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‘When will you marry?’
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Like most young girls I grew up watching Disney movies. Over and over again I’d watch the beautiful yet naive damsel in distress be rescued from the evil villain by a prince in search of a wife. They would subsequently fall in love, he’d propose, she’d say yes, they’d have a fairy-tale wedding and live happily ever after. The End. Or so I thought.
I began to have doubts about this fantasy around the time I had my first playground crush. When he chose to pursue my friend instead of me in a game of kiss-chase, I had an inkling love wasn’t going to be as straightforward as I thought.
Yet I was still somehow under the spell of the Disney romances and, like Cinderella, I still believed it was boy meets girl, boy and girl like each other and then they build a life together. I remained optimistic about my version of prince charming throughout my teenage years. Even watching the daily unfolding of dysfunction on soaps like EastEnders didn’t put me off this thing called love. However, the potion well and truly started to wear off when I hit my twenties and realised finding ‘the one’ was quite the complicated pursuit, and that the countless 90s rom-coms I’d watched hadn’t prepared me for the harsh reality of dating. In your twenties, you spend your time bumping into guys and hoping they’re not assholes only for them, after a date or two, often to reveal themselves to be just that. Navigating the dating world and settling down is challenging, as Yomi has discussed. But the pressure to find ‘the one’ is made worse by the expectations that society has about women and marriage. Chimamanda’s iconic quote is something that has always struck a chord with me; she noted, ‘Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important.’
Growing up, when I did something wrong my dad would say, ‘Is this how you will be misbehaving in your husband’s house?’ This started when I was ten; by the time I was 16 and had started venturing out with friends, he would say, ‘Do you think you’ll find a husband gallivanting like this?’ Conversely, when I did something well it would be: ‘Elizabeth will make a good wife.’ It’s really no wonder that, thanks to a combination of the films and media I consumed and the messages coming from my parents, I grew up thinking that becoming someone’s wife and then mother was the ultimate goal every girl should aspire to.
If it were up to a lot of African parents, many of us would be engaged by 25, married by 26, and have had kids by 28. Being single is seen as some sort of problem and something that increasingly concerns your parents as you get older. I have friends who are often reminded that ‘Your age mates are all getting married’ so, ‘when will you marry?’ Alongside getting your degree certificate and a foot in the career door, marriage is seen as the next big achievement: a social benchmark. The Holy Grail. It is the final signifier that says, ‘Hi world, I have made it, I am worthy.’ With every year that passes without a proposal, you’re made to feel like you are the problem. ‘Why doesn’t anyone want to marry her?’ relatives start to whisper, ‘she’s past her sell-by date now.’ At some point, towards the end of your twenties, Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies’ goes from being an anthem you would happily sing at the top of your lungs to an anxiety-inducing trigger, as you remember that Beyoncé is tucked up with Jay Z and very much married.
It is frustrating that, as a woman, no matter how much you may achieve or contribute to the world, many people still believe that the most important thing you can do is get married, settle down and raise beautiful babies. Shonda Rhimes, accomplished as she is, describes the experience of having this narrative placed on her, noting: ‘I have never gotten so much approval and accolades and warmth and congratulations as when I had a guy on my arm that people thought I was going to marry. It was amazing. I mean nobody congratulated me that hard when I had my three children. Nobody congratulated me that hard when I won a Golden Globe or a Peabody or my 14 NAACP Image Awards. But when I had a guy on my arm that people thought I was going to marry, people lost their minds like Oprah was giving away cars. It was unbelievable. I was fascinated by it because I thought, like, I am not Dr Frankenstein, I didn’t make this guy – he just is there. Everything else I actually had something to do with.’11
Because it’s traditionally men who do the asking and therefore the ‘choosing’, I’ve often found myself forgetting that marriage is a choice. Society can make us feel that our worth is only measured by the value placed upon us by someone who chooses to marry us. In an ideal world we would have our own agency and free will to make what is nothing less than a life-changing decision as part of a two-way process. Marriage, when it is good, can be beautiful and a source of mutual support, and if you’ve met someone who is good for you, and if marriage is important to you, by all means go for it. However, we shouldn’t assume marriage will be easy, or indeed that everyone wants to get married. Marriage is a life choice, but it’s not the only choice, and it’s not necessarily a better one either: just a different one. If we let ourselves be coerced into seeing marriage as the ultimate goal and pin our hopes, dreams and ambitions on this one thing, then there’s a danger that if it doesn’t happen for us, we will think it’s because we’re not good enough. We need to remember that it isn’t the be-all and end-all of womanhood.
