Though perhaps understandable, it is irresponsible for parents to push their single children to get married before they are ready. Unlike their parents' generation, today's youths attach more importance to individuality and their emotional life and emphasize the quality of married life. Moreover, when choosing a life mate, men tend to want a woman who is younger, less educated and economically inferior to them, while women want to find a man they can look up to. However, as there are not enough single men available that meet that requirement inevitably some women are "left over". Parents' urging these women to marry will only add to the pressure and anxiety they feel.
Also, the rising costs of living, especially the soaring outlay needed to own a house and car, have altered young people's views on marriage. What's worse, owing to a sense of filial piety or seeking to put an end to the constant barrage of questions, some young people struggling to find their Mister or Miss Right, eventually go on blind dates arranged by their parents and end up in flash marriages, or sensing the clock is ticking down on their eligibility they marry someone totally unsuitable. Without their parents' sense of duty to the institution of marriage and lacking their perseverance in the face of adversity, many of these marriages end in divorce.
Rather than go through this process, more and more young people in metropolises such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, are taking the initiative to stay single.
According to Luo, more women are voluntarily making the decision not to get married. As women do not necessarily have to rely on their spouse to support them anymore, marriage is no longer a necessity to survive, and as such some women choose to dispense with it all together.
To marry or not to marry should be up to the individual. We should admit and accept the fact that views on mar- riage are changing and that everyone needs to treat people's life choices with respect, whether they agree with them or not. Marriage should be a blessing, and not a burden. Perhaps if parents listened to their children instead of trying to force them to be "happy and normal" they would find their children more willing to talk to them about their lives.
By Xiao Lixin
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