LIFESTYLE The American popular cable television series, "Sex and the City" does a good job of portraying the lives of single women.

The series alsoshows that single women in their late 20s, 30s and onwards can be pretty sexy and they are taking their time deciding how they want their lives to be and who they want to spend time with.

Gone are the days of parents playing a key role in match-making for their young adult children and in the present day of an open liberal society, an arranged relationship is more an exception rather than the norm.

With equal access to education for women, many are placing priority on their careers and if many are opting for late marriages, those financially independent are enjoying their new found independence and of course, freedom.

While national policy makers are concerned over the demographic pattern of the country, many single women for various legitimate reasons, are continuing to stay single.

And when marriage is a personal life long affair, no sensible government will create legislations to pave the way for 'legislated forced marriages'.

Though policies and even "date-organising events" can be held to encourage healthy relationships and provide opportunities for young graduates as like in Singapore, more conservative officialdom prefers to let matters rest.

Who cares if families are mini civilisations and the best institution to rear young adults to nationhood but the prevailing social environment and personal predicament in fact encourages single women to stay single.

Why stay single?

It could be due to family or parental obligation that a woman prefers to remain single so that she can look after a sick parent or sibling.

Or she is financially obligated to support a younger sister or brother through education and sacrificing her own future instead of in a marriage.

Then there are other single women with dark shadows casting over their mindsets if their parents are divorced or even harbouring a fearful trust in starting a relationship.

Some, who dared and had the courage, may have later ended up single because they were cheated of their trust and love.

Again there are many who had only one thing in mind and the magic word is spelt "career-minded" women who put their sweat and soul into establishing self-centred satisfaction, self-fulfilment and inevitably a self-made "millionaires" of the female kind.

After all, raising a family is tough business and a committed relationship means less freedom to make choices.

Having fun, work and adventures rather than "making babies" is definitely a better choice.

Staying single is no longer a stigma and in an open liberal society, it can be a status symbol.

Many perceive it to be "chic" and they travel as and when they like, they work hard and are truly independent.

And if some think that marriages can be worse off than staying single, loneliness is only a "off" and "on" thing.

Primordial instinct for power

Festivals come and go like a smoke cloud. Companionship during festive seasons is no longer a problem. 

Single women can always fall back on their families or be with their close relatives.

In the universe, the feminine primordial principle or power remains supreme and that is the truth. 

Your disbelief or rejection of this truth does not negate this principle.

The yielding power of "yin" and submissive feminine nature that prevails throughout the universe is all powerful, on the earth, astral and even spiritual planes of existence.

Water ("yin" principle) may look soft and weak but decades of dropping water against a hard and stubborn rock will eventually crack and erode it.

But what has this popular phenomenon of women choosing to remain single got to do with this feminine force?

Before embarking on an answer, let us take a short conceptual discourse on the evolution of man and woman walking together towards the spiritual journey.

Nature has it that both men and women have complementary roles and together in a union, form a complete whole, unit as like a coin with two sides.

That is also true of "soul-mates" in the challenging human journey of evolution from astral, physical to spiritual planes.

I would like to quote creative writer and sensitive astrologer, Linda Goodman, who explored the relationships between men and women in her popular publication, Love Signs-A new approach to the human heart.

'Crossing paths'

"Wandering through the millions of couples on Earth who are attempting to achieve (or have achieved) satisfying contentment and fulfilment together-and those who are struggling through heavy sexual karmic testing-are those rare ones esoterically called "Soul Mates" or "Twin Souls."

And indeed, not many of us are fortunate to meet our "soul-mates."

A man and woman who are soul-mates hardly need to speak the words, "I love you," knowing as surely as they do that they must belong to each other whether in this present lifetime or due to karmic complications, which may be at the end of many more centuries.

Linda Goodman wrote, "The words in the marriage ceremony "those which God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" refer to such as these. No man can break the tie between "twin souls, not even themselves.

"The Force that created them is all-powerful and indestructible. The bond may be weakened, their final union and consummation delayed, but they cannot be separated permanently.

"The crossing of their paths has been predestined on a higher level of Awareness.

Certain spiritual energies are at work to bring about their meetings, as surely as migratory birds and the return of comets are governed by universal law."

It is said that love begins in the eyes (window of the soul), then with your mind and followed by the heart, icon of emotions.

Whether you realize it or not, you' have fallen in love spiritually and it is time to fall in love with your body.

"But if you begin with your body….the body knows not where to lead you, except into more and more sensations of the flesh, which by themselves have no power to fulfil love's yearning or feed love's deeper hunger," Linda explained the misuse of sexual energy, symbolic of a man and woman's blending with the universe and all of Nature in Oneness.

Pressing the wrong button...

If love is man and woman's deepest need, then why is there so much fear that there is no one who truly cares and no one who really understands, among some of us?

We all reach desperately for love, no matter how healthy, wealthy or wise we may be, otherwise the alternative to all these, is loneliness.

Throughout the revolution from the agrarian, industrial to modern technological age, the sexual revolution of men and women within and without the marriage institution has been purged through a complex cataclysm. 

Families being mini civilisations are constantly under threat by modern day pressures and erosion of traditional values have somehow cut the umbilical cord to the path of marriages for many.

But the answer has already been provided.

Love is man's and woman's deepest need and it is a pure "instinct" of mankind, even in the highly evolved animal kingdom.

There is nothing wrong in staying single. But a word of advice for those still single.

There could be still hope.

Someone reminded us that girls are like cell-phones. They like to be held and talked to, but press the wrong button and you would be disconnected.

Guys are like buses, so for those who are single, remember, if you miss that one, another one will come along soon.