Is Marriage worth waiting for?

I always wanted to get married early in life (at age 24) but I didn't. My experience taught that people who get married earlier than others are not necessarily better in character, more beautiful or better placed. They are just more fortunate, that is if you count marriage as good fortune.

The truth is that people of all ages get married everyday but sometimes it can be painful when as a 30 year old, you get your third heart break in the year and your 23 year old gets engaged and asks you to buy her Aso Ebi. You begin to wonder why especially since you know her boyfriend of two years and you can attest to the fact that he's a really great guy.

What is worse than that though is when you hear about your 37 year old friend who is getting a divorce but she only married a year and half ago, and all you do is scream "after waiting for so long?"

Take these three examples

Aunt B got married at 35 to a jerk. I never knew the guy so I never knew he was a jerk. It was a church arranged hook up but the man's mother never liked aunt B, so basically they had no one looking out for their good after the marriage. Aunt B is the last child so all her siblings have gone on to live their lives. Her parents are quite old. With the help of her mother in law, aunt B's marriage lasted about 2 years but she only enjoyed it for like 6 months, and remains childless and single now at the age of 42. Aunt B said that she knew she shouldn't marry the guy cos she saw some traits in him but by then she didn't have the courage to call it off because the wedding was around the corner when she noticed his wicked traits. They had a very short courtship.

Lady A met her beau online at the age of 35, after declaring that it was her year to get hitched. Six months later, lady A was pregnant for beau. Five months later, they had their traditional wedding and started preparing for white wedding. She later moved in with beau, who started acting up and postponing the wedding. She could never do anything right in his or his mother's eyes. Few months after the delivery of their son, she was kicked out of the house with her new born. No husband, no wedding… she just ended up as a single mother after 18 months of rigmaroling with a jerk. Just like Aunt B, lady A is the last child, with very very elderly siblings and really ageing parents. No one was looking out for her, and all that happened to her happened far from Nigeria.

Business mogul B met a guy who she told my mum was a pastor in her church. She was one of the leading caterers in Lagos and money wasn't a problem for her at all. The only thing was that she was single even though she was very devoted to the things of God. I used to see her every Monday at singles fellowship in the days of pastor Bimbo though I was still in uni then. Anyway at the age of 37-38, she finally marries 'pastor' and that was the last we heard of her. He cut her off from her family, took over her business affairs, seized her phones and all her means of communication with the outside world. She fell ill very shortly after that, and he made her do strenuous work while ill. She was the only child between her father and mother so all the siblings she had were halves and steps. I don't know how she did it but her family came to find out about how this business mogul had been transformed into a slave. Unfortunately, before anyone could take action, he had called her family to come and pick her corpse in the hospital. It was then they discovered that ‘pastor’ was not really a pastor but just some young active worker in church looking to take advantage of single ladies desperate for marriage

This last case was very painful to my mum because she had gone from my mum's caterer to her close friend. And her life was far better before she met this guy that sent her to an early grave.


The common factor in these 3 cases is that the women involved, including their families chose to ignore obvious flaws in these men because they felt age wasn't on their side anymore.

To that I say, rubbish. At no age should we stop being cautious when choosing a life partner. If we were cautious at 25, we should be cautious at 35, and even at 45... No matter how slim our options seem to be. As long as you are single, be cautious. Do not choose to manage, do not choose to settle.

Or what is the use, after waiting all these years, being tagged a late bloomer , then get married only to become single again after few months or worse, become miserable for the rest of one’s life?

If we have waited all these years, then we better do it right?