for a female when is the right time to get married

我想写的问题是“对于女生，何时适当结婚”。我想在抛砖引玉，主要是因为这是在中国一个非常广泛的问题。而作为一个中国女学生，我将需要面对这个问题，或早或晚。这几天我和我的中国同事及一些来自不同文化背景的朋友交谈过，在分享事实和想法之后，我清楚地感受到我思想的演变。所以，我想它们写下，与你分享不同想法。

The issue I want to write on is “for a female when is the right time to get married”. I would like to start a discussion on this mainly because it is a very popular issue among Chinese. And as a female Chinese student, I will need to face this question and figure it out sooner or later. I talked to my Chinese peers and some friends from different cultural backgrounds these days. After sharing facts and ideas with each other, I clearly felt the evolution of my thoughts. Therefore, I would like to write them down and share the process of think differently with you.

When I first started this Think Differently Project, my idea was not quite different from that of the majority of Chinese girls. So my answer to the question then was “maybe no later than the age of twenty five or twenty six”. I reached this answer mainly through the impression I had got when I was back in China. I clearly remember that when I attended my cousin’s wedding a year ago, she held my hands passionately and said: “Finally I am married at twenty five. So I won’t be called as leftovers!” I was bewildered when I heard that. Later, she explained that it was a general idea that a woman was considered a failure by the public, no matter how successful her career was, if she was not in a marriage.

Another phenomenon I observed back in China was that generally if a girl started a love relationship in college, her parents would more likely to discourage her and ask her to focus more on her studies. However, when she received her Bachelor’s degree at around twenty three years old and started to work, her parents would be so worried about her personal affairs and urge her to find some guy to settle down. If she expressed any idea that she would like to spend more time on her job, her parents would probably arrange numerous blind dates for her and ask her to go once and once again. To me, it all seemed that parents suddenly changed their thoughts and attitudes towards their children’s personal issues at some point. Married or not was a major way to evaluate whether a woman was happy or not.

To know the viewpoints of people living here, I made the following plans. Firstly, I would like to talk to my Chinese peers about this question. Secondly, I would talk to my friends coming from different cultural backgrounds to know their opinion. Thirdly, I would write down what I learned from them and try to figure out my own answer. Meanwhile, I would keep a diary to record my idea each day so that I could catch up with my evolving thoughts.

I did a questionnaire survey among thirty Chinese students between 18 and 25 years old. The sex ratio was one male to one female. Not surprisingly, all males chose the option of “females should get married before 25”. They also frankly told me that they hoped their future wives could be young, beautiful and vibrant. Other features are not that important. As regards the females, five of them chose the option of “females should get married before 30”. The other ten chose the same option with the males. When I asked the girls what if their parents force them to attend blind dates, most of them replied “then we need to go”, with a bitter smile on their faces. From the above results, it is apparent that “girls should get married before 25” is also a popular idea among Chinese youth.

Later, I discussed this question with some of my friends from Europe, India, Korea, etc. Here, I need to point out that I really learned a lot from these discussions. My Italian friend told me that she would not think about marriage before thirty. Actually in her hometown, girls often get married after twenty eight, mainly because they want to make sure that they could financially support themselves first. After enjoying many single days, they would gradually feel the need to have a family. Then, they would settle down and be a responsible wife and mother. Similarly, my Denish friend said that his parents got married at around 35. Their later marriage could be an important reason for their solid relationship because they got married after knowing each other really well. As for my Indian friends, they seem to agree on the notion that the more education you receive the later you would get married. Most of them claimed that their former classmates who are still in India now already have children. What an amazing speed! 

Through my discussions with non-Chinese people, I firstly realized how diversified the world was. In addition, I also found the great influence of culture on people’s way of thinking. Among the ideas I received from them, I am inclined to side with the idea that one should get married when he or she thinks it is the right person at the right time. This means that there should not be an exact answer to this question. Look back at those who are forced to get married by anything, we would probably find out that they are not happy. What is the point of living an unhappy life?!

Through the process of this project, I firstly figured out how to develop questions and properly ask them. Secondly, now I am aware of the great influence of culture on people’s thoughts. This means that the same question may have very different answers from those coming from different cultures. And most importantly, I learned how to observe things from different angles, which was one of my weak points. Now I know that more information generates more fresh ideas and sharing your thought is one of the most significant ways of getting information. 

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