Ethical Perspectives Of Contemporary Chinese Single Women Phenomenon

A variety of data indicate that China's current single people are becoming more and more, and the proportion of single women is on the rise obviously. In recent years, domestic media reported single women frequently, and this attracted the public's attention widely. Although there're a lot of analysis and discussions on the causes and conditions of contemporary Chinese single women phenomenon these days, the majority of them is presentational and inadequate in theoretical depth, few people analyses this phenomenon from the point of view of ethics. These discussions usually deal with single women caused by various reasons as a whole, no matter they are initiative or passive in choosing their single lives,sometimes even regard the single women temporarily choosing single lives as women celibates. Therefore, it's very necessary to conduct a comprehensive and objective analysis and research on single women phenomenon at present, in order to show this phenomenon clearly. Although the phenomenon of single women is mainly the object of research in the field of sociology, it also involves a lot of topics in the field of ethics, such as equality ethics, humanitarianism ethics, harmony ethics, happiness ethics, gender ethics, marriage and family ethics, love ethics, etc. Therefore, the author attempts to combine sociology and ethics methods together in this paper, trying to conduct a systematic and comprehensive study on contemporary Chinese single women phenomenon. Also, in this paper, the author uses the method of historical materialism, combining the theoretical and practical research methods together.This thesis consists of five parts:The first part"The definition of single women phenomenon", firstly defines single women rigidly as"women having no fixed sex partners, and in the age of getting married", thus making the analysis of single women more exactly and scientifically. Then contemporary Chinese single women are divided into six main categories. Furthermore, this part analyses the reasons of why some people regard single women phenomenon as a social issue from the point of view of the marriage-based ethics, community-based ethics, the traditional ethics of reproductive and old-age pension insurance, and"the second sex"social status of women .The second part"The reasons for single women phenomenon", conducts a comprehensive analysis of contemporary Chinese single women phenomenon's economic reasons, ethical and psychological reasons. The elevation of women's economic status after the economic reform is the economic reason; the transformation and diversifying of contemporary Chinese single women's values of marriage, the enhancement of women's autonomy and independence are the ethical reasons; women are more serious and cautious before getting married is the psychological reason.The third part"Ethical principles of viewing single women phenomenon correctly", analyses the four ethical principles of viewing single women phenomenon correctly: the principle of equality, the principle of humanity, the principle of harmony, and the principle of happiness.The fourth part"Multidimensional ethical perspectives of single women groups", is the main part of this thesis, it conducts ethical perspectives according to various kinds of single women: humanitarianism ethical perspective of women celibates, marriage and family ethical perspective of single women cautious about their marriage, love ethical perspective of single women cautious about their love, gender ethical perspective of"three high women"and women regarding marriage as a tool to change their fates, harmony ethical perspective of the few single women who are in poor condition and difficult to get married.The fifth part"Ethical evaluation of single women phenomenon", analyses that from the perspective of individual development, the emergence of single women reflects the improvement of contemporary Chinese single women's individualities and independence, but their traditional gender concepts are still deep-rooted; from the perspective of social advancement, the emergence of single women reflects the improvement of social tolerance and the social recognition on pluralistic values, but the contradiction of their mentalities reflects that our society still have to be further developed. Also, this part analyses the negative impacts of this phenomenon and some problems it brought about, in order to be objective and impartial.In short, as the social values and culture are becoming increasingly diversified, we should respect and understand the different views and choices of marriage of single women. It's the personal choice of women, and it is a normal behavior. However, to respect doesn't mean to advocate, without stable families isn't in line with the needs of social development and people's lives, and family's stability is required by all kinds of society. What's more, single life will not become the mainstream of our society, when social transformation is completed and stabilized, female single rate will decline to some extent.