I’ve always felt that men have been projecting their own fears of dying single, powerless and purposeless on women. Marriage gives men some sort of power, and so they cajole and scaremonger women into being a part of this institution where they know they’ll always have the lead. https://twitter.com/brownandbella/status/1153809411518763009

Generally, marriage has been way more beneficial to men than it has been to women. Men get to sign up to the permanent labour of women, they are the ones who need children to “carry on their name”, they also get to retain the independence and freedom they enjoyed while single.

Women are the ones who have to give up their freedom to take care of the home and cater to the kids. Women have been known to be the default sacrificers in marriages by virtue of their second place ranking.

Even as women “providing” for their families and taking economic and political positions have become more popular, very little changes have been made in men becoming a part of domestic duties.

What this means is that women who work while still fully assuming domestic roles in their marriages and families are doing twice as much work as their husbands, or even more. They run the home even though their husbands are somehow supposed to be the “heads” of the home.

Women who are the breadwinners in their families often do it to the glory of their husbands. They not only have to bear the burden of providing for their families and doing domestic duties; they also have to constantly massage the egos of their husband to “cover” his shame.

Let us not pretend that we do not know that this is the culture for majority of women who are breadwinners, not to talk of the fact that many of them are underpaid too.

When it comes to parenting, women do the great bulk of the job, no wonder men who happen to tap in occasionally to this duty see it as “babysitting” (imagine babysitting your own child). To many men, “babysitting” is a role that emasculates them and they’d rather not take parts.

Many women who have been disillusioned by their marriages have had to take their children as their only succour & compensation. Marriage becomes a ground upon which they have to create a sustainable environment for their kids and they strip themselves of anything to achieve this.

Women have to sacrifice their time, body, pleasure and sometimes risk their lives in order to reproduce children, and even when these children arrive, they take no breaks and have to do the bulk of the parenting for the rest of their lives.

Women who are sterile bear the shame for their infertility. Guess who also has to bear the stigma for male infertility - still the woman. “Childless couple” in some cultures simply means a barren woman who has pinned her family down.

Not only do women have to go through all these for marriagesakes, there exists an ingrained, casual system of subjugation that they have to go through under the guise of making their marriages work. Don’t ask me why many Nigerian wives summit their salaries to their husbands.

Women are way more likely to let go of friends when they get married in order to blend into the status of “married woman” while majority of men get to keep their friends after marriage. In essence, women tend to lose their support system while men retain theirs.

How often do you hear of men who change their number or give up social media for their marriages? Why does anyone even have to give up friends they’ve known for probably the most of their lives in order to sustain a social construct?

If you needed answers as to why almost 75% of divorces are initiated by women, look no more. Women are always the ones who desire marriage the most, and somehow, they also happen to have a major stake at initiating the goodbyes.

Have you also wondered why widowers (take Nigeria for example) are more likely to remarry than widows? Certainly, there are cultural constraints put on widows to remarry, but widowers know that they need women to sustain their lives, especially if they have or want children.

Let us not also talk about how our society turns on widows when they lose their spouses; how they lose properties, are evicted from their homes, and have to live through pain; how they are treated by the same society that told them that marriage is what makes them complete.

On the flip side, who stands to benefit the most from marriage? - Men.

Marriage is structured in such a way that men do not lose their identity, freedom or security. Men often make certain of their financial security before they get married; women aren’t necessarily expected to.

And when one person is more financial secure than the other in a marriage, dependence falls in. So, marriage is designed in such a way that women become dependent on men, that is why many financially secure single women are shying away from it.

I’ll quote @t0nit0ne’s tweet here:

‘Research suggests:

- marriage increases men’s earning power by an average of 10-24%. Scholars call this the men’s “marriage premium”

- married men who stay married have a longer life expectancy

- married men experience improved mental health and a lower risk of depression.’

Men know - and have always known - the benefits they stand to gain from marriage. They know the social & economic power it gives them. They know that they’ll be babied and labored for for the rest of their lives. They know that women are the backs upon which these things thrive.

They know it gives them the ultimate boss power. They reckon with these things. So they fearmonger women into being a part of it.

Patriarchy is such a bad bitch.

Also, don’t come here telling me about how this isn’t so in ALL cases cause I never said so. We know that this is the truth for the majority, significant enough to warrant a generalization.

Again, exceptions are not rules.