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Is marriage still attractive for women?
In the 21st century, perceptions of marriage are changing fast, and some women are shaking the basic foundation of the institution by either postponing marriage or staying away from it altogether.
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arriage is the oldest social institution in the world. A marriage between a man and a woman has been a social norm for thousands of years.
Generally, love and marriage are perceived as important for living “happily ever after”.
But in the 21st century, perceptions of marriage are changing fast, and some women are shaking the basic foundation of the institution by either postponing marriage or staying away from it altogether.
The number of single women has grown rapidly across the globe over the last two decades. Why this is happening? Is marriage no longer attractive to many women?
“Women are increasingly educated, more economically independent, gaining more opportunities outside marriage and embracing freedom. All these factors contribute to [making] single women capable of maintaining a stable financial life,” says Joseph Chamie in his latest article titled “Should women stay single?” in YaleGlobal Online.
Chamie is a former United Nations official and currently works as an independent consulting demographer.
It is true that now female students outnumber male students in many universities in Indonesia as well as many countries in the world. More and more educated women want to be financially independent by taking up jobs. In the past, few women used to work, and most of them were dependent on their husbands for financial security.
Why did women want to stay single?
“I wanted to be an independent woman. By staying single, I enjoy my freedom and pursue my ambitions. If I marry, I’m afraid I will lose my freedom and I have to compromise on many things,” Dina Safitri (not her real name), who works at a hospital in Surabaya, East Java, told The Jakarta Post through telephone on Friday.
Dina, 53, is a single woman living happily in Surabaya.
For many working women, marriage life is stressful. In addition to their office work, they have to do domestic chores and take care of children and in some cases in-laws.
Many studies have been conducted, and they show that single women enjoy more freedom, live longer than married women and experience less stress and fewer compromises than their married peers. Many single women are healthier and less depressed than married women.
“Single women feel more empowered, enjoying greater personal autonomy and freedoms than married women largely because they don’t juggle challenging multiple roles at work and home,” Chemie said.
After the marriage, the real problems will emerge, mostly because many women are married to the wrong men. As a result, many marriages will end either in divorce or separation.
For example, almost 50 percent of marriages in the US, France and Russia end up in divorce.
What about Indonesia?
According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the number of divorce cases in Indonesia has been on the rise for many years. For example, the number of divorce cases surged to 408,202 in 2018, a 9 percent increase from 374,516 in 2017. The main causes for divorce are irreconcilable differences, financial matters and extramarital affairs.
Women normally have high expectations of their marriage, but many men may not be in a position to fulfil these expectations.
The lack of freedom, more stress, failed marriages and financial independence are encouraging many women to stay single.
Japan has the highest number of single women in the world. According to several reports, one in seven Japanese women were unmarried by age 50 in 2015, four times higher than the level in 1970.
Why did Japan become a heaven for single women?
“Most Japanese women are too busy with their work, and they do not have enough time to look for partners. They mainly focus on their careers rather than men. They have more freedom when they are single, and they don’t feel like they need a husband,” Tomoaki Yamashita, who works in a private company in Tokyo, told the Post by telephone on Friday.
There is another reason for the surging number of single women in Japan.
“Many male Japanese employees are not fulltime workers. So, women are hesitant to marry men, because these men do not have stable income. Many part-time Japanese workers do not want to marry women who have fulltime jobs,” Misaki Tanaka, a retired woman living in Tokyo, told the Post by telephone.
Many Japanese women, according to Tanaka, feel that Japanese men are spending too much time on their work, leaving too little for time for women and family to the detriment of the quality of relationships.
In Indonesia, we do not know exactly how many single women there are. For sure, their numbers are growing like elsewhere in the world, but many people are not happy about that.
“Marriage is a must, and a family is the basic foundation of our society. The majority of families are living happily. If a single woman becomes sick, who will take care of her? Staying single is not the solution, but living together in harmony is a great thing,” said Yohannes Kristiarto, who lives in West Jakarta.
