Men are 10 times more scared of marrying the wrong person than of never getting married at all.

Bachelor Carl Weisman got fed up of being classified as a playboy, a loser or a commitment-phobe so he set out to find out exactly why he and a growing number of eligible men were steering clear of marriage.

Weisman, 49, conducted an online survey of 1,533 heterosexual men.

He concluded that most men were not afraid of marriage -- but they were afraid of a bad marriage.

"Men are 10 times more scared of marrying the wrong person than of never getting married at all," Weisman said.

"This is the first generation of people who have grown up with bad divorces. People assume there is something wrong if you don't marry but these are men who have made a different choice and not given in to social pressures."

Weisman said U.S. figures showed that in 1980 about 6 percent of men aged in their early 40s had never married but this number had now risen to 17 percent.

Weisman said his online survey found there are three groups of bachelors -- about 8 percent who never want to marry, 62 percent want to marry but of which half won't settle for anything less than perfection, and about 30 percent who are on the fence.

Four out of 10 bachelors did not want children compared to three out of 10 wanting to be a father. The rest were undecided.

But while 72 percent of respondents said they were not afraid of marriage, about half of them said the situation that scared them most was marrying the wrong person.

"It's so important to these men to get it right. My best advice to single women after bachelors is to be patient. If you're in a hurry to get married you'll be frustrated," he said.

Weisman also found that financial issues, both positive and negative, played a large part in men's fear of commitment.