JULY 24 — A friend told me that a woman said she would like to be married, when he asked her where she saw herself in five years’ time.

This, he said, showed that many women really just want a band on their finger.

It’s strange that your life goal is to get someone to ask you if you want to spread your legs on demand, pop out babies and wrangle over chores as you learn how to put up with someone else in your personal space.

I don’t mean to sound snarky, but “being married” is not an answer that men will likely give if they’re asked about their five-year goals because marriage is often promoted – through capitalistic companies that make diamonds the pricey symbol of everlasting love – to women, not men. It’s also women who face just that extra pressure from relatives and society to get hitched.

If a woman remains unmarried, she’s called a “spinster”, an ugly-sounding term that conjures up images of a crotchety, middle-aged woman sitting alone in a bare living room, surrounded by cats. But a single man is just a “bachelor” throughout his entire life, free to do as he pleases, whose eligibility doesn’t dive with age.

Singapore Straits Times reported recently that the number of singles in Singapore increased almost 25 per cent over the last decade.

A 40-year-old unmarried finance analyst was quoted saying that her partner’s salary should be similar to hers, at least SG$9,000 (RM25,000) a month.

A 36-year-old consultant, on the other hand, reportedly gave up on a dating app; he seemed to be looking for a better girl, and another better girl, in the online world of endless romantic prospects. Online dating doesn’t seem to help much; it only makes people pickier because there will always be someone, and yet another someone, whose exact criteria you can look for on a website.

A man isn’t judged based on his marital status. If he’s married, fine. If he’s not, it doesn’t matter because he could be busy at work, or he hasn’t found the right one yet, or a million other things, but at the end of the day, it’s a small issue.

However, a woman gets snide remarks if she’s unmarried and childless. She’s perceived as not fulfilling her womanly destiny, her great purpose in life, to bear children. Worse still, people think of her as “selfish” for only caring about herself and her career, instead of devoting her life to other people.

Men are free to accumulate wealth and to make a name for themselves. But women are penalised for having the same ambitions.

In any case, this isn’t an anti-marriage spiel. Whenever I see on Facebook pictures of yet another friend’s wedding shots or engagement ring, I do wonder if I will ever get hitched, what with having just about a year left of my twenties.

But why do I ask myself such questions? What does marriage really matter? Am I really missing out if I somehow don’t end up tying the knot with someone and giving birth to mini-feminists?  

Of course, it’s nice to find someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with. But perhaps we’ve placed too much emphasis on love, monogamy and marriage.

We mix up love with monogamy. We demand commitment and sexual exclusivity by putting it in black and white, even though divorce rates are going up. And we ignore the fact that if cheating can happen in a premarital relationship, it can just as easily occur in a marriage.

I’m not advocating polyamory or open marriages. But maybe, just maybe, marriage isn’t what it’s cracked up to be and it’s not something that should necessarily be in our five- or 10-year plans.

The idea that you can (or should) only love one person and have that affection culminated in marriage at a certain age doesn’t quite make sense. If you have been in various relationships and loved different people before tying the knot, why does that process suddenly stop at one person at a certain time? Why don’t we keep loving different people throughout different stages of our life?

So anyway, where do I see myself in five years?

Hopefully, reporting from a conflict zone somewhere, with or without a romantic partner to worry about me.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.