by Blessing Akinsehinwa

No matter how rich a woman becomes, she is not deemed successful if she is unmarried. She is not even recognised in social gatherings.

‘Hello Blessing’,

‘Good morning ma’,

‘Ehen, where are you?’

‘I’m at home ma, preparing for work’,

‘Ok, that’s good.  You will be accompanying me to the Police station today, so get ready’

‘Ok ma’, I mumbled

After ending the call, I grumbled, ‘ohhhh madam has come again with her impromptu wahala. Police station this early morning??

Oh, lest I forget. Madam is my boss. That is not her name though, but everyone in the office prefers to call her madam.

And so I went with madam to the Police station.

As we were entering, I caught a familiar face.

I said to madam, ‘ma see Mike'(not real name). Mike is a banker who works in a bank our office represents and also a friend of mine.

‘Yeah, we’re here in respect of him’, she shot back at me.

A million thoughts crossed mind, but I refrained from asking further questions.

We entered the station. Mike walked up to us and we exchanged pleasantries.

However, I noticed Mike’s countenance was not friendly which was rather unusual. That was how I knew the reason for our coming was not going to be pleasant.

We entered the DPO’s office, did introductions and meeting commenced.

As we were about to begin, a young woman was brought in. She was yellow and beautiful.  I mean very beautiful, for someone who had slept in a police cell.

‘Who is the complainant?’ the DPO asked.

Mike stood, then began his narration.

According to him, he was dating this girl, Faith (not real name), broke up with her, then began dating someone else. He is to be married in two weeks time to the new girl and bam! he receives series of threat letters warning him not to go ahead with his wedding.  Else, he looses his life. Upon investigation, it was discovered the letter emanated from Faith.

When Mike finished, Faith was called to tell her side of the story.

She admitted they had been lovers, he left for her another but was still seeing her secretly. She said she was confused, and asked Mike what was going on but he kept saying all was well. Then suddenly, in church, Mike’s wedding was  announced. Meanwhile, the night before, she was with him. During the process, she met a man who claimed to be dating Mike’s fiancee. They got together, he wrote a letter, sent it to her and she forwarded it to Mike in order to warn him  not to marry his so-called promiscuous fiancee. She concluded by saying that she sent the letter to Mike to protect him from marrying a bad girl.

We all saw through her story and advised her to tell the truth considering the enormity of the situation at hand.

‘Okay, okay, I will own up’, she said.

‘It’s all concocted, but he did hurt me and left for another girl’.

Both Mike and Faith are bankers, in different banks though and apparently they attend the same church too; even members of the choir.

Because of the church connection, we really didn’t want things to get messy. Madam too attends  the same church, you know? So she was a little soft on her.

After all said and done, she admitted her foolishness, was asked to make an undertaking as to Mike’s safety which she agreed to do.

All through the discussion, I thought to myself;

‘Why this desperation’,

‘This is so not right’,

Then I realised. The rush to get married amongst our womenfolk these days is a serious matter.

Why are women in a rush to get married?

Why could such a beautiful young woman like Faith with a good job bring herself so low because of a man?

Is a man really worth all these?

But then, a realization dawned instantly dawned on me.

An African woman is judged by her marital status. In fact, her success is defined by whether she is married or not.

Have you wondered why our women scramble for marriage when they start attaining a particular age?

Even then the society looks down on them like an outcast; like they’ve committed some wrong being unmarried at a particular age or stage.

I once asked a girl out, and guess what?

Her only reason for saying NO was because I was not ready for marriage. Where is the sense in that? She was looking for a man who was ready to settle down and I simply did not fit the bill. Very painful something!

Have you ever considered what happens after the wedding? I mean what follows afterwards?

In fact, life just begins after the wedding.

I was chatting with a female friend  recently and asked what age she would like to be married.

Now! was her sharp answer (this is a 23 years old lady).

‘Ok, give me the maximum’, I asked

’28 years’ she said

‘What if you don’t get a man till then?’

‘Olorun maje (God forbid)’, she shot back at me.

I know a lot of women that got married early, say around 21-24 years. To many, this is the ultimate definition of success. But, have you ever thought about what happens after? They virtually are nowhere today, except being stuck in a man’s house generating kids. Is that all to a woman’s life?

Why can’t a woman be judged by the content of her brain?

Why can’t a woman be judged by how she impacts positively on others?

No matter how rich a woman becomes, she is not deemed successful if she is unmarried. She is not even recognised in social gatherings.

To me this is rather unfair on the female specie.

So just like Faith, many women have forced themselves on men, even the unwilling ones, just to avoid the stigma associated with not being married, especially when age begins to set in.

Little wonder the volume of divorce cases have skyrocketed in our courts today.

My advice is; relax, take your time, make your own money, build your career, be the best in whatever you do and your man will surely find you.

Now that’s the ultimate success.

But then, what do I know? I’m not a female after all.

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Blessing Akinsehinwa blogs on www.kremlinkidd.wordpress.com and tweets from @KremlinKidd

Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.