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She had a string of degrees as long as your arm. But she could not, unfortunately, fly into someone's open arms at the end of each day and pour out terms of passionate endearments and call him lovingly, "my husband".
Therein lay the problem. And this is repeated many times over in Brunei these days where the members of the "weaker sex" are taking over strong positions academically and everywhere else.
"Men are avoiding them. Some think that they are far too smart. They fear domination," remarked a local bachelor the other day. Brunei's "smart girls" are the result of a worldwide phenomenon whereby women are by far outstripping men in studies and even in business and in politics.
But in the traditionally male-dominated Brunei the trend seems more pronounced as only in recent years that women were given equal opportunity in education and job. "They seem to have come out with a vengeance. In many instances men are no match to the competition. They are, largely, leaving them standing," remarked a friend the other day.
A degree of panic seems to be running through this female section of the population. Many dread the thought of ending their days as old maids. Consequently some of them tend to throw themselves before anyone that comes along, remarked an observer.
That could be self-defeating resulting in unions that do not match and therefore ending up in divorce, a local sociologist remarked.
"I went to a large government department the other day," said a local businesswoman. I found that out of the 12 or so female employees eight of them, aged each more than 30 were unwed women.
"They tend to be middle ranking officers, well educated and capable yet incapable in finding husbands," she remarked. There are similar instances elsewhere in Brunei. Men are blamed. "Brunei men like submissive women. They easily get intimidated. They demand dominance. But this day and age that is getting not so easy," added the businesswoman.
Brunei is not alone facing this problem. In Singapore the situation is so pronounced that the government has taken action to solve it. Its Social Development Unit has put up a website called Lovebyte to promote matchmaking. The site is said to be a success. Many other unofficial boy-met-girl sites are proving popular.
Of course Singapore has its own peculiar social problems stemming out of its economic success. Brunei has its own particular difficulties.
But both boil down to somewhat the same thing: That of the educated women on the march who increasingly find it hard to find a life partner.
In days of the old, life was simple in Brunei. Those were the times of arranged marriages. The aunts and the parents were dominant in that context. But those days are gone. Brunei is moving with the times and having done that it has to find solutions.
The problem is worldwide. In Saudi Arabia and other countries where there is a deep stigma attached to spinsters and old maids, the situation is more serious.
There are 2,638,575 married women in Saudi Arabia out of a total of 4,572,231 according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Planning:- The number of unmarried girls over 30 is more than 1.5 million: Makkah: 396,248; Riyadh: 327,427; Asir: 130,812; Madinah: 95,542; Jizan: 84,845; Qasim: 74,209; Jouf: 5,219; Tabuk 36,689 and the Eastern Province 21,543.
In the United States about 41,500,000 of the adult women are married. But 21,327,000 others are women without-men: women who have never married (11,822,000); widows (8,047,000) and divorcees (1,458,000).
This means that a little more than one third of the 62,827,000 women in the United States are getting along without steady male companionship.
How do they adjust to this fact of life? How do they like their man-less lot? What do they do about changing it? Do they want to change it?
Many unattached women of "nice" background are as much drawn to sexual relations with men as married women are, or perhaps more so.
Although it is a worldwide and historic conviction that every woman wants to be married, a great many do not want marriage. Consciously or unconsciously, many of them spend a lifetime resisting it.
Today, one out of every ten families in the United States is headed by a woman. Many of these women were forced into this role by the death of their husbands or by divorce, while others are the sole support of elderly parents.
Hundreds of thousands of young women who have left their homes and moved to the big city in search of work and a husband have found only the work. The decision to accept the fact of living without a man can make an enormous difference.
Occasionally a single woman has the foresight to take fresh stock of herself just because she is unattached.
She decides to quit marking time in a job of little interest and to find - or invent - work that will absorb her. Often such thinking has led to fascinating, self-fulfilling careers...
Some of them find many interests. Thousands of single women do more things, are truly conversant with more subjects and pursue their hobbies with greater concentration than married women of the same age and educational background. A number of doctors and psychiatrists hold this opinion, "I have found my unmarried women patients to be happier than many married ones."
A woman psychologist added, "Getting along on her own, either in marriage or outside of it, is what really matters - for each person must be a self-sufficient individual to be happy."
It would do no harm if our frantic hordes of unwed women would think over those statements. Perhaps they would stop their headlong hunt and finally settle down for a well-earned rest.
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