Men and women don’t have the same marriage

Statistically, men gain more from women in heterosexual marriages than women do. The men get social status, and promotions, and get listened to in town halls or in front of elders. Women get the privilege of not being called whores, and a supposed legitimacy added to their names, and their children as well. Although we all know that as soon as a husband dies, that legitimacy can be stripped away from those who survive him, by those who were born with him.

It just feels like marriage doesn’t benefit women in the way we were told it would. You want companionship, but he’s in bar next door every week, hitting on girls you joined primary school when you were getting your first job. A joint investment partner? He has multiple investments you don’t know about that you might only discover if he dies, if you’re lucky. Someone to bring home every Christmas? Sure, to pacify your father. But it isn’t like the amount of your labour changes. If anything, you’re doing even more to make sure he’s comfortable, while wading off comments from your mother-in-law about how her son looks so skinny nowadays.

And then there’s this one that really gets my goat: the advantage that they claim, about how you won’t die alone. But think about it; everyone dies alone. People think that if you’re married, someone will be there to hold your hand as you leave this realm. 

The reason it is getting my goat particularly this year is because one of my aunties passed away the other day. When someone you know and love dies, you’re always looking for someone to blame: the doctor, the nurses, the insurance companies. But in this case, I solely blamed her husband. That care element we talked about earlier? She caught malaria and Covid-19, and her husband decided it was a good idea to leave her to the doctors for a month in a hospital with deplorable standards. Of course that speaks to a bigger problem in our healthcare system, but at the fundamental level, she should not have been alone. It should not have happened like that. It was avoidable. I wish she had left, years ago.

I hear stories like this all the time. Men abandoning their spouses at the first sign of illness, or incapacitation. Taking other wives before the wife’s body is even in the ground. While the woman is still in hospital, fighting, he’s moved on.

The thing is, this isn’t usually the first sign of a man’s lack of interest in actually being a committed and loving partner. The cycle perpetuates itself: one is pressured into marriage, because it is what one does and man was not meant to live alone. What they neglect to mention is that society is perfectly fine with a married woman basically being single in her marriage, as long as appearances are kept and the man is taken care of. A man can’t die alone. No, never. A man can’t even diet alone, because the whole household’s diet has to change to ‘support’ him.

We know from the beginning what the situation is going to be, and that’s how our lives are ended. I have learnt the hard way: a bad marriage can literally kill you. I think it’s time we start celebrating divorce as a form of self-care. Women lose themselves in marriages from ignoring their identities and their needs the whole time. When will we begin to choose ourselves, choose our joy? When will we see the strength in walking away from something that does not and has never served you, and will not make you happy?

Invite me to your divorce party. I’ll be there with bells ringing to commemorate your bravery.

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