Pressure to Marry

Wedding season is here and that means seeing a lot of exciting videos of some elaborate African weddings on  Instagram.  So, this week, we discuss the pressure in the African community to get married and what that means here in the Diaspora. The pressure to enter  the institution of marriage is particularly strong for African women in their 20s. If you are 22 or above and unmarried, you have probably heard one of these remarks from a nosy relative or community member: “It’s time for you to settle down already…” If you’re in a relationship, you and your partner have been asked multiple times “when will you tie the knot?” However, in the diaspora instead of getting married, younger African women/men  are now choosing to concentrate on education and career first (economic empowerment); and then maybe head towards having committed relationships that may or may not lead to marriage. As a species, we have evolved, and we do not need marriage in the ways we did in times past, yet society keeps trying to ram people into the “traditional marriage” model.