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Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Marriage-Oriented Society




More or less ten years ago, I believed that only in Indonesia (plus perhaps some neighboring countries) we could find people who adore marriage. The so-called (boring) “normal” life cycle for Indonesian people is this : being born – going to school – going to college – graduating – getting a job – getting married – having kids – getting old – finish.  :) To be (considered to be) happy, someone MUST get married, then MUST have kids. Without getting married and having kids, someone’s life is considered not complete, even perhaps dull.

While watching serials in Sex and the City (season 5 dan 6) around a decade ago, I noticed that for New Yorkers, to be considered happy, there are three things they must have (1) established job (2) house (3) life partner. 

The main focus of Indonesians and New Yorkers are a bit different. But there is one similarity : life partner, although in Indonesia, someone must get married (legally) in order to avoid being gossiped by neighbors, (cohabitation is still considered morally low here) while in New York, someone does not need to get married, as long as they have life partner. 

Recently I have started watching SATC again, but this time starting from season 1 and 2. In these two seasons, the four girls were still single, changing dates very often. I saw how unhappy they were when they broke up, or when they had no dates. Despite the fact that they wanted to be known as “being single and happy”. Isn’t it contradictory? This made me question whether this serial really wanted to show that girls can choose to be single and happy? 

We know that by the end of the serial (season 6), Miranda and Charlotte both were illustrated as happily married. Samantha was happy with her young boyfriend, Smith. Meanwhile, Carrie (eventually) married Mr. Big in the movie. :)

Perhaps marriage-oriented society still lingers everywhere, not just in the developing countries. J Feminists still have to struggle to convince society – especially girls – that to live single and happy is absolutely possible. Well, at least, minimize the number of people who choose to get married only because of social pressure. Get married when they are really ready for that.

LG 2015 - 2016

The pic was taken from here