I heard someone interviewed on the radio recently who’d conducted scientific research into happiness.  A notable result emerging from his findings was that one of the happiest surveyed groups were women who’d never married and never had children.

Both the male interviewee and the (married?) female interviewer spoke in tones of genuine surprise as they absorbed this bombshell.  How could that be?  Surely, unmarried, childless women sobbed into their cornflakes every morning over what they were missing?

Hmmm…not so sure, personally.  I think potentially unmarried, childless women smirk smugly over their breakfast in bed, not having to get up before they’re good and ready, iron anyone’s shirt, or do the school run.

I think they’re busy pleasing themselves rather than other people.  They have independence of thought, word, and deed.  They’re not defined by being someone’s ‘missus’, or someone’s Mum.  They are individuals, and that’s good enough.

Because they’re not easily pigeonholed by a society that values conformity above anything else, they’re negatively judged for their life choices.  Just look at the way they’re described in common parlance - old maid, lonely spinster, unnaturally childless, barren.  Their perceived lack of ‘commitment’ and ‘sacrifice’ seems to preclude them enjoying the companionship of rewarding relationships, or experiencing fulfilling fun.  ‘Single’ doesn’t have to mean ‘Lonely’.  Perhaps society (men, in particular?) proves unnerved by unfettered, financially-independent, free-thinking women wafting about the place doing as they please?  Personally, I think it’s rather marvellous, especially when women continue to be oppressed in such an insidious manner across today’s Westernised, supposedly egalitarian cultures. 

So many women end up giving too much to others at the expense of themselves.  For some, marriage may enrich their lives; being a mother may shape and define it - but that path isn’t for every woman, and it’s not ‘against nature’ to eschew those conventions.  It’s just a choice.  Like being a coffee drinker is a choice.  Like painting your bedroom puce is a choice.  Who’s to say that choice is the wrong one, except the individual who made it?

We only get one life.  Providing we do no harm in the process, we must live the truest existence we can, for our own personal dignity and delight.