Why did Edward Gibbon never marry?

Edward Gibbon never married primarily due to his father's strong opposition to his engagement to Suzanne Curchod, a pastor's daughter whom he had met while living in Lausanne.

When Gibbon returned to England in 1758, his father and stepmother were implacably opposed to the match. Feeling compelled to defer to his father's wishes, Gibbon broke off the engagement, famously noting in his Memoirs, "I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son." Following this experience, he never again considered marriage seriously, though he and Curchod remained lifelong friends.1