Digita l Happiness for all Seasons!

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FRIDAY 9 APRIL 2010
BANGALORE TIMES, THE TIMES OF INDIA
Urmila Matondkar, Tabu, Sakshi Tanwar, Manisha Koirala, Raell Padamsee and Sandhya Mridul
WHAT’S AGE GOT
TO DO WITH IT?
U
rmila
Matondkar,
Tabu, Sandhya Mridul,
Manisha Koirala,
Sonia Garware,
Rakshanda Khan,
Raell Padamsee, Sakshi
Tanwar — successful
women who are 30,
thriving and single. It’s
an established fact
today that an increasing
number of women are
taking their time to get
married, some even
choosing to walk down
the aisle in their late 30s
and early 40s. The reasons
range from women preferring to focus on their
careers, to not meeting
the right life partner, or
even just plain reluctance
to give up a lifestyle
they’ve grown accustomed
to.
“Today, women are see-
Sonia
Garware
ing futures and
careers. Also,
they are evolving
faster than men
and hence, find
it difficult to
find compatible
life partners. To
put it simply, we
are becoming
choosier and our
choices becoming
increasingly limited,” says psychotherapist Dr Varkha
Chulani, adding that
quite a few women
also prefer living the
single life.
But though late marriages are slowly becoming a norm, a large section of society still looks
down on older single
women. And it’s not just
in India. A recent study
conducted at the University
of Missouri found that
women who
have decided
to remain
unmarried
still face the
social stigma
associated
with being
single.
According to
the study —
titled ‘I’m a Loser,
I’m Not Married,
Let’s Just All Look at
Me’ — even though there
has been a definite increase in
the number of single women, those
who remain so till their mid-30s
continued to receive familial and
societal messages to tie the knot.
Larry Ganong, co-chair of human
development and family studies in
the College of Human Environmental Sciences, said, “We found that
never-married women’s social environments are characterised by the
pressure to conform to the conventional life pathway.” In the study,
experts
Late marriages for
noticed that
women in
women may be a
the age
bracket of
growing norm today, but 25-35
felt
the stigma
society still has its
the most,
which may
reservations. BT gets be attributed
to the fact that
the experts to
being single is
more acceptable
explain
before the age of 25.
However, beyond that
age, they feel they are subjected to increased scrutiny by friends,
family members and others.
Clinical psychologist Dr Kanan
Khatau Chikhal explains this stigma, saying it’s all about the culture
of the society one lives in. “Culture
plays a great role in the acceptance
of certain prototypes or behavioural patterns in society and culture
evolves over time. In our culture it’s
a given that post marriage, it’s time
to start a family. Having a normal,
healthy baby is only
possible within a
certain age bracket,
after which the
risks of abnormalities increase. Naturally, with evolution,
that age bracket too is
increasing. Earlier, a pregnancy post 30 was considered an elderly pregnancy,
but not anymore. However,
orthodox societies still
resist accepting this. It’s
mainly adults of the old
school of thought who tend
to stigmatise older unmarried women,” she says.
Psychologist and relationship expert Rachna Kothari
opines that it is as much a
stigma for the parents as it
is for their unmarried
daughters. “When a daughter is not married, and
especially if she has
crossed her 30s, parents
get worried about how she
will manage and
who will look
after her as she
grows older.
Their worry is
that if their
daughter keeps
pushing her
marriage plans
forward, she
will end up
being an older
parent. Parents
tend to want
their daughters
to settle down
before anything
happens to
them. Also, they
have to bear
with the so-called
‘good intentions’
comments that
relatives, neighbours and friends
keep passing,”
explains Rachna.
RACHEL FERNANDES
Rakshanda Khan
Panasonic
eco
ideas
ideas for life
Digita l Happiness for all Seasons!
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