But why does she remain unmarried?

JAKARTA (JP): With each annual visit to my grandmother's house, I am reminded how hard it is to be a single woman in Indonesia.

Whenever I visit, my relatives would not stop asking: "Do you have a boyfriend?" or "When are you going to get married, like cousin X?" My private love life seems to raise curiosity and concern among my relatives, particularly the female ones. They believe there must be "something wrong" with me.

Sometimes they even interfere with my personal life, such as when my aunt actually set me up for a date with one of her colleagues. I am 27 years old now, and yes ... still single, but I am also happy with my job and my life, though I would, of course, like to get married some day.

One's marital status seems to be of great concern in the society here. As a priest tries to convince us that God is the proprietor of the universe and we should obey Him, people here have tried to convince others into believing that being married is the only way to achieve happiness, and that being single is just not normal. This evidently is a common phenomenon in everyday life and particularly on TV.

Recently, on a TV talk-show program, the topic under discussion was the "trend among today's Indonesian women to be single". Some successful actresses who are single appeared on the show, discussing why more and more women are choosing to marry late or not get married at all, as they prefer a career to marriage.

Another late night TV program featured Indonesian actors and actresses who have stayed single into their forties.

Why is being single such a big issue? I find nothing wrong with it. What ticks me off, though, is that people look down on those who choose to be, or whose circumstances leave them single; for women even more so. Never mind that the woman happens to have a successful career or is physically attractive.

Those around her would whisper, talk about her behind her back and try to figure out why she is not wearing a wedding ring. The conclusions reached would be either she has a too highly paid job, which drives men away, leaving her unlucky, cursed to spend her life a spinster, or perhaps she is lesbian. Meanwhile, her family and friends are setting her up with an array of men, hoping one would become a prospective husband.

Perhaps one of my favorite lines is when they tell me: "Well a woman should not be single as she should be aware of her nature as a woman," which basically means she is supposed to get married, get pregnant and so preserve the continuity of the human race.

In these circumstances, it is no wonder so many women are unhappy with their lives. Whether married or single, whether focused on their career or mixing a career with marriage, many suffer depression and end up blaming themselves, thinking there must something wrong with them. Marriage is no longer about sharing a life with someone you love, but a status to show that she is a real woman, as she has a suitor who has asked for her hand.

I see how this pressure makes many of my female friends (myself included, sometimes) uneasy and undermines their confidence in themselves and their lives. For example, I have a friend who is a talented journalist in her twenties. She works for one of the country's leading newspapers. It is easy to see she has the potential to have a successful career, yet she remains restless and is afraid that her career will prevent her from getting married.

"Yes, I could be successful, but end up a spinster," she always says. Her family, meanwhile, drop hints about time limits for her remaining single.

Another friend tells a different story. She got married in her mid thirties. She had a successful career as a researcher at a government agency and was not thinking of marriage as she felt she had already found her world, but as her age slowly crept up to thirty-something her family began to worry about her.

They eventually persuaded her to get married to her best friend. She refused at first, trying to explain that this was not what she wanted in her life, but eventually gave in. She now has a daughter, and although she does not regret the marriage, many times she has said that if she could turn back time, she would choose to have stayed single.

No doubt more women, like any other human being, would like to have a companion to share their life with, but not every woman has a smooth, successful relationship. Is it a crime if a woman chooses to be single in order to spend more time on her work? Does it make her less of a woman than those who are married?

How much of this freedom today's Indonesian woman is said to enjoy is actually enjoyed? Sure, nowadays women are no longer kept at home to take care of domestic chores and instead have the freedom to work, and this is a good thing, but sadly women do not yet have the privilege of freedom to determine their own lives and happiness, as it remains confined by unwritten rules. A woman is still not judged by her own personality, her own achievements; she is not seen as in independent identity, but rather she is someone's wife, someone's mother or someone's daughter.

If she is forever defined by her ovaries, when can she really see her own true self?

-- Fitri Wulandari