By Joanne Wen and Lin Wei-Chun
Having sex before marriage is a debatable issue. This survey is designed with this concept in mind. We want to investigate what young people think about this issue. We put a questionnaire on the BBS, and received 165 replies. Most people who replied to this questionnaire were between 18 and 21 years old. We assumed that those who responded were heterosexuals who might get married. PART I: the questionnaire Please check the best answer for you. Or fill in what you think. 1.age:___________ 2.sex: ___male ___female 3.Can you accept people having sex before marriage? ____yes ___no 4.(If you are female, answer this question) If you are pregnant but not married, what kind of aid would you seek? ___a doctor ___your parents ___your teachers ___your boyfriend ___social workers ___friends ___other_________________________________ 5.(If you are male, answer this question) If your girlfriend is pregnant (both of you aren’t married), what would you do? ___“I cannot be the father!!” ___Don’t know what to do, maybe avoid seeing her. ___Go with her to a hospital and have her get an abortion. ___Tell her to keep the baby, give birth, and then raise the baby with her. ___Keep the baby but send it to an orphanage or other institution. ___Respect what my girlfriend decided. ___other__________________________________ 6.If your daughter got pregnant before marriage, what would you do? ___Tell her to get an abortion. ___Ask her boyfriend to marry her. ___Respect what my daughter decided. ___Send her to a place where no one knows her, and let her give birth to the baby. ___Depending on the situation then decide. ___Other___________________________ PART II: the result of the survey The main reason that might make our results less objective or unable to represent young people is that the net (BBS) is our only source for answers. However, people who are on net might have a certain typ e of thinking or different point of view. Also, people who were willing to answer the questionnaire may be more open about sex issues, compared to people who weren’t willing to answer (only about 20% of people we sent questionnaires to answered the survey). 96 guys (58% of this sample) and 69 girls (42% of this sample) replied. 46% of girls accepted having sex before marriage, and 56% of the guys did. The average age is 20. 53% of the girls said if they were pregnant before marriage, they would find a doctor to help them, 38% want their boyfriend to help them, 20% said it would be better to tell their parents. Most girls tried to hide the facts from their parents. It seemed that most girls thought a doctor and their boyfriend were more reliable. And maybe they thought they could deal with the problem by themselves or they were afraid of being punished by their parents. 48% of guys said that if their girlfriend were pregnant before marriage, they would tell her to keep the baby, give birth, and then raise the baby with her. Another 20% said they would go with her to a hospital to have an abortion. 19% would respect what the girl decided. 6% think they might not be the father. About 20% have some other opinion. For example, 6 boys said if their girlfriend was pregnant, they would first try to detect who was the father. And some boys said they would cons ider their economic circumstances before deciding what to do. And if their daughter had the same problem, what would they do? Most people (41%) would ask her boyfriend to marry her, 19% said they would respect what she decided, 12% want her to get an abortion, 11% would consider the situation and then decide, and only one person said he might send her to a place where no one knows her. PART III: analysis Honestly speaking, both of us were pretty surprised at the result of question #5, the question for boys , “If your girlfriend is pregnant, what would you do?” We discovered that most guys chose the answer I would respect what she decided.“ We have no intention to offend or look down on boys, but this is quite different from what we expected. In other words, we thought guys were more irresponsible. So we tried to figure out the possibl e reasons that may contribute to this result: (1) people who answer our survey are mostly about 20 years old and it is possible that the younger generation’s point of view has become more responsible, different from the impression in our minds. The same situation occurs in que stion #6, If your daughter got pregnant before marriage, what would you do?” Most people chose to respect their daughter’s decision, which again indicates that the younger generation may be more willing to pay respect to their children. (2) it is also possible that the guys who answered the questionnaire were not honest enough, or they overestimated their ability to take responsibility. (3) maybe the guys who answered the questionnaire are responsible and the irresponsible guys refused to answer. (4) we might be biased because of watching too much TV or reading too many love novels. Most love novels or soaps on TV present situations in which men avoid seeing their pregnant girlfriend, and sometimes they would push her to hav e an abortion. Or we might be somehow affected by the tragedies which happened between couples close to us. For example, a girl friend of one of us got an abortion because when she learned she was pregnant, her boyfriend disappeared. Looking at the result of question 4: if girls get pregnant before marriage what kind of aid will they seek? We found that most girls chose to go to a doctor when they got pregnant before marriage, which means getting an abortion. We considered the reason is that most girls thought they were too young to have a baby; most young couples have financial difficulties, and it would be quite unfair for the babies to grow up in such bad conditions. Also we found that many girls chose to go to their boyfriend, and we supposed the reason may be because that they wanted their boyfriends to make the decision, or they would be willing to respect their boyfriends’ opinion. Girls who told their boyfriend first might want to avoid the responsibili ty of pregnancy, and they might say, “It’s all your fault! You should take the responsibility!!” Maybe they would discuss the problem with the guys in order to find the best way to solve it. According to our point of view, quite a number of girls would keep their baby if their boyfriend told them to do so. Because, generally speaking, many girls tend to be more conservative when facing such a problem. a
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May 2024
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