In a refreshing plot twist in 2016, Disney took a step away from the usual princess clichés in Tangled: Before Ever After. Rapunzel became the first Disney princess to reject a marriage proposal from the suitor she loved. Okay, she did say yes in the end, but hear me out. Her reason for initially turning him down was something I can very much relate to: she was petrified of making the commitment to share her life with another person in case it held her back from fulfilling her potential. This rarely seems to be a fear felt by men. There is a troubling double-standard when it comes to age and the right time to marry which allows men to wait until they consider themselves to be mature enough, with an established career and financial security, before they decide to get married. Why should it be different for women? Many of us want to take time to travel the world, explore a multitude of opportunities and build our careers. Sometimes, when I’ve chosen not to carry on dating a particular man, my friends will ask, ‘What was wrong with him?’ And my reply will be: ‘nothing’. But ‘nothing wrong’ doesn’t mean I necessarily want to pursue a relationship with him right now. I have high expectations for marriage: I believe it takes time, maturity, patience and effort and I want to spend time working on myself, to figure out who I am, before I enter into a union with anybody.
It is important that little girl viewers (like me, all those years ago) could see Rapunzel making a conscious decision and not blindly accepting her prince like the other Disney princesses before her. Marriage should not be the last item on a bucket list. Rapunzel exerted her free will and reminded us all that marriage is a choice and, as women, we do have a say when – and if – we want to enter into it.
We all know how hard it can be to offer advice to a friend about a guy. No matter what you suggest they’ll probably end up doing the opposite. We won’t pretend that this chapter has all the answers to the ‘tangled’ and complicated questions of love and commitment, but we hope it will help empower you when it comes to making your own choices about them.
June Sarpong speaks eloquently about marriage and choice: ‘I think a lot of women feel that pressure, but I think it’s an individual choice. I’m not one of these people who says “Don’t have kids at 25” or whatever. Do what feels right. If you’re a woman who actually just wants to get married and have kids, that’s cool. If you’re a woman who wants to have a career, that’s cool, too. It’s up to you, it’s what feels authentic, and for me the choices I’ve made feel authentic.’
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‘If someone doesn’t make you feel like you can take over the world, then they’re not the person for you. If they feel that you are too career focused and you need to become less than you are, they’re not the person for you.’
Charlene White
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When I was at university there was this boy I thought I liked. It was the end of our first year and everybody was soon going to be on their way home. Because we both lived in South London, he assured me that he would make the effort to see me over the summer. Summer came and went: he didn’t make any effort. ‘Odd,’ I thought, and by the end of the holidays I had definitely stopped liking him. However, when we got back to university in the autumn he was quick to try to rekindle things. He apologised profusely and offered numerous excuses. I was naive, I thought ‘Let me give him a chance.’ Then, over the next few weeks he blew hot and cold, until eventually I was so over it that I confronted him on a night out. I questioned his motives and he replied, ‘Don’t give me the black-girl chat.’ I was like, ‘Pardon?’ I was so angry; I walked away in the biggest huff. What the hell did he mean ‘Don’t give me the black-girl chat’? He had reduced my feelings and behaviour to the stereotype of the angry black girl. The irony is, he was a black boy himself. By putting that label on me he thought it would make me adhere to the respectability politics of how I should behave. He clearly believed that if a woman wants to be considered wifey material she must turn herself into whoever it is that her prospective guy wants.
It may seem a ridiculous notion, but interestingly, according to a study by researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research, young professional women tend to downplay their career goals and ambitions around men only when they were not in relationships. Women who were already in serious relationships were upfront about their career goals; those who were single tended to modify their ambitions.12 It’s sad that young women feel compelled to minimise their accomplishments and ambitions in order to be seen as marriage material. Chimamanda again: ‘We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much.’13 I’ve been on dates during which I’ve immediately tried to suss out whether the guy is easily intimidated and I’ve then adapted accordingly, because I didn’t want to come across as an overbearing ‘ambitious’ girl. However, over the years I’ve realised that the kind of man I will attract if I play down or minimise myself is really not the type of man I want to be with in the first place.
It’s counterproductive, as Charlene White explains, ‘One of the reasons that I completely fell in love with my other half is because he pushes me at every single level, and he doesn’t see the fact that I’m focused and wanting to get further and bigger and better at what it is that I’m doing at work as a problem, he just thinks that’s one of the most amazing things about me. We’ll come home and I do exactly the same for him and sort of say, you know, maybe you should try doing this, and maybe you should try doing that, and perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea, and he’ll tell me where I’m going wrong, and I’ll tell him where he’s going wrong.
