by Maria Teresa L. Ungson
Being single up to this moment is something that I treasure and am truly happy about. However, married friends, relatives and acquaintances have been such a bother. They just can’t understand why I am still single. Let me illustrate how nasty things can get for singles:
During weddings, when the bride has to throw her bouquet to the next “lucky” lady, friends and relatives would always look for me and to a certain extent “shout” out my name, e.g. “Where’s Terry? Why is she missing? She should be out there! Ang bagal naman matatapos na ang ceremony! (What a slow poke, she is missing the whole ceremony!)
A widower friend of mine told me one day, “Ano ka ba naman Terry! Lower your standards! Biro mo magkakaron na ako ng pangalawa ikaw di ka pa rin naka isa! (Hey Terry, what’s taking you so long? You should lower your standards! Guess what? I am on my way to have a second husband and you haven’t married up to now!)
Concerned friends start setting you up with their unmarried friends, too. They ask you to appear for lunch or coffee and before you know it you’re already participating in a “group” date. Now, this is really sooooo baduy!!!
Friends would often ask and remind me, “Terry, who will take care of you when you get old?” And their golden advice: “Terry, you can forget the husband! Just make a baby fast! Start searching for your sperm donor!”
Relatives and friends would start conducting heart-to-heart talks with me and ask me if I have a problem. Am I still hurting from a previous relationship? Am I scared of men? Or have I ever been involved before? Are you really happy being alone?
These are just some examples of how gross things can become for singles! In a society that promotes marriage and family life, being single seems odd. However, the tides are changing fast. In a highly urbanized setting with independent people of high educational attainment, getting married is usually not a priority. Career and the need to earn one’s own money have taken over from early marriages. There are a growing number of professionals who tie the knot at an older age. Marriage has sort of lost its luster and couples who do get married are usually already expecting a baby.
Society has indeed changed a lot over the years. My goodness! Thank God! Single people are getting more respect nowadays! There is a growing appreciation for staying single! Freedom is something single people enjoy! You are not “forced” to stay with a partner, especially if both of you are no longer happy with each other. It could really be a drab. A lot of married people are more vocal about their marital problems and actually stray from their partner. So, does getting married improve one’s health? Read this, getting married doesn’t improve one’s health as much as it used to, according to a new study.
Married people have historically reported better health than their never-married peers. It has generally been accepted that marriage provides social, psychological, and financial resources that improve overall health. But a new study, published in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, suggests the gap is narrowing, particularly for men.
During the past 30 years, the self-rated health of never-marrieds, both men and women, has improved. Never-married men have steadily reported better health and now report health approaching that of their married peers.
One reason for the trend, according to the study, is that today’s society might offer never-married men “greater access to social resources and support” that were in the past primarily found in a spouse. These may include larger pools of never-married people, potentially offering larger groups of friends.
However, things are not improving for all singles. The self-rated health of the widowed, divorced, and separated worsened over time relative to the married. Widows and widowers had the most dramatic declines. In 1972, the widowed were about as likely to report good health as the married, but in 2003, they were 7% less likely to report good health than their married counterparts were.
Researcher Hui Liu, an assistant professor and sociologist at Michigan State University, and colleagues call for policymakers to reconsider enacting policies and programs that encourage marriage.
“Encouraging marriage in order to promote health may be misguided,” the researchers write. “In fact, getting married increases one’s risk for eventual marital dissolution and marital dissolution seems to be worse for self-rated health now than at any point in the past three decades.”
The study is based on 32 years of data from the National Health Interview Study, which includes about 1.1 million participants, including those who are married, widowed, divorced, separated, and never married. The participants were between the ages of 25 and 80.
Hurray, for the singles! There is indeed a health sense to staying single! It’s simply a choice to live a less complicated life! And, happiness should come from within the person. We should not seek or ask other people to make us happy. We should work at having a happy disposition in life, whether we are single or married.
