MARRIAGE IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN A WOMAN’S LIFE

MARRIAGE IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN A WOMAN’S LIFE

BY TREASURE EZURUIKE

Let’s talk about an important topic. A topic we often shy away from.

It has to do with telling women and young girls that marriage is the most important event of their life.

I know people are already hissing and shifting in their seats but calm down first. Marriage is important to everyone, not just women.

A man gets to a certain age and becomes restless too if he is not married just like women, but no one talks about it.

A happy marriage brings stability to men as much as it brings to women.

If a man has no child in old age he is as much affected as a woman who has no child.

Finally, marriage is important to both men and women.

Marriage is not the end of a woman’s life but part of something she will do. She still has so many other things to achieve in life alongside marriage.

If you doubt it go to the comments section of wedding invitations or the marriage itself or photos of married couples and see the “awws”.

They would be from men as much as women. Who doesn’t want a happy home or a happy marriage?

But that’s not the aim of this post. My aim is to stop telling women that marriage is the most important thing they must do.

The reason is that so many women get married and stop having dreams and goals because they believe they have achieved the most important thing in their lives.

They give up on life, they even stop taking care of themselves because they’ve gotten to the final bus stop so what else?

1. Marriage is not the end of a woman’s life but part of something she will do. She still has so many other things to achieve in life alongside marriage.

I’m not discouraging women from getting married because I’m a married woman myself. I don’t hide my marital status.

I see some men throwing subtle jabs at women saying our education ends in the kitchen.

That statement has never offended me, even the “my wife belongs to the kitchen and the other room” never offended me.

The thing is that even the men who put women down with that statement won’t survive if the kitchen and the other room don’t exist or function effectively.

I’m proud of my kitchen. I handle it with care. I love the smile on the face of my family when they are fed to their satisfaction, and they can move anymore.

When my husband calls me and says “Nne” come, has this food you served me finished? Then I say no, he says, and you gave me this small quantity?

I say I thought you were watching your weight. He says Nne mind yourself, how can you give me such a small quantity of this sweet meal?

I tell him the one remaining is for the next day. He tells me we would eat to our fill today; tomorrow God would provide.

I serve him more food and he is satisfied and says see how you overfed me, now I can’t move again.

Those moments are why I’m never put down by comments about your “education ends in the kitchen”.

As a woman your only role on earth is not to be a wife and mother, it’s much more than that.

Everyone is on this earth for a reason and it’s important to find out what that reason is.

We tell our daughters about how marriage is the most important event in their lives.

Once they achieve it, they go to bed like they’ve arrived not willing to do any other thing.

Then we start to complain about how they’ve switched off and have no goals outside motherhood.

But we caused it by drumming marriage into their ears from babyhood without telling them there are other things to be achieved alongside marriage.

She dreams of marriage as this fairytale and when she gets it, she has nothing else to achieve in life.

You start to complain that my wife doesn’t want to do any other thing. All my support and encouragement have gone to waste.

Well, that is what she has been fed from childhood. Sadly one day she would wake up when the children are grown and out of the house.

She realizes she has nothing to live for, nothing else drives her to want to get out of bed as the only one she had is gone.

She has no child to cater to and a vacuum is created that she may not be able to fill.

Teach your daughters that marriage is important but so is setting goals and having dreams.

© Treasure Ezuruike