‘I have never had to be less than I am by nature of being in a relationship, I’ve never, ever had to do that. When I’m pumping Jay Z out of the house in the middle of Richmond at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, that doesn’t always go down so well! He pushes me more than anyone has ever pushed me before in a relationship. My friends pushed me all the time, but in terms of being in a relationship he’s pushed me more than anyone and just makes me believe that if I want to take over the world, I can take over the world.’
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‘I only realised after I got married how important it was to have somebody that will encourage you, that will support you and that’s interested in me winning. I will take that over a 6-foot-5 guy for sure, I would take that over the guy that drives the Bentley.’
Vannessa Amadi
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My friends and I have often lamented that the problem with the dating game isn’t so much finding a guy, but finding the right kind of guy. It’s hard not to sound shallow when describing what we would like from a partner. We’ve all imagined our ideal person, the person we eventually settle down with: someone who neatly fits into our expectations, who is understanding, who puts us first and loves us for who we are. The majority of my friends, of all races, seek partners from similar backgrounds to them; we are pretty much all looking for someone with equal or greater income and education. In our eyes, this is the bare minimum we would expect from the dating world. After all, if on paper I have a lot to offer, then why can’t I date someone who also meets these ‘reasonable’ requirements? So when a US report revealed that university-educated black women in America are less likely than other groups to marry a man with a similar level of education14 my curiosity was piqued. While there is no like-for-like stat in the UK, it’s telling that Cambridge University recently revealed that of the 3,449 students it accepted during the 2015/2016 academic year, 38 defined themselves as black, and only 15 of those 38 students were men. Similarly, at Warwick University I always noticed that there were more girls in every year group at African-Caribbean Society events. There is a general trend in many countries for more women to go to university than men. The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has published research examining this increasingly polarised gender divide as women in the UK are now 35 per cent more likely than men to go to university and the gap is widening every year.15 There are plenty of educated, ambitious women, but is it the case that there may not be enough educated men to go around?
It’s as though men are a precious commodity, and we’re all scrambling for the good ones who are left, the ones who meet our high standards. Because the thought of settling for scraps isn’t an option. After all, we are the ‘you can have it all generation’, aren’t we? The independent-women-then-it’s-time-to-find-a-husband-and-have-a-baby-before-your-eggs-expire generation, too. None of us want to short-change ourselves and, through succumbing to the pressure to find a husband, risk marrying the wrong person. This can, however, cause a great deal of anxiety around the question of whether we will ever meet THE guy? Will he be good-looking? Will he be smart? Most importantly, will he be good enough? Granted, I may not want to be Cinderella waiting patiently for her unrealistic prince, but in Grease Sandy got her Danny, Beyoncé got Jay Z, and Michelle got Obama.
Throughout this book we have looked at the challenges of navigating work and life in general as a black girl, breaking down the ways in which ours is a singular experience. And I have come to realise that the thing that has become the most important to me when I think about settling down with anyone is whether that person is someone who understands the unique struggles that black women face. Empathy within a relationship is vital. We need to be able to have honest conversations with our partners, tell them about our days, tell them about the microaggressions we’ve experienced: all of the good, the bad and the ugly. And for them to empathise and understand, to help us with it. We should be able to ask, ‘How do I deal with this?’ or, ‘This happened,’ and for them to say, ‘You know what, I understand, but how about this?’ Our feelings and whatever we’re going through need to feel important to both of us. And we have to be willing to do the same for him as well.
The meaning of ‘finding your forever after’ changed for me once I understood that it is this that really matters in a relationship. Vannessa Amadi went through a similar realisation: ‘Whoever you end up with, if you end up with a partner that you marry or not, whoever that person is that you choose – it’s a partnership. This life that we live, every day you have to wake up, and whoever it is that’s there with you, that’s the person that you have the conversations with and they have to be able to inspire you, if possible, and it’s a big ask. It’s not easy to find that kind of person. Sometimes you have to change your mindset to be able to have that type of person in your life. It’s key. I think if everyone could have that it would be an incredible world that we live in, just to have someone that’s on your team supporting you, not even financially, just mentally giving you that energy to say yes, you can do it. Because it’s not easy, you know, to every day get up and go and do whatever it is you do and to have someone like that is a huge blessing.
‘I think I maybe only realised that after I got married actually, how important it was to have somebody that will encourage you, that will support you and – I mean, he reads my press releases, and rewrites them sometimes, and those kinds of things, because he’s interested in me winning. I will take that over a 6-foot-5 guy for sure, I would take that over the guy that drives the Bentley or whatever.’
