Spinsterhood as Silent Rebellion?

I’ve red an article about Japanese young women postponing their marriage. The researcher considered it due to their unwillingness to fulfill traditional role, and rather enjoying their life. Could that be true to western spinsters too?

While the situation of young Japanese women is specific: they are very depended of the older generations and their are suppose to stay at home as a housewives. There is strong pressure of them to fill the traditional role of wives.

The situation is not that splendid in the west either. Women still do most of the house-hold duties, even if they work whole day, and pay the highest prices for the producing of the offspring. Men don’t have to pay being fathers in their salaries and with their career. Women are still supposed to. And then they ask why we got so few children and so old.

Family still holds women back more than men. Children are very depended of their mother at least for first year. And during the pregnancy it is the mother to give up drinking and suffering the morning sickness and bad moods (although men might get their share of the results of crankiness).  I’m not complaining, I just state the biological facts.

Yet many men benefit from fatherhood at work. They are not expected to stay late and they rise in status. And this was a comment of one young father I know, who acknowledged the unfairness. Well, that is life.

Who stays home when children are not well? Usually the mother. Who stays home with cranky children? I don’t mean always, I just mean mainly. He goes golfing. I know there are other kind of men, but they’re pearls hard to find. For women family usually means the end of all freedom and a lot of responsibility. I admit that I am afraid of that.

So many women are looking for men willing to make some sacrifices for them and especially for the family. Traditionally mainly women are expected to make sacrifices. Many men  whine about the restrictions marriage imposes to them, not usually willing to compare to the situation of women. That’s why it is important to find someone that is willing to take their share of the load – and that is not always very easy.

In comparison to marriage, single life has many benefits for women: freedom to go, to do and to have a career, to accomplish something. combining family and career is not so easy for women.

And it does not help that my mother has pretty negative view and has warned me to mix my life with men – and of making sacrifices for the family, she regrets somehow.