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So I’ve been married before.
Way back in 1996.
It was one of those
“I’m in my 20s making silly mistakes based on the fact that I’ve been told that being married increases my value as a female person, to the point that I think marriage is more important than a fulfilling relationship“
things.
That experiment taught me something I have always known but have not really known how to articulate.
I’m the one who needs someone who fulfills the role of wife.
Allow me a brief sidestory and I’ll come back and explain that statement.
My friends are fabulous.
I know so many talented, super-intelligent, witty, kind, empathic, female souls who are such great listeners. They are everything I would want in a guy.
So a few years ago, I started pretend-proposing to my girlfriends.
The meaning behind it is, though I’m not sure I can commit to one man for more than 20 or 30 years, I do know for sure that I can commit to a lifelong friendship with my close girlfriends.
And I don’t ever want them to leave me.
Figuratively speaking, as some of them live 1000 to 10,000 miles away and we only get to see each other in person every few months or years.
When I encounter these lovely women online, I refer to them as wifey and pretend to get jealous when they talk to our other mutual friends.
Well they think I’m pretending anyway. ;-) J/K! Mostly!
If you had friends this spectacular you’d be mostly pretending but actually slightly jealous too.
The reason the joke is “proposals” is because of the typical role assigned to a wife.
In a mixed gender couple, it’s man and wife, husband and wife etc.
Even in this enlightened age, the role of the wife as somehow the household executive management, cook, nanny, chauffeur and housekeeper is pretty well understood.
If you don’t believe me, read the comic linked below by a woman who has finally found a way to articulate what women have wanted men to understand about “helping around the house” for eons.
Or read these articles about how men are still ridiculed for being “Mr. Mom” or as properly named, a stay at home Dad.
This is what we feminists are talking about when we say having our rights as equal humans benefits everyone.
If we get to take on the role of breadwinner in an equitable fashion?
When it works for our family the Dad gets to stay home and not be treated like a second class citizen either.
But I digress.
To bring this back around to the idea of why I need a “wife”, this joke I have with my friends plays into that.
I’ve always been more into work than being married or having kids.
Not to say I’m NOT into having kids or being a mother. I’m a Yoruba woman so I’m kind of a mother by default, in my generation. I’m an Auntie, and a primary caregiver to almost half my nieces and nephews – the two sets of twins born to my sister call me Momo to avoid the confusion of calling us both Mom.
I love kids and caring for kids, and if wealthy, I’d love nothing more that to foster-to-adopt two sibling groups in addition to the kids I consider my children now.
I just don’t see how I could do both parental duty and full time worker well as a single person, without a considerable amount of passive income and wealth.
Partly it’s because I’ve had the threat of a slow-moving cancer hanging over my head since my 20s.
I’ve also been chronically ill most of my adult life.
The disability itself doesn’t interfere with my ability to be a Mom. It’s just that I need to be able to afford the extra tools I need to get both jobs done. And for me, I need so much taking care of myself, that until or unless I am wealthy enough to do so, giving birth to kids to share what I am already lacking makes no sense given the power to choose.
I’m privileged in that respect to have the power not to live a conventional life.
So I don’t.
The drive and focus it takes to achieve that the way I know how, would mean my child wouldn’t want for any material thing. But I wouldn’t be around to raise my child as much as I’d prefer unless I had passive income.
If I had unlimited funds and could do my work from home all the time I’d at minimum have birthed 3 kids, have 3 foster kids and adopt a group of 3 siblings.
My life’s work in activism, writing and marketing has shaped my identity,, such that I see this as possible with the right support.
I originally wanted to start out with these things, work full time outside the home, get married, have children, and when the youngest turned 5, work full time inside the home.
Then when I got married and started to see the institution from the inside, as a wife?
I did not like what I saw.
And true, I could make the union, the institution of marriage what I want it to be, at least in theory, joined to the right person. But you have to understand – when I was in my 20s, the cancer I had was not well understood. They didn’t even know for sure if it was in a dormant state and whether I needed to have chemo. Every doctor I saw had a different answer.
So when your choices range from “you’ll die in your 40s” to “you could drop dead at any time I dunno?” to “maybe we’ll find out more about your disease later” – if you have several dreams you find yourself in a position of prioritizing one over another.
I loved being in love, but I also wanted to dedicate my life to making the world better. I wanted to be a mother, but I didn’t want to be a single parent if odds were even that I would die in my 40s.
But how much easier could that be if the very idea of marriage was revolutionized?
I’d be able to have the opportunity to have a “male wife” with anyone I encountered. The idea would already be in their head. I wouldn’t have to find the rare man who Actually treats his wife as an equal, not a theoretical equal who still does the bulk of the housework, regardless of whether their breadwinning income was equal.
If I found an ideal man except for that one thing, I’d still have to convince him.
Isn’t falling in love and knowing what kind of person is well suited to you hard enough?
Without then having to contend with how to make the roundness of modern life fit into the square peg of the traditional institution of marriage?
There are already so many factors that barrow my search for a husband. I really don’t want to add yet another.
Besides maybe romantic love isn’t Supposed to last forever.
Friendship allows the room for growing and changing and role changing. Sometimes you’re the leader, sometimes you’re the follower. Sometimes you’re the consoler, sometimes you are consoled. Your friends might push you to become greater or you might pull them. Maybe you’ll take turns.
But traditional marriage roles are much more rigid.
I can adopt a child at any time. I can fall in love — or out — of love, any time.
But friendships? I still talk to people I clicked with in high school, which is when we stopped moving around so much. I’ll be friends with some people, male or female, forever.
which is why I’d much rather marry my friends.