蔡妮燕
Marriage was once considered a very important event
in one』s life; however, this kind of opinion is changing with each
passing day.
In the past, marriage was not only the culmination of
a man』s life, but also the beginning of a woman』s misfortune. An old
Chinese proverb says, 「A woman follows her husband no matter what his
lot is.」 It means that a wife must do her best to serve her husband,
though he treats her so badly or even betrays her. What』s worse, a
married woman didn』t have a second chance to marry another man, even if
her husband had dead. The only thing she could do was to live in
widowhood for the remainder of her life. How miserable was the destiny
of a married woman at that time!
Fortunately, everything is different today.
According to a recent report on the Liberty Times, 「Divorce rate
in Taiwan reached a new record; 1 out of 2.9 couples split up in 2001.」
It implies that married women not only have the right to register for
divorce, but also have other choices to marry again and pursue their
real happiness. Take Elizabeth Taylor- a very famous superstar-for
example, she just started her 「eighth」 marriage last month, though she
has been married for seven times and is pretty old now. Besides,
women』s attitudes toward marriage
are changing quickly; more and more women
are resisting parental pressure to marry and have children early.
Instead, they have made up their minds to live single lives, seeing
marriage and married life as risky, unnecessary, or simply not worth the
trouble.
As we can see, marriage is not as necessary or
important as before in one』s life. Moreover, since married women have
more than one choice when it comes to their life plans, maybe there will
be fewer and fewer pathetic widows in the future.