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Lily Kee

Young women's pressure of getting married soon

Latest Post: March 11, 2012 at 4:26 PM

1 follower

On life planning young women seem to have less choices than young men.
Perhaps especially in Asian countries, youth and beauty are the most valuable assets of women, while for men they are maturity, social status, and money. The former values decrease in time, while the latter ones increase in time.

For a 22-year-old female college graduate, in the next ten to twenty years, she is expected to work, find a husband to marry, have kids and raise them. They are things she should aim for. If she is not married before 30, the pressure will be increasing greatly; the situation is similar if she does not have kids before 40. Meanwhile, she also needs to take care of her career.

What if she wants to get a PhD? A PhD in the US, for example, takes 6 years. By the time she graduates, she is at least 28--almost 30. For young women, deciding to study PhD is hard.

What if she wants to focus on her career first? It's the same. As time passes, her "assets" are decreasing in value.

For a 22-year-old male college graduate, however, even up to 40 or 50 he can still be a popular single man, because his value, with the increase of his age, is also increasing.

A female friend of mine, who is also Asian and planning to study PhD in Germany, says "finding someone to marry" gives her great pressure, while a PhD student's life is mostly solitary. Her parents urge her to get married soon, because nobody wants a female PhD--they are "the third sex". For example, the most popular TV programs in China nowadays are matchmaking programs.

But my friend said that she was surprised to find that her European classmate, having got her first postgraduate degree, is thinking of taking a second--with ease and without thinking of a life planning. She simply wants to study.

Contradictorily, while being aware that we can only live for once, most of us are still strictly bound by the conventional life planning--what one should do at certain age period frames our mind. Are we at all times living others' life? What is a life of our own? What should a young woman do when she faces such pressure?

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Reply to:

Keti Pavic, Live, laugh, learn

May 13, 2011 at 7:48 PM

6 followers

I know from personal experience that when you live your life for others' approval, you will never be truly happy with your decisions.

You are right, you only have one life. So why hand over control of your life to someone else? Take control of your life and decide for yourself how to lead it.

It might lead you down a path that strays from your family's ideals, but who cares? Or you might even be surprised to find that your ideals match your family's, but you needed to find your own way there. There should be NO shame in leading your own life.

Also, something to chew on, human beings by generation are living longer and longer. So why shouldn't the milestones of the human life amend to match the new-found length?

Many, many decades ago, it was common for teenagers to marry and start reproducing. Should we keep doing something just because that's the way it has always been done?

Which leads to concept of traditions and the blind allegiance we have to some of them, where people follow traditions even (sometimes) to the detriment of themselves and/or others.

Would you repeat the same mistake over and over again just because that's how you've always done it? Or would you (recognizing the mistake) see the situation and adapt?

Reply to: or

Hanna Clapson, I am an English major. I write and think. I...

May 13, 2011 at 7:53 PM

22 followers

Yeah, it sucks. A lot.

Only thing that makes sense to me though is to confront pressure head on. Like, how is the pressure to be a financially successful independent woman all that different from the pressure to adhere to conformity and marry well? Either way we're forced to fill a role laid out for us by society.

But where does this pressure come from? And why do we let it inform our decisions?

What makes sense to me is to identify sources of societal pressure and inspect them objectively. Why am I doing this, because I want to or because it is expected?

Of course, this sort of logic is directly informed by my privileged education and familial support to be nothing but myself. Not everyone has been entitled to such a liberatory early life experience. In consideration of this, I think open education serves as primary tool of empowerment for the young woman stifled by societal constraints. I think too often this model of education is misconstrued by the higher education system that is tyrannically hierarchical. The PhD route has historically served as portal for the empowered woman to engage with society on her own terms, but it still represents a very pressure intensive system. Coming to grips with the pressure of societal expectations is not achieved through a traditional school environment. It means studying yourself and your own expectations independent of a constricting production-based hierarchy, whether that hierarchy be marriage or university.

Living in the present seems right to me.

Lee Kazanas tagged this post as Couldn't have said it better myself.

Reply to: or

william kensit

May 14, 2011 at 12:47 AM

6 followers

An old man's point of view
Were you my granddaughter I would say that humans have many different mores which are created to ease the life of the average. Don't think, just do this, think this. If you are of average ability then I shrug as what you do is immaterial. Fight as you will you will never escape the masses. If you are intelligent then to do less than your best is to betray that ancestor who first crawled out of the primeval ooze and all your descendants to come. If you are exceptional never settle for life on the plain but struggle for the summits where the horizons are infinite even though there is only room for afew.
The difficulty is to learn which mores are universal and which are tribal. If you really think 40 or 50 year old batchelors are good mate materials then I think you have much to unlearn. A parent's job is to socialize a child so it will create an adult acceptable to society. A wife's job is to socialize an adult male so he becomes an acceptable husband. That job is always difficult but after 30 it becomes more and more difficult. At 40 I would recommend you pass.
The only age of importance is governed by your biological clock. After 35 pregnancy is more difficult (or was in my day) but marriage is not a prerequisite. If nobody in your society appreciates a PhD then get one elsewhere.