Several weeks back I opined that the best way for a single guy to become a family man might be to move to a small town. Which set my little corner of the internet aflame. Young men protested that the affordable homes were not livable. The available jobs were low paying or involved labor. There were no beautiful, marriageable women in rural areas. And it was at this last one that I was most taken aback. Because it was not that long ago that men dreamt of meeting a comely farmer's daughter to make their own.
The farmer's daughter is a stock character in fiction. Often a naive, yet desirable farm girl. Who marries the hero and settles down. You can find examples in the oral tradition all the way back to thirteenth century Icelandic sagas. When a farmer's daughter meets a fugitive warrior, though she does not fall in love with him. In a 1753 debate in the British House of Commons, on the right of people to marry outside their class, politician Robert Nugent hailed her virtues. "A farmer's daughter is a match for the eldest son of the best lord in the land, and perhaps a better match than his father would choose for him, because she will bring good and wholesome blood into the family".
But the farmer's daughter became a fixture of our imagination as the industrial revolution came to dominate our economic reality. As young men left for the cities and factories, young women stayed, becoming a symbol of what men left behind. During World War I the farmer's daughter was waiting for troops at home. She embodied all that they were fighting for. And by World War II she was a well-developed sex symbol. Filtered through Hollywood to become a pinup, on playing cards and the nose of planes. Around this time, we start to see bawdy jokes at the farmer's expense. Which feature his daughter as a lusty coquette, eager for a roll in the hay, with whatever city sophisticate happens to be passing through.
Of course, the average farm girl is closer to Laura Ingalls Wilder than Daisy Duke. But we see the farmer's daughter again and again throughout the 20th century. In Daisy and Elly May, Mary Ann and the girls of Petticoat Junction. But the rustic beauty has all but gone from our popular culture. Tossed aside by the porn brained masses, in favor of Kardashians and Hiltons. So, I should not be surprised at young men's perception that there are no beautiful women in the country. There are not a lot of OnlyFans models out here.
What there is are a lot of honest to God farm girls. She may not be a "dime piece" as the kids say but get her out of her barn clothes and she cleans up good. You want to build a life together, and she has got two strong hands to help you. If she is a bit of a tomboy all the better. As the daughters of fathers, whom they bonded with over masculine pursuits, tomboys value men for being men. You will not find better wife material.
To young men who think that wives, family, and community are out of reach for them I doubt you have even tried. 45% of men ages 18-25 have never approached a woman in person. The rejection you feel is in your head. Stop pining over unattainable women and start talking to ones you already know. Then stop comparing your beginning to someone else's end. It is not realistic to think you can have at 20 what it took 40-year-old men 20 years to get. Start working toward it today. If it is really important, you will find a way. If it is not, you will find an excuse.
I might share a questionable observation once made, on the same theme, about moving to Alaska for the same reason: “the odds are good, but the goods are odd.”
I live in a rural community and what you describe and the reality here are too very different things