Storified by chenniess · Tue, Jan 29 2013 01:02:12
A girl's childhood is often filled with stories of knights in shining armour, coming to save the damsel in distress, and finally galloping off into the sunset, spending the rest of their days together. These stories often paint marriage as an ideal, as an end in itself. However, these girls are growing up in a society where gender roles are not as black and white as they were in the 1950, where there was universal acceptance of the male-breadwinning, female-homemaking ideal. Now, more than ever, gender gaps (though still present) are slowly but steadily closing up.
The fact is that not being married is being more widely accepted across the globe, marriage in practical terms is just not as necessary as it was before. Previously, if a woman wasn't married by a certain age she was either selfish, a mess, a slut, the list goes on and on, with the bottom line being that she had failed as a woman if she failed to get married and she didn't embody the essence of femininity. But with the changing gender roles, the definition of femininity has been altered as well, now singledom is as viable an option as marriage.
However, the evolution of the female gender has not necessarily made marriage obsolete, and being a successful woman as well as having a loving relationship need not be mutual events. Just like Beyonce, an Independent Woman who is now in a loving marriage, being a strong woman does not come at the expense of experiencing a meaningful relationship. No matter how much gender perceptions change, the bottom line is that the basic human desire to feel love and be loved will be an enduring constant in people's lives. According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the need for love and belonging is secondary only to physiological and safety needs, and this need for love, though not as obvious now, will always be present in a person's subconsciousness.
Hence, though the ideal of marriage has changed, this does not mean that the concept of having a stable relationship is outdated, or worse yet, naive. TImes have changed, but us humans, being the sentimental creatures that we are, may not be able to let go of the fundamental needs that have guided the human race for so long, maybe deep down inside that 5 year old girl still longs for the possibility of eternal love.
