Chen Wei-yih hired a hall, had 30 guests turn up who celebrated her nuptials: Chen said both times - "I do", and again, "I do."
In reality, Chen cannot officially register a marriage to herself. Hopefully she will find the man of her dreams where she can officially wed again. Apparently Taiwanese women are marrying later, and some never do, as they find living as a single person, without as much hassle.
www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/bridetobe-set-to-say-i-do--to-herself-20101025-16zrt.html
The Government is obviously concerned with alarming birth rate figures as described in the article, as any fall in the birth rate can affect the future economy. A similar concern has been expressed in recent years in Western nations.
However, babies and children are very costly, particularly in cities such as Taiwan where housing is expensive, so couples – even when they do marry - remain reluctant to embark on starting a family until they have some financial security.
What fascinated me about this story, and what is happening socially in Taiwan, is that indeed women are choosing not to marry until they are considerably older than their mothers were, and much older than their grandmothers were, when each previous generation got married.
This echoes a similar situation all over the world, noticed most in Western countries where the education and professional opportunities have been taken up more and more by young women, in each of the past three generations.
Some women in developed and developing societies may be discovering that having a successful career is mutually exclusive to being married. For them, marriage, regardless of the pressures by parents, is taking a distant back to seat in their priorities.
Others such as Chen Wei-yih in the above article may actually wish to be married, but may not be finding suitable men who respect their independence and intellect. Many men in Taiwan culture could be wanting a more 'traditional' wife.
The experience of my own younger relatives indicates that men, even in modern western cities, may be harbouring the ideals of the 'Women's Weekly' model of the 1950s and not be interested in the 21st century self-sufficient woman.
The reciprocal issue is that as women become confident at their own level of professionalism, they become more fussy in their selection of a husband. They are certainly not going to be happy with the man who wants the traditional dependent, subservient wife!
Like Chen Wei-yih, they make their own comfortable life as a 'single', and unless someone really sweeps them off their feet, they are not interested in the matrimonial bed. Social attitudes have changed sufficiently that women feel free to have casual romances, and share their bed if they feel like it, just in the same way it has been 'respectable' for men to do for centuries.
More worrying, is the assumption that there is an ideal man, and for men – the ideal woman. This is certainly the image portrayed by the glossy magazines and similar titillating media presentations, aimed at both men and women. Of course, this is in spirit no different from the 'Women's Weekly' images of the 1950s or the romance novels of 18th and 19th centuries; however the ability to 'digitally enhance' a photograph today presents even more 'perfection' as being attainable than was possible in the past.
The reality is, and always has been, far different, for there is no perfect man nor is there a perfect woman.
Marriage is a partnership between a man and a woman who need to work at it constantly and yet the rewards for those who can make it function, far outweigh the negatives.
The ideal of marriage has a lot going for it: romance, commitment, companionship, babies, seeing their toddlers explore their new world, schooling, adolescence, graduation and whatever after it, work, career, children's marriages, and finally (what has been termed 'biological success'), seeing one's own grandchildren …...
If there is anything I have learned over 33 years in Christian Ministry is that there is no better way for a man and a woman to grow older together than in such a contented partnership.
There is a lot to be said for marriage, even if it is, by necessity, with imperfect partners.
And at the end of all the child-rearing and employed work, many couples like to contemplate a companionable retirement. There are jokes about 'getting under each other's feet', so I would recommend that couples plan for retirement by choosing their own interests and hobbies. One of my friends said: "I married him for better or for worse, but not for lunch."