Setting Standards in Relationships

Chatting with a friend of mine recently, the topic of marriage came up, as is most common with us single ladies.  She told me she was receiving a lot of grief at home to get married, seeing as she was the first daughter and her three younger sisters were already married.  Now this friend of mine is really beautiful both in and outside, and I asked her what was actually stopping her from getting married because she had a lot of suitors.  She told me she was yet to meet anyone who she felt was “the right one”.  This got us talking about setting standards in choosing a life partner.  Almost everyone around her, her parents inclusive feels she’s being too picky in choosing a life partner, the thing is, she feels she’s not, she has set a standard for choosing a future partner and to be honest, mine is even higher than hers, but there’s so much pressure now, and she’s had to lower her standards a bit just to accommodate her parents.

A couple of days ago, her parents told her to stop being a beggar with a choice.  Is that what we have become, Beggars without choices who grovel at any and everything thrown at them?  Even beggars nowadays have choices; I’ve seen beggars reject 5 and 10 naira because they feel they deserve more, not to talk of choosing a life partner.

Should we because we are single women accept anything that proposes to us in the name of getting married?  Should we further lower our already lowered standards just to accommodate the young men of this generation who do not even bother to aim high any longer, gone are the days when men actually went all out to impress a girl, now they all throw Isaiah 4:1 in our faces, although I keep telling them it won’t happen in my own time. 

So the question today is; should my friend stop being a beggar with choice and grab at anything that comes her way in the name of getting married?