Clearly for most people and most cultures, marriage is a pre-ordained path, the preferred social status and the sanctioned way. In Malay culture, most people cannot accept the idea that a never married ‘normal’ woman could be happy and satisfied with her life. To be an andartu (anak dara tua) or andalusia (anak dara lanjut usia) is still marginally acceptable in Malay culture. This paper explores the voices of single Malay women in Malaysia with 'single' being defined as never married and focus on the professional working women. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, 20 interviews were conducted using semi structured in-depth interviews. This research examines perspectives of these women on being single and thus highlights some of the negative emotional consequences of being single. The analysis revealed that the emotional consequences include feelings of loneliness, feeling of incompleteness and inadequacy, regrets of missed opportunities and anger at perceived harassment. As the delayed marriage of women aged 30 years and over in Malaysia is a relatively recent phenomenon, the research outcomes will have important implications to the extant literature on professional Malay women who have not married by relating to Muslim women in general and Malaysia or South East Asia in particular.
Anderson, K.H., Hill, M.A., & Butler, J.S. (1987). Age at marriage in Malaysia: A hazard model of marriage timing. Journal of Development Economics, 26 (2), 223-234.
Baumbusch, J. L. (2004). Unclaimed treasures: Older women’s reflections on lifelong singlehood. Journal of Women and Aging, 16, 105-21.
Bourdieu, P. (1996). On the family as a realized category. Theory, Culture and Society, 13, 19-26.
Byrne, A., & Carr, D. (2005). Caught in the cultural lag: The stigma of singlehood. Psychological Inquiry, 16(2 & 3), 84-141.
Carr, D. (2008). Social and emotional well-being of single women in contemporary America. In R. M. Bell and V. Yans (Eds.), Women on their own: Interdisciplinary perspectives on being single, (pp. 58-82). Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Chasteen, A. L. (1994). “The world around me”: The environment and single women. Sex Roles, 31(5), 309-328.
Dion, K. L. (2005). Marital status as stimulus variable and subject variable. Psychological Inquiry, 16(2/3), 104-110.
Dugsin, R. (2001). Conflict and healing in family experience of second-generation emigrants from India living in North America. Family Process, 40(2), 233-241.
Ferguson, S. J. (2000). Challenging traditional marriage: Never married Chinese American and Japanese American Women. Gender Society, 14(1), 136-159.
Genov, N. (1997). Four global trends: Rise and limitation. International Sociology, 12(4), 409-428.
Goddard, C. (1997). Cultural values and “cultural scripts’ of Malay (Bahasa Melayu). Journal of Pragmatics, 27, 183-201.
Gordon, P. A. (2003). The decision to remain single: Implications for women across cultures. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 25(1), 33-44.
Hayes, S. C. (2004). Acceptance and commitment therapy, relational frame theory, and the third wave of behavioral and cognitive therapies. Behavior Therapy, 35(4), 639-665.
Imtoual, A., & Hussein, S. (2009). Challenging the myth of the happy celibate: Muslim women negotiating contemporary relationships. Contemporary Islam, 3(1), 25-39.
Jones, G. W. (2004). Not “When to marry” but “Whether to marry”: The changing context of marriage decisions in east and southeast Asia. In G. W. Jones and K. Ramdas (Eds.), (Un)tying the knot: Ideal and reality in Asian marriage, (pp.3-58). Singapore: Singapore University Press.
Jones, G. W. (2005). The "Flight From Marriage" in South-East and East Asia. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 36(1), 93-119.
Jones, G. W. (2007). Delayed marriage and very low fertility in Pacific Asia. Population and Development Review, 33(3), 453-478.
Kaslow, F. (1992). Thirty-plus and not married. In B. Wainrib (Ed.), Gender issues across the life cycle (pp.77-94). New York: Springer.
Lyons-Lee, L. T. (1998). The 'Graduate Women' phenomenon: Changing constructions of the family in Singapore. Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 13(2), 1-19.
Maeda, E. (2008). Relational identities of always-single Japanese women. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 25(6), 967-987.
Morris, W. L., Sinclair, S., & DePaulo, B. M. (2007). No shelter for singles: The perceived legitimacy of marital status discrimination. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 10(4), 457-470.
Nemoto, K. (2008). Postponed marriage: Exploring women's views of matrimony and work in Japan. Gender and Society, 22(2), 219-237.
Noor, N. M. (1999). Roles and women’s well-being: Some preliminary findings from Malaysian women. Sex Roles, 41(34), 123-145.
Noor, N. M. (2001). Work, family and well-being: Challenges of contemporary Malaysian women. Kuala Lumpur: HUM Press.
Omar, R. (1994). The Malay Women in the Body. Kuala Lumpur: Fajar Bakti Sdn Bhd.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers. (2006). 2004/2005 Global retail & consumer study from Beijing to Budapest, Malaysia, pp. 95-105, Retrieved October 13, 2007, from www.pwc.com/gx/
eng/about/ind/retail/growth/malaysia.pdf
Reynolds, J., Wetherell, M., & Taylor, S. (2007). Choice and chance: Negotiating agency in narratives of singlen
In-Text Citation: (Saili & Shanat, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Saili, J., & Shanat, M. (2018). “I’m Not Married, Let’s Just All Look at Me”: Single Professional Malay Women’s Experience. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(14), 91–99.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
