Fiancée and Fiancé

Two words which sound so beautiful and symbolize something so beautiful in life.

Yes, everyone, I am engaged!!

Looking at the ring on my finger, I start to have a different feeling towards life. My life no longer consists of just me. Each of my life changing decision is now involving my husband-to-be. We are still geographically far from each other, but we are sure that we want to work towards the same goal. We want to be together for the rest of our lives.

What does engagement mean to ladies in our modern society? Here's the a little bit of the result from my mini and probably biased survey through the past chit-chatting with ladies around me:

A Princess Finally Finds Her Man:
This might sound a little too fairy tale, but it is actually not a bad way to see engagement. An engagement is a promise that you will marry the person who you want to give all your love to. It is a dedication or a commitment to a life-long project. The mind of a "princess" is usually about "living happily ever after" and there's nothing wrong with that as well. Getting engaged and then married is all about building a happy life together. The only thing that is important is the awareness of the ups and downs in life that a couple would have to face.

Engagement is a perfect Escape from Embarrassment:
This usually comes from ladies who have passed 35 years old and starting to get the pressure from peers to get married. They see marriage or engagement as a way to tell everything that they still have "market value" and their "market value" is so high that they are out of the market now. It is one of the passimistic views towards engagement. Sometimes, they might not even be sure whether they are with the right man and all they want is to be away from the league of single women.

The End of Career and the Beginning of Babies:
I have no objection to babies, but I do have objection towards "the end of career". Ladies in this category usually consider finding a man who has enough financial resources as their major target. I can understand that after a day of work, dreaming about a man who is willing to provide you with everything in life is a pretty pleasant thought. However, I think it might be a different matter when it comes to reality. A man might love you so deeply at the beginning even when you are living just like a beautiful vase and without any focuses in life other than your family, but what about 20 or 30 years later? You might not be as attractoive as you are right now, and being away from the society for so long, you might not be as interesting as before any more. Then are you sure your charisma will still maintain at the same level?

Engagement can be the most fascinating thing in life when you have the right mentality, while it can also be a trap for people who have the wrong expectation of it. Do you fit in any kind of mentality above?