Hong Kong Outlook HK Views of Marriage, Gender Are Changing By VIVIAN CHIU	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
結婚に対する考え方の変化 20年ほど前の香港では、男性は40代で独身でも「花」と呼ばれていたのに対して、25歳を過ぎた独身女性は「オールドミス」。しかし、最近は仕事のキャリアを優先する女性も増えて、結婚に対する風潮が変わってきています。

Wong Lai-ming was 20 years old and having the time of her life. It was the 1950s and she had just come to Hong Kong from Shanghai. A pretty girl with a string of boyfriends, she never worried about finding a husband.

"But when I turned 22, friends and family kept urging me to get married. They told me not to be too choosy or I would get old waiting," said Wong.

"By the time I was 26, I was very anxious. People said that if you were under 25, you could still choose the man you wanted to marry. But over 25, the man would choose you.

"I lowered my standards and wed the next man who came into my life. The marriage has not turned out well for me after all these years," Wong said.

As recently as 20 years ago, the convention in Chinese society was for women to marry at the age of 20 or younger. If a woman was not married by the age of 25, friends and relatives would call her an old maid or an old virgin.

In the '90s, it is a totally different story. Many women don't see themselves marrying a man for financial security. Women are more educated. They pursue their careers and lead independent lives. Women at the height of their careers often put work before starting a family. It is not until they are in their 40s or even 50s that they marry.

The term "old maid" is rarely used now, especially in Hong Kong, where there are many successful career women who are respected in the community. Even if a career woman chooses to remain single her entire life, society accepts it.

"Now the concept that a woman should get married before she is 20 is fading," said Assistant Professor Leung Lai-ching of City University. "Women have more development opportunities now."

According to the Census and Statistics Department, the median marriage age in 1997 for women was 26.8 and for men, 29.6. Back in 1976 women married at the average age of 23.9 and men at 27.4.

While many career women are marrying at a later age, people of older generations still believe their daughters should marry in their 20s.

For 32-year-old Loretta Chow, a successful lawyer, Mr. Right, in the guise of a businessman, has finally appeared. But before, she had been choosy and rejected many offers. Her mother, who married at 21 in the '40s, was even more worried than she was.

"She would test me, asking me whether I have a boyfriend. She asked me to lower my requirements and not be so stubborn. `Any good man will do'," Chow said.

She explains that if she only had a primary school education and worked as a clerk, she would not have had high prerequisites for a husband. But, she says, her family felt this point of view was senseless.

"My family didn't understand some men are just not right for me. There are only a few things I need in a husband — he has to have a good education, be well-mannered and nice-looking. If he fails in those departments, I'd know it and I just wouldn't consider him," she said.

Before, Chow had a number of male friends and sometimes they would go to a movie or have dinner. "When my mother knows I am going out with a man, she would ask me: `Why don't you accept him? He seems to like you very much'," Chow said.

However, with the passage of time her mother gradually accepted the situation. At that time Chow felt no social pressure as a single woman since most of her friends in their 30s were unmarried and had thriving careers.

Men suffer no such stigma if they remain bachelors, and it has been so for decades. Even in the '50s, if a man were still single at 30 or 40, he was considered a "flower," a swinging bachelor.

"A diamond bachelor is much valued. It means he is successful in his career and has status in society. Women desire him," Professor Leung said.

Bachelors get off lightly with their decision not to marry. For 63-year-old bachelor Wong Kan it was a matter of not wanting to be a burden to a wife after an accident left him handicapped. When he was 16 his family bought him a 12-year-old child bride in his village in Guangdong Province. He did not like her and abandoned her when he came to Hong Kong in 1954. He recalled that in Hong Kong during the 50s there were few bachelors like himself.

"Nobody laughed at me being a bachelor as they would at a spinster at that time. There was no pressure for a bachelor in Hong Kong. Most people accepted me even though I had no girlfriends," Wong said.

Wong's words still ring true today. Stephen Lam is a 43-year-old, gray-haired bachelor.

"I am still afraid of falling into the marriage trap — taking care of my wife and children, meeting in-laws over the weekends. That is too restrictive on my life," said Lam, who is leading a carefree life as a newspaper editor.

"Calling unmarried women `spinsters' is very derogatory. `Bachelor' is a neutral term a bit more insulting would be calling him a `gwar lo' [a derogatory term meaning single old man] but that's as far as it goes," Lam said.

"I don't have much time to feel lonely living on my own. I am very busy, getting up at 11 a.m. and working past midnight. After I finish work, I usually go for a late night snack with my colleagues. When I return home, it's 3 a.m.," said Lam, who works six days a week.

For better or worse, society is more liberal now and there is no pressure for either men or women to marry at a certain age.

Shukan ST: Sept. 4, 1998

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