ONCE upon a time, men were men and women were women. Men were the breadwinners and women were the homemakers - so the story went.
And, although it is still a story on which many of Hongkong's children are being brought up, men in the territory today are finding there is a world of difference between the values they had accepted as natural, and reality.
Many Hongkong women are more assertive, economically independent and better educated than their mothers, and expect more from life than their mothers ever did.
Grace Ng, 31, works in the sales department of an arts magazine and enjoys being single: ''I value independence above all else,'' she said. ''When I was young, marriage seemed inevitable, a natural stage in your life. But I now realise there are many choices in life and marriage is just one.'' Although there is pressure from her family to settle down, she has no plans of doing so for the time being. ''We live in very uncertain times, and 1997 is a good excuse for me not to commit myself to that kind of a relationship. It's much easier to flee if you only have yourself to consider,'' she explained.
Ms Ng is one of a generation of educated Hongkong women in her 30s who have begun to enjoy some of the gains women have made in society, primarily through education and the workplace. ''I had a very traditional upbringing and was the epitome of a good girl. But four years away at University in Canada changed my world view completely,'' she recalls.
Figures from the Census and Statistics Department show that more and more, Hongkong women are marrying later. In 1971, the average age for marriage was 23.6, a decade later it was 24.4 and in 1991 it was 26.8. The 1991 figures also show that while the overall marriage rate's been dropping, more men have been getting married between 30 and 44. The average age of marriage for men is 33.1.