THE CASE OF UNMARRIED WOMEN

By: Royam Monajem, 
Writer, Translator, Acupuncturist and Consultant

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Unmarried women can be divided into two groups. A very small minority whose
number is increasing specially among Americans chose to
stay single, because they count their profession more important. They are
those who may in future give rise to that generation of women that
because they use another medium other than their womb for their creativity,
may produce that male type of innovation, artistry and mental
activity so far limited to men. The second group are those who apparently
never found the right person. The first group will not as much
problem as the latter, since their decision is a voluntary decision, while
the latter can not look at the picture in this way, but in fact in their case
too, it is a decision, but an unconscious one, at least according to our
system of thought. 
By now it should be clear that lack of something in our environment would
imply that it either has no existence in our inner world or there is
something in this world that repels it and keeps it out of our outside
world. This is where unmarried women of the second group should start,
particularly if they wish to change their life. They should go through a
thorough search in their psyche on different planes.
The first plane to look at is their personal view about marriage. Most
often it is full of known and unknown fears, originating mainly from the
experience of their parents relationship. Most often they are the children
of unhappy marriages, and not only that, but the majority of other
marriages around them (older brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, family
friends etc.) have not been any better. So they have reached the
conclusion--sometimes consciously, but most often unconsciously--that all
marriages are doomed to fail, or something like that, so why
should start something that has proven to be a painful experience. As the
result of such a conclusion they will unconsciously either avoid
any serious relationship with the opposite sex, or they only start a
relationship that they ãintuitively know would not work out.ä The latter is
more common than the first, for two main reasons: first because Nature is
much stronger than our individual code of conduct and relationship
with the opposite sex is a powerful natural need both physically and
emotionally, a need that can not be easily quelled as the experience of
celibacy among Christians has shown. Secondly, and mainly as the result of
the above fact, since we are attracted to the opposite sex, we tend
to suppress the fear formed earlier and send it to the back of our mind as
a long forgotten memory. But the truth is that it is not Îforgotten.â
In my clinical experience, both as a therapist and consultant, I have not
yet seen any single woman, past the age of 24 or 25, with a positive
view about marriage. The fact that they might long for a relationship and
even start it, does not necessarily imply that they have positive
views about such a relationship. (This longing is the result of that
natural tendency whose presence usually misleads us and acts as a veil to
cover our deep rooted views). However, once we start analyzing their views
about men and marriage, then all the hidden fears and negative
attitudes start to come to the surface. Thus the Îprescriptionâ for their
case is : unfold your fears, resolve them, and afterwards, everything will
start to work out smoothly. 
Please note that we are not dealing with those women who consciously choose
not to marry, not out of fear, but because they consider their
professional life as the most important aspect of their lives, and do not
want to get involved with anything that might act as a hindrance in this
respect. We are dealing with women who Îthinkâ that they do want to get
married, settle down, have children, etc, but in reality they deeply
fear it. Depending on the extent and intensity of this fear they will
either Înever meet the right personâ, or they unconsciously would start a
relationship with a man who is not Îthe marrying type.â I have seen many
such relationships lasting for years -- sometimes up to 15--20 years
-- until the woman finally ãgives up.ä All this time she lives with the
illusion that it is the man who does not want to marry and if she waits
enough, he will change his mind and will marry her. But no one who really
is clear about his/her goals, will act this way. A woman whose main
goal is to marry, either never starts a relationship with such a man, or if
she does, it is not going to last long. She would very soon sense that
the man has no intention to marry and it will be only a waste of time. She
will not deceive herself. Self-deception is for those of us who are not
sure of what they want, and the root of doubt is always fear.
To be with a man that openly or discreetly resists marriage, would itself
be a sufficient evidence of our own resistance, as outside is always a
reflection of the inside. One of the best, but at the same time the most
deceitful ways to avoid marriage is to start a relationship, which would
not end in marriage. 
Any woman who has not yet succeeded in establishing an appropriate
relationship with the opposite sex should know that most probably she
is harboring some sort of negative view and fears of men and marriage. They
should sit down and with a great deal of honesty and sincerity
discover these very fears and doubts, work them out, and then get ready to
find their life companion for the first time. All my friends and
clients who took these advises seriously, and worked on their fears and
negative attitudes perseveringly, have reached many interesting
conclusions, and have transformed their life. First, change your net
charge (which determines the level of your existence and thus the nature
of your experiences in life) by a thorough self-analysis, with the help of
taking a personal inventory of both your strengths and weaknesses,
and then work on them. Secondly, look at your views about man, woman,
marriage and motherhood (see the preceding chapters). Abandon
any possible religio-cultural discriminations and prejudices you might have
in this respect. Finally come to the realization that it is only you
who can fulfill your needs and no parasitic, symbiotic or co-dependent
relationship can ever bring you happiness and satisfaction in life. This
has been the main reason for the failure of the majority of marriages
around you, and if you work toward dissolving your fears and negative
views, find your own strength and weaknesses, which naturally leads to your
maturation, then there is no need to fear anything in life. Never
forget the fact that life is our friend and not our enemy, even when it