We live in a society that encourages an unrealistic quest for perfection. But the older I get, the more I realise that my dating non-negotiables can’t be based on a checklist of ideals, and if I only want to date men who have the right star sign and the right job, who have gone to the right university and who are 6-foot-2, then I’ve got to admit defeat now. So, rather than prioritising a degree: don’t jump out of the window for someone who isn’t going to even walk out of the door for you. I’m the last person to encourage ‘settling’, but I’ve come to realise that settling and compromising aren’t the same thing. Compatibility is about far more than what’s on the surface, or what might be on a notional checklist. A long-lasting relationship requires more than good looks, fun dates and many of the other things I once thought were important and now realise are not. But this doesn’t mean I’m choosing to settle. I think instead it means I’m growing up, and I’m finally understanding that relationships don’t have to come from a list, or even from a storyline on Love Actually …
Not being married by a certain age isn’t something we should fret over or rush into. It’s far more worthwhile to spend time seeking a partner who complements you, not completes you. Don’t be in a rush about getting it, it’s more important to get it right. If the right person comes along, they come along. If not, it doesn’t mean we have failed at being women. You don’t need to find someone else to define your existence. As Amma Asante says, ‘In terms of him not necessarily being your financial equal, or your equal when it comes to education, or your equal when it comes to ambition, and all of those things, if that’s what matters to you, it’s not for me to tell you to marry “beneath you”, but I had a thought process when I was a kid about who I might end up married to. None of what I thought matched on the surface to who my husband is today. On the surface, right? But when you dig deep he is those things.
‘One day I thought, “If this world were mine, what would I give? What would I do for my husband? What would I give for my husband?” and there isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do or give to my husband if this world were mine, because he has as much value for me as I have for myself. And he treats me with that level of value. He treats me with that level of importance in his life.
‘So, ultimately, though I might have had all these other little things – “He must have a degree, and he must have this, and he must have that” – if I’m really honest with you, I’m not quite sure what my husband’s degree is in, because he got it in Denmark. My point is, you can put all those things down, but ultimately what I want is someone who treats me in the way that I know I deserve. That’s the bottom line.
‘I think about my dad in his last few days, as we knew that he was going to pass away within that month, he was just becoming weaker and weaker. The last time he saw my husband, my dad was sitting in a wheelchair because they had put him in it for the day to just kind of get him up out of the bed – and my dad had dementia and Alzheimer’s when he passed away. But, actually, the closer he got to death, the more he knew who everybody was.
‘My dad was just that typical African dad, “Who are you? Are you worthy of my child?” you know, all of the stuff that we kind of know and recognise, and who would’ve loved me to have married not just an African man, but an African man from Ghana, not just from Ghana but from his village, that’s what he would’ve loved.
‘But I remember my husband walking in through the door and my dad being quite hunched over, and slowly looking up – slowly his eyeline came up to reach my husband’s – and I remember my dad, with all the effort it took in the world, lifting his hand up and putting his hand out to shake my husband’s hand. What he was saying in that moment is, “I’m trusting you with this. You take this with the responsibility that I’m putting in your hands.”
‘I knew how important and how much effort that would’ve taken from my dad physically, but I also know the message he was giving to my husband in that moment. I knew that was because he knew that my husband treats me with the importance that I deserve. Now that my dad has gone, my biggest cheerleader in life is my husband and that’s all that I would wish for. Regardless of what his degree is, and if he earns as much as me. There’s some years I earn more than my husband, and there’s some years he earns more than me!
‘We didn’t know what it was going to be like when we were getting together, we didn’t know who was going to earn the most. I didn’t ask him what his degree was because that’s not what attracted me to him. It was his heart and soul. I always say, to the best of my knowledge [that] I’m not a lesbian, but if my husband had come in the shape of a woman, I know that we would be in the same relationship because that’s what I fell in love with, ultimately, and that’s what we should be looking for.’
People often say that true love comes from knowing a person’s every flaw and still choosing to love them all the same. This kind of acceptance requires compromise, so holding on inflexibly to an unrealistic version of a Disney hero is unlikely to bring you happiness. Settling down, rather than settling for, is a state of mind, and the one who has to live with that choice is you. So when you feel that the time is right, just make sure you’re not settling because of your parents’ expectations of when you should get married, or because you’re worried that society will render you undesirable once you hit your thirties.
When will you marry? When – and if – you bloody well choose to.