Do You Want To Get Married Or Ride A Bicycle With A Bearded Guy: The Wedding vs Marriage Debate
When Solange Knowles got married it really wasn’t the news, right? It’s more about how she did it — who cares who she got married to. The Internet, which Kim supposedly broke, received a massive dose of first aid when Solange’s uber-artsy-minimalistic themed wedding pictures took over everywhere. When I say took over, I mean TOOK OVER. It was so bad, I think an Instagram Wedding account called “Yoruba Weddings” posted a picture from the wedding. No, don’t even wonder why I was checking an Instagram account called Yoruba Weddings – focus people – FOCUS!
Now, saying I didn’t expect the wedding would get some form of attention all around the world would be a lie. I mean, forget the fact that Solange is all round awesome – she’s so cool, her fart probably smells like mint – She’s only the sister to this Queen of a woman called BEYONCE!!! So yes, we all expected news about her wedding to make the rounds but not so much that it completely fixed the Internet Kim broke.
I was absolutely surprised by the first set of reactions I saw on my Twitter timeline from Nigerian women – all positive. I mean, not one single person threw shade like – she’s still wearing white after she has dropped one or after all this ghen ghen, will the marriage last sha. That’s like the classic Nigerian reaction to everything nice – we almost always find ways to dampen the excitement with our very special brand of pessimism but for whatever reason – fear of the Beyhive is the beginning of wisdom – I don’t think I saw one single negative comment on Solange’s wedding. To make things even ‘better’ it was later disclosed that she broke into hives during the day after reacting to something and that empathetic gene specially implanted in all Nigerians kicked in.
You can’t understand just how shocked I was by all of this. I mean, forget the guys, we are very straight up when it comes to things like this – the fact that her outfit was showing just the right amount of cleavage and back was more than good enough for us. But the women all coming together to agree on one thing got me wondering. I didn’t have to think for too long when it hit me. Not long after my moment of realisation, I posted this tweet:
Yes, I’ll admit I swapped the word “confused” for “indecisive” well because I didn’t want to get eaten alive. No – seriously. I wanted to see just how many people would agree with me and yet again, I got a surprise. I know we all say a ReTweet on Twitter doesn’t always imply endorsement but at least I know it means you took some time to read the tweet and found it ‘interesting’ enough to share with others on your timeline.
I got quite a lot of ReTweets and responses to that tweet and I just knew I had to write a whole post on it. I have attended a lot of weddings this year – probably more than any other year and you know what people my age discuss at weddings – more weddings and marriages and issues and issues and issues that come from marriages. To say I’ve heard too much would be putting it mildly. There are crazy divorce stories – couples going their separate ways less than a year into the marriage, stories of couples living apart-together – you know, when they live in the same house but barely talk to each other etc. I’ve heard so many of these lately and it makes me understand a little bit more why the average Nigerian takes the pessimistic approach when discussing such things as awesome weddings.
Marriages fall apart for so many reasons and I’m not about to go into that in detail. One thing I know for sure is that nowadays, for whatever reason – blame sites like BN and co all you want – we all seem to be paying more attention to the actual wedding event and not the marriage. A friend recently met his girlfriend’s mother for the first time and he told me how she drilled him for so long about ‘whose son he is’ and ‘what family he comes from’. Unfortunately for him, he’s from one of those popular families and that got him into serious trouble as the woman went on and on talking about his family and how they like to ‘scatter ground’ whenever they organize parties. She also went on to hype her own family saying they were no pushovers themselves and when he and his girlfriend decide to ‘do the right thing’, the whole of Lagos will ‘take’. No single question on where he works, what he does, his future plans – nada.
It doesn’t stop with parents. I always ask my female friends this question and most of them wonder why. So you have a boyfriend and you know he works in a bank – heck you’ve even had to pick him up from work a couple of times so you know for sure he works in that building but here’s a question for you. What exactly does your boyfriend do for the bank? Does he work in the treasury unit, corporate banking, private banking etc? What are his day-to-day tasks? What level is he? What’s the progression trend in his office? If he’s at entry level, what’s the probability he’ll rise to become a banking officer and how soon?
Quick disclaimer: you probably shouldn’t ask these questions till you’re way deep into the relationship – say 6 months plus – before you scare the guy away. Point is, if you’re looking to get married to this guy, you need to be able to plan a future together and believe it or not, finance is a MAJOR part of marriages and one of the most prominent causes of separation.
Another one is family background – but you shouldn’t ask about this just so you know whose son/daughter he/she is so they can ‘scatter ground’ at your wedding. These are the main issues at the core of marriages. While I was away, OC Ukeje got married and reading the comments on his wedding pictures which Reni J wrote a lovely piece on, one of the things that struck me was the fact that some people thought he settled in the beauty aspect. Why? Probably because he had been with hotter chics in the past? It’s also not the first time you’ve heard women wonder why a guy chose one chic – possible a h*e over another who’s supposedly a saint – well, the answer is simple. Marriage isn’t all about now. It’s a journey, a long one at that and to be good at it, you need not focus on emotions – it’s a bit of logic plus the right amount of emotions. A combination of the tangible and intangible.
In conclusion, let me just state clearly that admiring a wedding like Solange’s is not a bad thing. I mean, I love that girl and just adore her sense of style so I’m equally guilty. But and it’s a big BUT (no Kim), in doing this, let us not forget the difference between a wedding and a marriage.
To the discussion: I could easily ask the women to tell us if they want to get married or ride a bicycle with a bearded guy but that’s a no-brainer. Let’s see just how many of us will come out clean today. Tell us – honestly – if you have (consciously or otherwise), in the past or presently, allowed the current craze of high-end weddings becloud your judgment in choosing partners. And if not, share your thoughts on the subject – many young Nigerians nowadays focus more on the wedding and not the marriage, true or false.
