Marriage is much more than the wedding day

Many women place too much expectation on the wedding itself, when really the focus should be on the marriage

BY THE time you read this, the confetti will have been swept up from my church floor and the hired red carpet returned to the owners. Most importantly, I will be Mrs John Agwike.

Saying "I do" is something I have fantasised about since I was a little girl.

Asiphe Ndlela, a psychologist, says I was not acting out of the ordinary. Almost all women start planning their magical day from a young age.

"The idea of walking down the aisle with their Prince Charming in a beautiful wedding gown is something in many young girls' heads from as early as seven," she says.

EXPECTATIONS ON WOMEN

Ndlela attributes this fantasy to societal pressure and expectations on women.

"Society portrays relationships and marriage as the ultimate end-goal for women. Girls are taught to prepare for their weddings from an early age, single women are ridiculed, and divorcees are considered failures."

She says cultural belief is that getting married makes your life stable. Having kids gives you a purpose in life.

"Every book, television show, movie, or song marketed towards girls always focuses on falling in love, getting married and living happily ever after. From Cinderella and Prince Charming to Prince William and Kate Middleton and Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, women are inundated with the idea that they will never be truly happy until they find that perfect man and walk down the aisle.

"What naturally comes along with this pressure to get married is the guilt, particularly from mothers, when women are not yet wed.

"As a woman gets older, the level of guilt is ratcheted up exponentially with each year that passes without a set wedding date.

"At every family gathering women attend without a fiancé they are forced to endure torture that involves hearing about every other relative or friend who is getting married soon or whose wedding was a huge success."

Another thing is the constant barrage of images women see their entire lives which place them all on the inevitable path towards marriage.

Ndlela adds that there are so few examples of unmarried women in the media that a test exists for movies and television shows to determine whether you can expect to see the female characters talking about more than just men and relationships.

"Women are expected to do just about anything to get a man and raise a family: lose weight, act demure, play hard-to-get and so on."

LOSING FOCUS ON WHAT'S IMPORTANT

Psychotherapist Diana Parkinson says many women place too much expectation on the wedding itself, when really the focus should be on the marriage.

"I've noticed an increase in the number of women feeling depressed in the wake of their wedding. I've even had women say they are not in love with their husbands and just wanted the lavish wedding."

She says many brides become obsessed with planning their big day and spend tens of thousands of rands. They lose sight of the fact that it's about two people joining their lives together and declaring their undying love for one another.

Ndlela says women today are capable of doing just about everything a man can do.

"They are doctors, lawyers, journalists and athletes but when it comes to the thought of going through life as a single woman a chill shoots through our spines."

FEELING SPECIAL

Ndlela says the reason for this is that marriage is a man's declaration to the world that a woman is so special that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

The feeling of being so special to someone has a dramatic effect on women, not only on her feelings but also on the chemical reactions in her brain.

Research shows that a woman's orgasm rate is four to five times higher in a marital bed and two to three times higher in a monogamous relationship.

Some reasons why women want to get married from www.askmen.com:

• Need for security. Not only economical - a woman can provide that herself - but emotional security;
• Happy, stable marriages are still the most reliable way to bring up happy, healthy children;
• Need for commitment from a partner.
• Social stability;
• Need to fulfil childhood dreams and fairy tales that promise a prince for every girl, who is going to romance her, adore her, provide for her and make her happy the rest of her life;
• Social conditioning that a woman needs to be married to be considered successful.