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Rose: It's not fair, you know. I mean, we get married, we have kids, the kids leave and our husbands die. Is that some kind of a test? You don't work that hard, you don't go through everything you go through to be left alone.

Golden Girls S1E1 (1985)

Rose refers to the unspoken contract between society and women. The one that promises us husbands and children are the best protection against ending up alone. The one that says if we are a good bangmaid and sacrifice everything for a family, we will be taken care of.

But for many older women that is not the case. Ask any senior care-taker.

And not only that.

Because Rose prioritized marriage and children in her youth, she is not only alone, she cannot afford to live alone and depends on Blanche who owns the place. Naturally she is terrified at the prospect of Blanche getting married:

Dorothy, we'll become bag ladies!

Her problem is not fictional, nor just an issue of the distant past. In many countries, many women are facing old-age poverty because they spent their youth raising kids and working part-time.

Moral of the story: no matter what decisions we make in life, old-age loneliness is always a possibility and a family is not a guarantee. The best protection is having our own money and building and taking care of our own social network before we need it.