The woman desperate for marriage
This is sort of the converse of the spinster, or rather, the prequel to her. This woman spends her life trying to land her a husband, and most of her behavior and choices are about getting that man to propose. This cliché isn’t very flattering either, for all the same reasons that the spinster is gross.
It also reinforces a woman’s need to marry up, but this trope has more intrinsic origins than the spinster. Most of the “desperate for marriage” women want to be part of a couple, and it’s their urges that drive them to find a spouse. While this can translate to a woman’s search for a mate in real life, the TV versions follow a pretty narrow pattern.
The woman is often successful in all other areas of her life besides love. She may have a good job, a wide circle of friends, and a reliable family support system. However, she continues to make terrible decisions about who to date, and viewers are subjected to a string of inappropriate messes, with which she will fall in and out of love. When she does find someone who might make her happy, destiny intervenes and they often find themselves at odds over completely menial matters that could surely be worked out if this was an actual situation between two humans.
Although it’s not my intent to suggest marriage is obsolete, maybe we should stop using it as a tool to measure a woman’s value. I’m just saying.
Examples: Sex and the City, The Mindy Project, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend