“I’m Not Married, Let’s Just All Look at Me”: Single Professional Malay Women’s Experience

Jamayah, Binti Saili and Musdi, Bin Shanat (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). pp. 91-99. ISSN 2222-6990

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Abstract

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.

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