What singles really what
A recent online commercial tells the following story: upon graduating, getting a job and being promoted, the female protagonist’s grandmother, whose health is in decline, keeps asking her the same question, “When are you getting married?”, until the woman finally rushes home in a wedding dress to bring the elderly lady in her dying days the ultimate comfort.
最近一则网络广告的情节如下：每当女主角经历大学毕业、求职成功、工作晋升时，年迈多病的外婆嘴边总是挂着同一个问题：“结婚了吧？”；直到广告结尾，女主角身披婚纱冲回家中，终于在外婆临终满足了她最大的心愿。
Marriage puts a lot of pressure on single women, as if they are destined to get married in order to fulfill others’, rather than their own, expectations. But what’s pushing single women into matrimony is a social stereotype and form of self-identification that creates a dilemma for modern women in today’s social contexts, experts say.
婚姻令单身女性们不堪重负，仿佛她们结婚并不是为了自己，而是为了满足他人的期望。然而专家表示，是约定俗成的社会观念以及通过婚姻实现自我认同迫使单身女性早日嫁人，这也造成了当今社会中现代女性的窘境。
In the book Seeking Happily Ever After: Navigating the Ups and Downs of Being Single Without Losing Your Mind (and Finding Lasting Love Along the Way), US author Michelle Cove tries to reveal what women really want out of a relationship. As reported in Marie Claire, a women’s magazine in the US, Cove identifies some of the categories of single women based on intensive interviews.
在《寻找幸福——不失本心地走过单身的起起落落，并沿路找寻天长地久》一书中，美国作家米歇尔•卡夫试图揭露出女人在感情中真正想要的东西。在美国女性时尚杂志《嘉人》的一篇报道中，卡夫在对一些单身女性进行深入采访后，将她们分成了如下几类：
The Soul-Mate Seeker
找寻真爱女
Finding “The One” is the most important task in her life.
寻找“真爱”成为她们生活中的重中之重。
The Phoenix
凤凰涅槃女
She is doing everything she can to rise from a recent devastating breakup and to be in good shape again.
她们竭尽所能要摆脱上一段恋情带来的毁灭性打击，同时想要找回神采奕奕的状态。
The Organic
有机生活女
She prefers the “let it be” approach and leaves things up to destiny. She lives her own life rather than hunting for men in a methodical way.
她们信奉顺其自然，一切听从命运安排。她们用自己的方式生活，而不是按部就班地去刻意寻求伴侣。
自在随风女
Independence or a relationship? She believes there is no way to reach a compromise between both and therefore leans to the former.
选择独立还是结束单身？她们认为两者之间很难妥协，所以最终选择了前者。
The Wedding Wisher
结婚狂想女
She suddenly finds herself fantasizing about getting married after a lifetime of not caring about it.
原本从不考虑结婚的她们突然发现自己幻想着能披上婚纱步入礼堂。
The Town Rebel
叛逆不羁女
She no longer aspires to live the normal lifestyle of everyone else in her community, though she once used to.
她们不想再去过和周围人一样的平淡生活，尽管她们从前亦是如此。
The Slow and Steady
稳扎稳打女
A woman who hopes to marry when the time is right. Meanwhile, she does her best not to cave to the massive pressure she feels from friends, family and society.
她们希望自己在时机成熟时步入婚姻。同时，她们也尽全力摆脱朋友、家庭和社会给自己带来的巨大压力。
The Trailblazer
独辟蹊径女
A woman who knows married life is not for her, so she’s trying to break a new kind of path to happiness.（21st Century）
她们知道婚姻并非自己想要的生活，所以，她们尝试开拓另一种通往幸福的道路。
