Recently, I have been seriously thinking about marriage. No, I’m not talking about a wishful trip down the aisle, but the actual idea of marriage.
Since the days of my adolescence, particularly the young adult years, I’ve always wondered if the idea of marriage is even for me. Years ago, during one of our impromptu sister circles in college, I told some of my dorm mates that I have no intentions of getting married. I didn’t know how serious I was about this at the time, but I also knew that as my dorm mates would continuously gush over the whens and wheres of their future husbands and weddings, engagement rings and dresses, I would be thinking about other things–like traveling. Or becoming notable in some way: maybe through writing; perhaps through business. It wasn’t that I didn’t like men (because that’s where minds tend to go whenever a woman doesn’t say something pro-relationship). Some, who knew me back then, might say that I liked men a little too much – and hard – at times. But in the greater scheme of how I envisioned my life, I saw myself as more like a Oprah Winfrey and not a June Cleaver. And quite frankly, I wasn’t quite sure if that was something that most men could get down with – at least the ones I knew.
Although I am now well into my 30s, and no closer to world media domination, the men I know haven’t changed much over the years. And as such, I still carry the same reservations about marriage. Stories like this, or this, or even this one, do not help to assure me that I won’t find myself in a situation where I feel like my spirit would be contained or compromised in some way. I also find myself feeling like I would be in a situation where my partner, unable to contain me, would feel resentment over my unchained spirit and decide to become controlling. Or abusive? Or a tomcat? It does happen – at least based on the many stories I’ve heard from friends and strangers alike, as well as my own personal experiences.
“But that’s your problem. You are looking at submission the wrong way,” a male “friend” once told me. According to him, I was too opinionated and stubborn in my thoughts. I didn’t know how to let go of the reins of control so that a man could do what a man is supposed to do: take control and lead. “Submitting yourself to a man – the right man – allows you to free yourself of the burden of having to be strong all the time. You know, so that you can be happy.”
Except I never saw my independence as a burden. Nor do I believe that squelching my opinions and curtailing my thoughts would make me happier. That sort of behavior never once worked to my favor in my past. In fact, letting other people’s opinions and desires supersede my own wishes and thinking landed me in some peculiar places I hadn’t intended to be in. No. Life, being the best teacher of all, told me that it is best to speak up. And if it doesn’t feel right, don’t force it because odds are that it ain’t right.
On the other hand, having a life partnership with a guy would be nice. So maybe my male “friend” has a point? Maybe I am missing out on lots of undiscovered happiness all because I won’t submit and let go. And maybe all the uncomfortable pain I felt during those times of submitting my spirit needed to happen, like some sort of laborious test or birthing pains, which I need to go through to get to the real happiness…? And then my spirit animal appears through the white noise of Access Hollywood, by way of the New York Post, to vicariously tell my male friend to shut the hell up:
“Oprah Winfrey has revealed why she will never, ever marry her longtime partner Stedman — despite Tina Turner demanding she walk down the aisle. Oprah and Tina have been friends for years, with Oprah attending the singer’s wedding back in July. But the talk show queen says she has come to the conclusion that such a union is just not for her. When asked if she would leave earth as a “never-married” woman, Oprah made her feelings very clear. “Yes,” she told Access Hollywood. “Yeah, I think that’s my final answer.”
As to why she doesn’t see herself walking down the aisle, Oprah explains that she couldn’t be a wife because the term holds obligations she doesn’t feel capable of handling:
“I think it’s acceptable as a relationship, but if I had the title ‘wife,’ I think there would be other expectations for what a wife is and what a wife does. First of all, you’ve got to come home sometimes.”
Some many insist that folks like Winfrey and I are too selfish for marriage. Maybe they might contend that we are too insecure or paranoid to take the plunge. And then there is the good argument to be made that perhaps I, in particular, have just gotten spoiled and used to the quiet and breadth of my own space that there is just no room for anyone else. All I know is that I value my freedom and my spirit fights too damn hard against any sort of containment for me to ignore it. So, until I meet a guy who is less interested in dominating me and more interested in loving me as I am, I guess like Winfrey, I will be never married. I guess it’s true that some women just really aren’t wifey material. And quite frankly, with how limited in scope some folks wish to define the roles of a wife, I’m okay with that.
