connections. “Being open-hearted and having close emotional connections is good for us,” Real said, “as salient a factor in our physical health as good nutrition. I don’t want men to be more like women; I want men to be big-hearted guys.”

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SINGLE WOMEN AND THE ECONOMY

The growing number of single women will likely affect many industries. Among them:

-Car buying (You’re already seeing more women in ads).

-Condo living (Women are big buyers of safer, easier lifestyles).

-Financial planning (How do I untangle from a complicated divorce? How do I invest?).

-Travel (focus on safety, relaxation, pampering).

-Grocery store offerings (healthy, single-serve options).

-Assisted living and beyond (women still outlive men by many years and are generally the primary caregivers for their own aging parents).