Salam.
I am also interested in some opinions concerning this topic.
Maybe kawaiigardiner understood something in a different way. Of course everyone has the right to stay alone, but I think it is human nature to be with someone and rise a family. Especially woman around 30 are thinking of giving birth to a child. At 40 the body is getting old. It is not that you aren't full human if you haven't married at 40. But most of the time you want to get married as a woman then it would be sad if you are still alone.
I agree with your post (and I am a single woman 'not looking')
but no one wants to be alone really we are social beings. If you are still single and forty it can be for any number of reasons, if you haven't had children it can also be for any number of reasons, failed engagements, marriages, miscarriages, just not finding the one, potentials dying and/or breaking your heart in any number of ways etc. .. but I truly seldom find someone who is completely at peace not having a friend/champion/ significant other to go home to.. I think having a family unit is one of the meta and very significant needs that we'd like to have fulfilled in our lifetime
I knew one oriental lady who in her teens into twenties really wanted to undergo a sterilizing procedure as she was adamant not to have children, and she had to shop around for doctors quite a bit to find someone to perform a would be irreversible procedure.. people change their minds all the time.. seldom do people go with their teenage attitudes and ideals into their adult life.
Nothing is wrong with being single and unmarried at forty, ideally people would like to be.. and nothing wrong with having babies at any stage in life, so long as one is aware of their chances of conception and complications/defects etc.
I think the issues that face Muslim women really from my perspective are balancing religion/culture/family/career/friends and manage it without living in woefully compartmentalized world never being able to fully espouse and reconcile any of them. I think depression is also quite prevalent amongst Muslim women and I think many of them feel that it is a religious failing on their part, when in fact it is a chemical imbalance that can be compounded by bad living conditions and inability to adjust to their circumstances ...
my two cents..
