Meaning of 華の独身


I just read this 自己紹介:

> ■誕生日：1986年XX月XX日生まれ  
>  ■出身：神奈川県  
>  ■家族： **華の独身​**  
>  ■趣味：ランニング

What does 華の独身 mean in this context?  
No definition from my search engine nor in my dictionary.

独身 means unmarried, but what makes a 華の独身 person different from a normal 独身
person?




I'm gonna offer a different definition from the 日本国語大辞典 that I think gets
closer to the usage in this case:

> 〔四〕花の美しく、咲き栄えるさまにたとえていう。
>
> ...
>
> (2)（「花の…」の形で）美しいさま、華やかなさまを表わす。ほめことばとして用いる。

Basically just a slightly old-fashioned/poetic way to praise something as
beautiful or glorious, not necessarily at a peak time period (although
obviously, pretty much by definition the two concepts are related).

Here is an example of 花の独身 from the 花の80s, allegedly an issue of _Kurashi no
techo_ from 1980 (the issue number does match up, but I found this in Google
Books so don't cite it in your thesis without pulling the original...)

>
> 彼女は、おもいのままに職業を転転とし、海外旅行数回、国内はおもいのまま、気の向くまま、おしゃれに身をやつし、うまいものを食べ歩く花の独身。私は、やさしい夫とかわいい二人の子どもと、マイホームに住む幸せな若妻。

Quick and dirty translation:

> "She is a 'glorious single' who changes jobs as she pleases, has traveled
> overseas multiple times and within Japan as she likes, just as it pleases
> her, dresses fashionably down, and roams the land eating well. I am a happy
> young wife living with a kind husband and two adorable children in a home we
> own."

I think this describes pretty well the kind of glorious, carefree life that
花の独身, if taken absolutely unironically, would imply (note however that the
paragraph goes on to detail how the narrator spends all her time cooking and
cleaning and dealing with neighborhood gossip, that her kids are exhausting,
she has to wear ripped, dirty jeans, etc. -- so whatever is going on here,
clearly it isn't just "how happy we both are!". Wouldn't be surprised if the
next paragraph was about how the single woman has no savings, gets nagged by
her parents all the time for grandkids, etc...)

If you search online you can find people asking "Do folks still say 花の独身?" and
other people answering "No, because there are so many women who want to get
married but can't nowadays."

So, yeah, I think that this person's bio says "hana no dokushin" rather than
just "dokushin" because she wanted to say it in a self-aware and humorous way.