appears to work against us. We usually donât leave her (life) any other
alternative. Even then, it is in fact protecting us from something worse.
A helpful analogy here is when parents scold and even punish their
children; their true intention is to protect them and not harm them,
although the child may not understand them and thus interpret their action
as a sign of enmity.
Now suppose you take all this trouble and still you find yourself alone. 
As mentioned earlier, the situation under study can be viewed from
different perspective. First of all, once Îyou have taken all the above
troubleâ you will definitely find a change in the quality of your life, it
will be more joyous and fulfilling, since it is no longer full of hidden fears,
doubts, prejudices and other negative attitudes, which make Îall that
troubleâ worthwhile and valuable.
Secondly, you can now be sure that due to some other reasons, that even if
you are not aware of them now, will be known to you in time, you
have chosen to travel alone in the path of life. Your final life-goal, for
which you were born, demands you to go through a specific path, which
you should know that is also the shortest and easiest path for you to reach
your goal. It might not appear Îeasyâ at all. But you are not yet in
this position to judge, since you still are not aware of not only the
reasons, but also the nature of your goal. For example, in my case, I
remember very well that since my early adolescence, I kept telling myself,
ãI do not want to choose the paths that the majority of people
choose. Observing them will teach me enough about the nature of those
paths. I want to take a path different from the majority so that
together with the lessons learnt by observing the majority, I will learn
more about life.ä I kept telling myself that I want to know what the
meaning of life is, even if such revelation happens just a few ours before
my death. One of my other Îaspirationsâ was to get familiar with
human pains and sufferings. So it is not at all surprising that my life
turned to be one of the most dramatic stories, full of pains and sufferings,
so much so that by the age of forty there was almost no human pain and
suffering left that had not touched me somehow. When my main
goal, the goal I was born for (as far as I can speculate), had been
cognition and knowledge of life, then it is very natural that I had to pay a
high price through living a rather difficult life. For a long time I could
not understand why I made so many mistakes and repeated some of
them over and over again. How else could I learn what I wanted to learn,
if not by making mistakes, choosing the ãwrong pathsä, etc.? And
by learning, I just do not mean the intellectual, rational knowledge. I
mean learning with my own skin and flesh, with my heart and soul. There
were times that I regretted my choice, but after giving myself some moments
to moan and play the role of the Îliving martyr,â I always came to
the conclusion that I did not wish to be in place of any other person other
than myself. In markets, the price we pay is determined by what we
want to buy (gain). Precious things (lessons, experiences) of course have
an expensive price. The price I paid was extremely high, but I
bought this book with it!
To go back to our main discussion, there is another group of women who do
not marry because, their essential goal in life, the lessons they
wanted to learn, demands them to stay single. However, the mere knowledge
of this fact may still not lessen their pain. In other words, they
might not suffer similar fears, worries and anxieties or negative views.
What can actually relieve them significantly, is to find out about the
probable reasons for their choice. For that they need to ask themselves,
what might have been their life goal? What they want from life? 
What lessons they want (and still want) to learn? There is no absolute no
unalterable fate or destiny. We do have the power to change any
aspect of our lives if not satisfactory on one simple condition: to be
prepared to pay the necessary price for such a change. To be ready to
take all the necessary risks that such a change that in fact is a
personality change requires. To be prepared to face all the possible
consequences? Remember: ãit is not possible to will both God and date (palm
fruit)ä as an old Iranian proverb says.
Once we truthfully explore our true aspirations, wills and wishes, then
lots of illusions and self-deceptions and lies that we tell ourselves, will
fade away. And for the first time, we are ready to take full
responsibility for the life we have chosen.
It should again be emphasized that nothing forces us to stick to our
original goal (personality), if meanwhile we do not find it satisfactory for
any reason öi.e. worth the price we are paying. The only thing we need to
know is that any choice has a specific price and has its own gains
and losses. That is all. For example, when discussing the subject of
child raising, we said it is comparable to the path of mystics, and its
hardship can be seen as a kind of ordeal. The ordeal of a childless woman,
who at the same time longs to have a child, can be this bitter fact
that she does not have a child. But at the same time, she is free of many
other pains, limitations and sufferings that mothers go through. From
this angle, their differences consists in the form of their Îlosses and
gains,â and not the content, which in both cases is a certain amount of
pain and suffering and also satisfaction. Awareness is always healing, as
it helps us to accept the responsibility of our initial choices. 
There are actually no Îlosersâ in this world. We are all Îwinners.â In
contrast to the old prevalent universal view, Life is not a struggle, but a
working tool for attainment of awareness. How else can we experience Being,
if not through living a life? How else can we experience Bliss if
not by experiencing its opposite, Sorrow? In our basic Îphilosophy of
oppositesâ which is still our sole way of understanding and interpreting
all the phenomena of Life and Universe, it is not possible to experience
anything without simultaneously experiencing its opposite or
complementary pole. Our problem is that we refuse to accept this very
simple truth. Once we enable ourselves to accept the basic laws of life
(every choice has a price, and ãit is not possible to will both God and
dateä), once we enable ourselves to consider our life experiences all in
the service of our struggle to reach our existential goals, then there is
no such a thing as Îloss.â Everything is Îgainâ and Îachievement.â With
such a view of life, we will no longer suffer from our pains and
sufferings. At most, we would consider them as the Îcold wintersâ of life that
we know will be followed by beautiful springs.


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