My maternal grandma was married till death took her husband away. And she never remarried till she passed. That sounds like a successful marriage where only death brought them apart, huh? But shortly before she died, she was telling me a story and she told me that she couldn’t remember a moment of happiness as a married woman.
Often times, people make the error of thinking length of stay in marriage equates successful marriage. I beg to differ.
In my own opinion, a marriage that has lasted for 10 years where the couple have been genuinely happy in the marriage for ten years is more successful than a marriage that has lasted for 35 years where the couple have been happy for less than 9 years. (By happy, I mean marital happiness in terms of how happy you are by the virtue of marriage to your partner).
Most often than not, quality trumps quantity, and I don’t think marriage is an exception to this “rule”.
So many people come up with lines that sound like “our grandparents enjoyed successful marriages because our mothers were submissive, they were not agitating for equality with men like ladies of this generation are doing”. This is a fallacy borne by basing success in marriage on the number of years one remains married rather than the number of years one is genuinely happily married. Most of our grandMOTHERS were not happy in their marriages. They remained and took shits and ill treatments from their husbands because divorce was sacrilegious and mainly blamed on the woman. It doesn’t matter if your husband tries to stab or attempts to murder you at some point, if you divorce him, it’s still your fault.
I believe that one of the reasons for the higher rate of divorce today is that women are less willing to take the shits that their grandmothers took, they now realize that they deserve to be treated better, and they are now more willing to damn the societal stigma on divorced women.
Some men already have but more men have to realize that they won’t get away with most of the things their fathers got away with, because this is not hundred years ago, and they are not married to their grandmothers.
My mum was a “spoilt” daughter of a very rich man. She loves life, and was not willing to trade her happiness for marriage, like most of the women in her family did. So, she said she had divorce as an option. She’s been married for 34 years in December, and she told me that never for once has she thought of divorce. The man she got married to, my father treated and still treats her right, and never gave her any need to remember that she had another option but to remain married to him.
Newsflash!
99% of sane women (even the very stubborn ones) will worship a husband that treats them right…. this is a nobrainer.
On the other side of the coin, more and more women now understand that they deserve better, and are less willing to take shits in marriage. And our daughters, the next generation of women will be willing to take even less shit.
It’s a new era, a fair one if you ask me. You only get as good as you give.
About the writer:
Nkechi Bianze is a student and a fearless writer. You can follow her on Facebook here
