January 22, 2007	Monday	Muharram 02, 1428

LOS ANGELES: According to a news report last week, for what is probably the first time, more American women — 51 per cent — are living without a husband than with one. According to the New York Times analysis of US census results, 70 per cent of black women, 51 per cent of Latinas, 45 per cent of white women and 40 per cent of women of Asian descent do not have a spouse. Husbands of some are in jail or another institution, and others have a spouse who works away from home. But the vast majority of these women are either not yet married or they are divorced or widowed.

This is, in part, good news.

Take the widows. In past decades, many of these women would have died during childbirth or in middle age because of accidents or disease. Today, many are enjoying long senior years.

These rising numbers of widows are part of a remarkable global trend — the ageing world population. A demographer once told me that we should start regarding “middle age” as up to age 85 because about 40 per cent of those in the category of ages 75 to 84 have nothing medically wrong with them. “Drink life to the lees,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote in his poem Ulysses. More and more women have this opportunity.

What about young women who have not yet wed? They are part of a second dramatic global trend — young women are entering the paid labour force in droves.

For about 10,000 years, the only career path for these women was to “marry well.” They spent their short lives making candles, soap and clothing, and rearing babies to help on the farm. With the rise of modern technologies to aid housework, and the dramatic expansion of jobs in business, industry and government, women have become an integral part of the modern working world. They can forgo an early marriage to explore their minds and opportunities.

As for divorced women, many Americans still believe that spouses should endure an unhappy marriage regardless of the circumstances. The world does not agree with them. The global attitude about divorce is best summed up by the Mongols of Siberia, who say, “If two people cannot live harmoniously together, they had better live apart.”

United Nations data on 130 societies indicate that in 125 of them women are gradually closing the gap with men in terms of health, education and economic power. And when a woman is economically capable of leaving an unhappy marriage, she does — because she can.

These trends are not unprecedented. For at least two million years on the grasslands of Africa, females commuted to the work of gathering fruits and vegetables. From what we can deduce by studying contemporary hunting-and-gathering peoples, these ancestral females probably returned to camp with 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the shared evening meal. And in many respects, they were just as economically, socially and sexually powerful as males. As a result, based on studies of hunting-and-gathering communities today, these females probably mated with whom they chose.

And don’t believe for a moment that the 51 per cent of American women who live without a spouse lack love. Deep in the human brain lie three neural systems that evolved to foster reproduction: the drive for sex, the craving for romantic love and the deep desire to attach. Most of these women are either searching for or getting love from partners of their choice. The vast majority will also marry. UN data on 97 societies indicate that more than 90 per cent of the women marry by age 45. But today we marry differently. Along with the rise of economically powerful women is what sociologists call the 21st century marriage: the companionate, symmetrical or peer marriage — marriage between equals.

“Love wins; love always wins,” it has been said. But throughout most of our agrarian past, love lost, at least among the upper classes. Parents may have started to arrange their children’s weddings soon after the human brain began to develop about two million years ago. But in those few hunting-and-gathering societies that exist today, parents only arrange the first wedding of a son or daughter.

But as our forebears began to settle on the land, as they acquired immovable property such as fields of wheat and sturdy homes, they needed to cement their social ties. What better way than to wed your daughter with my son? Strictly arranged marriages became a way to build one’s fortune and secure one’s genetic future.

The widespread tradition of strictly arranged marriages began to decline with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. As men and women left the farm for factory work, they no longer needed to maintain many of their previous connections. More began to choose their own partners.

“Marriage,” Voltaire wrote, “is the only adventure open to the cowardly.” Today, more women (and men) have the opportunity to enjoy this adventure — life with someone they passionately love.—Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service