My Slutty Relationship With Marriage Over The Years
NB: The Vows, Indecision, and Divorce.
“Father by your power conferred on me, I cast and bind any spirit against your children getting married. Lord, they would find peace with their husbands and marriages.”
I am on the floor. With my knees on the ground, my eyes closed, my head bowed, and my hands stretched out towards the pastor.
I am saying my Amens’ to the pastor at intervals, but I do not mean them.
I do not need a husband or a wife; I know what I am saying. I am not possessed, and my head is not broken. All the prayers in the world would not make me change my mind about the institution of marriage.
Disclaimer: This is not a demon talking but me.
I do not know when my aversion to marriage started. But for a long time, I had known that I would never walk down an aisle wearing a pretty dress or be involved in signing a marriage register.
It may have started with my fear of not knowing how to cook. I had this aunty who always told me I would do poorly in my husband’s house because of my inability to cook.
As a child, the statement “husband house” used to look so daunting and frightening to me.
That is, while young girls fantasized about how long their wedding gowns would be, I planned how I would paste food recipes on my kitchen door. So, I could cook good food for my husband and remain his wife for a long time.
I think about this now, and oh, what a ridiculous thought for a child to have.
The adults around me then would make subtle jokes about unmarried women but never about unmarried men.
Up to date, women still pray and fast for their future husbands to locate them.
But I have never come across a man who fasted to find his wife. Or was told to “act proper to find the bone of his bone.”
All men are told to do is “make money, hustle, and it would be easy to get a wife.”
Which is equally unfair to men as it is to women.
In Nigeria, a stigma is attached to women who had once been in legal unions (Divorced or widowed women). There is this notion that there are second-hand or, to use a harsher reference, “Used goods.”
For this reason, when elders advise women to remain in their marriages, they always say, “Nobody will want you again. Who would marry you with three children?” and many other unfair and odd statements.
It was then that it dawned on me that marriage most often favored men more than women.
One time, I had an aunt who visited us in Niger state from Benin. You know those aunties who were down to earth and never wore their old age on their sleeves. This is a perfect description for Aunt Julie.
When Aunt Julie returned home, my mum informed us to pray for her. Why? Because Aunty Julie was depressed about not having a husband.
To me, then, Aunty Julie was perfect. She had a job and was a jolly good fellow. Why did she have to tie her mental happiness to a husband or lack of one? Was this because she was over 30 with no man at her side?
I can remember walking back home with trepidation. Would I be Auntie Julie in the future?
Would I be good enough to get married or be good enough for the men when I grew up?
I remember the first time I had the guts to rebel against the marriage idea.
One day an electrician who was repairing the house's electricity asked me to bring water for him. On handing over the water to him, he grinned and said, “good girl, you go marry man wey get big car.”
This prayer sounded weird to me. In my mind, I had reasoned my husband was not here, so I should be the one getting the blessings, not an invisible man that existed in my future.
I wanted to say to him, “Pray for me to be the one to get the big car the husband is not here yet.”
Over the years, I noticed that these husbands’ young women prayed for were actually my fellow young boys and were not extraordinary beings.
Husbands are not trophies but everyday men.
I am now grown up and yet women still brag about getting the ring. Celebrating it like it is an achievement. Sounding so happy and excited that they got a man to marry them or propose marriage to them.
It seems like the dating pool is a war zone for women. And the victorious women are the ones who get the men to marry them.
This solidifies my argument: Women wait prettily by the sideline, and men make the selection.
In Nigeria, getting a husband is synonymous with having kids. A woman is supposed to have a baby in 9 months’ time after she gets married.
I do not believe that people should get married because of kids. I do not want kids. If I wanted kids, maybe I would have considered getting married. To satisfy the status quo of raising a child with a father in the background.
In a way, I feel my decision to not want a husband influenced my decision to not want kids, or was it vice-versa? Although I have valid reasons for not wanting kids, you can read about them in the article below.
People survive and live happily without getting married; live fulfilling lives without having to officially be with a partner.
Come to think of it, the idea of marriage is doing a lot of work without retirement in sight.
Marriage needs a whole lot of time and resources. Time to check up on your partner. Time to think of your partner. Time to create time for your partner. Just time upon time for it to work.
Honestly, between sleeping, eating, writing, publishing, reading, watching historical documentaries and Korean dramas and squeezing in time to check on my family members. I do not see the time I could ever have for a partner, not to talk of marriage.
I am terrible at keeping in touch with friends. And the blame is on 24 hours a day not being enough.
Hell, if there is an award for the world’s worst friend, I would have that trophy sitting pretty on my head.
I suck at maintaining friendships. I would equally suck at keeping a marriage.
192 Faithfuls. Our tribe keeps accommodating new people day in and day out. January 2023 will soon be over. How was it? Was it a great month or just another meh month?
The next article would have our January Update. Stay tuned.
Thanks for stopping by.
