You go girl!

 I'm watching an interesting program on PBS right now.  It's a segment on NHK Newsline.  NHK is a Japanese news program which I just discovered a few months ago.  I think it's interesting to hear news from a different perspective.  This evening's program is about single women in South Korea,  Most of the interviews are taking place in Seoul.  A statistic they just quoted said that only 20 percent of South Korean women want to get married.  I was a little surprised.  The South Korean women I know, all living in the US of course, seem happy in their married life.  The reason that the commentator gave for this lack of desire for marriage in South Korea is that married women are expected to basically wait on their husbands, children and their husband's family, even if they have a career outside the family.  Many young women, it seems, have found it easier just not to get married.  I'm wondering if perhaps the married Korean women I know are happy to be living far far away from their in-laws.  I've been married but I've also lived the single life, before marriage and after my husband died, and I find it a very comfortable (aka selfish) life style.  The first experience I ever had with a single woman living alone was in college.  One of my professors had a house warming party to show off her new house and I remember being a little shocked and excited by the idea of a single woman living alone in her own home.  It was a whole new concept to this small town girl who grew up with the understanding that a single woman was an unfortunate who hadn't been able to find a husband for some reason.  In fact my dear Aunt Dora told me, when I got married at the ripe old age of 23 that she hadn't really been worried because I wouldn't have been considered an old maid until I turned 25.