Why are we raising women with the ultimate goal of being wifed?

I chanced on a WhatsApp status where a young woman was giving herself accolades and it somehow ended in her expressing joy and pride at being ‘someone’s future wife’. I use ‘joy’ here, for lack of a better word. However, it was more along the lines of her seeing being a wife as the ultimate prize for her womanhood.  

Now, this is not an isolated case; it would be much easier if it were. Then it could be related to personal aspirations and goals. Of course, each one of us is different and we have different hopes and wants and desires. However, this happens way too many times to be attributed to personal wishes alone. I have seen a lot of women express this need to achieve the ultimate; to get to the climax of womanhood. Unfortunately, this climax of womanhood, to many, is being a wife. It is never anything else.   

This begs the question; why? Of all the things a woman can aspire to be, why is it always ‘a wife’? 

Again, to be clear, it is not wrong for one to aspire to be a wife if it is a personal choice. But when it becomes the order of the day; when it seems to be all that many many women – young and old – aspire to be as the ultimate goal, as the ceiling of what they can be; when it consumes the entirety of what womanhood means, for women, for society and for the country, then there is a problem; a conditioning at play here.  

It is no news that the Ghanaian society has a thing for marriages, or shall I say for weddings. The older generation; the older women especially, do not relent on preaching the gospel of getting married to the younger generation. While this is not necessarily wrong, what is wrong is raising women with the conditioning that the ceiling of their aspirations is marriage; is in being a wifed, such that these women grow up with this goal at the top of their list and nothing else matters.  

The pressure of being a wife has on many levels led women to give up dreams and prospects; especially while they are still stuck in a backward thinking society such as ours, that would constantly remind them why they are not whole until they find a husband. You will find revolting comments on social media telling women who are living their (best) lives to ‘’do and get married’’,  to ‘’find a husband because you have grown’’. 

The problem has become so normal that peers would ask casually ask each other, ‘’when will you marry?’’ year after year or every time they meet. I have personally had women tell me how someone would coolly slide into their messages to ask them when they will get married; someone who isn’t even remotely close to them. This is how thick and intrusive the problem is. 

Unfortunately, whether or not our society knows that is a problem is the question. It is easier to reeducate when there is a collective understanding of the existence of a problem. In this case, however, many do not see any wrong. They do not see the harm being caused. That to me is the actual problem.