It is a truth universally acknowledged...

...that a single man in possession of a BPharm must be in want of a wife.

At my step-cousin's 5th birthday party today (fairy themed, if you must know, and the first time I've been out of the house in a terrifyingly long time), I met the kind of guy my mother would love me to marry one day. The essential criteria being:

• Vietnamese. Glory of glories.
• Pharmacist. A Doctor (*cue sounds of ethnic parentals swooning*) would be preferred, or a dentist, cos we don't have any in the family and we want fillings on the cheap, dammit! But the hierarchy goes Y Nha Duoc (med, dent, pharm - ask any Viet and they will know this holy trinity) and 3rd place would do. Think of the ten thousand pounds a year! Marry out of the law, commerce, health or engineering faculties, on the other hand, and you'd be personally reponsible for the Apocalypse.
  
• Mostly harmless.
  

And probably prioritised in that order as well. On the plus side, he was nice enough, tall, had a deep voice, and could play with kids. On the minus, he was in need of deodorant. But you know what they say about judging a book by its...odour.

One of my theories about why there seem to be craploads of Asian female Janeites is that we are STILL LIVING in the land of 19th-century rigid unspoken social conventions. Girls are still groomed to have "accomplishments" - piano-playing, BMeds - and concerned relatives are still plotting about how to marry them off advantageously. P&P tells us we can find twue wuv even within the confines of convention. Plus ca change, plus ca doesn't.