Marriage is Like Kitchenware and It Doesn’t Matter What Men Want.
Last Sunday afternoon found me on my knees, waist deep in the corner cupboard of my kitchen, looking for the damned lid for my favorite saucepan. Here it is! … no, too big … finally! … mmm, no—steamer top … aha! … God, I don’t know what this one fits. Eventually, like a real-life, natural-haired Goldilocks, I found the just-right topper, and dinner was saved. That old saying is right: There is a lid for every pot.
That adage is about love and not cooking. In fact, the idea of a woman finding a partner, who uniquely fits who she is, has been lost amid concern (-trolling) about female singleness, especially black female singleness. America’s new national pastime is schooling black women, nearly 46 percent of whom have never married*, on what we need to change to convince some guy to put a ring on it. In other words, ladies: If you can’t find the lid, the pot must need “fixing.”
Often the (heteronormative) suggestion is that black single women need to better understand the allegedly universal needs of men. To be fair, Cosmo and Glamour were telling women how to please men long before Steve Harvey, Michael Baisden, and Tyrese became authors. Blaming women for being single is a sexist problem with a deep history. And the rhetoric is — and always has been — off base:
It sells women short
Relentless criticism of single black women is predicated on the idea that a woman not chosen as a wife is somehow defective. That is not how we view single men. (And, by the way, nearly 49 percent of black men have never married.) Singleness does not equal brokenness. Not every woman wants to get married. Not every woman wants a man. And even women who want to marry someday can have full and happy lives should that dream not come true.
It sells men short
All men are not the same. All black men are not the same. Any romantic advice predicated on men being simple creatures only interested in having sex and being “the leader” in all things is offensive. The men I know are far deeper and more complicated than that.
It’s not the way to a healthy relationship
The other day, I asked my husband of nearly 12 years what he thinks is the key to a successful marriage. He said the best thing you can do to ensure a good marriage is to know yourself, what you need, and what you want; then choose a partner wisely. I agree. (And that, by the way, is one reason of many why I married my sweetie: He’s a smart guy.)
For more than a year, I have been interviewing black women for a book on love and marriage and have been lucky to hear sistahs talk about their real-life relationships and depth of connection with their partners.
Danielle, a married 30-something awaiting her first child, said of her husband, “From the moment we got together, it was perfect. We were very much in the same place. We have a lot in common — a similar mindset and way of thinking.” Recalling the word games the couple likes to play, she adds, “The nerds inside us speak to each other.”
The action plan being sold to black women is, sadly, not one likely to result in the kind of love Danielle describes, based on friendship, mutual respect, and common ground. How can a black woman find someone to love her just as she is if she is constantly encouraged to be someone else — to execute some rote and reductive performance to appeal to the opposite sex?
On a literal lid hunt, one looks for the top that suits the particular contours and properties of the bottom. No one would dream of perching a saucepan lid on a cast iron skillet and expect the fried chicken to turn out right. And you wouldn’t take a hammer to your crockpot to make some random cover fit. But society constantly bangs on black women in an effort to mold us into something allegedly more attractive to potential partners — as if our needs are secondary and as if they don’t really care about healthy partnerships, but just marriage for marriage’s sake.
Committed love isn’t about learning what “men” want and waiting to be chosen; it is about knowing what you want, choosing the right man (or the right woman), and working toward mutual happiness.
And I’m glad that 15 year olds aren’t married.
I thought i was the only one who caught that “interesting” population sample.haha!
Thank you for your comment. I know that statistic is strange, but it is how the Census measures marriage statistics. Not sure why, but my guess is that maybe somewhere in the US people may be able to marry at 15 with parental consent.
Alabama The age of consent is eighteen. With parental consent, parties can marry at age fourteen. However, this parental consent is not required if the minor has already been married…(?!)
um, there are plenty of children in the black community…
Great article
No human being NEEDS a relationship with another human being to live a happy life. No one needs a woman or a man. People have been living wonderful life without partners, marriages and kids for a long time. I think this has long been settled.
Mrs. TAMI WINFREY HARRIS said: “Committed love isn’t about learning what “men” want and waiting to be CHOSEN.” And then she get kind of confusing in the very next sentence saying: It is about knowing what you want, CHOOSING the right man (or the right WOMAN), and working toward mutual happiness. So she simply finds the most confusing way to acknowledge that we are all going to be a choice to our desired partner all the while trying her best to take away all the responsibilities from women to make themselves the BEST CHOICE to their desired men.
Please don’t get me wrong here. I really like this article. I only disagree with some of the last paragraph. I’d prefer it like this: Committed relationship is about knowing what we want and learning what our (desired) partner wants so we can work on building something together. I just think it is a smart idea for a woman to learn about the quality of woman the man she desired may want. Let me tell you this one clearer way. A MAN DOESN’T NEED A WOMAN. A man may want to do a certain things in life with a woman just like a woman may want to do a certain things in life with a man.
“A MAN DOESN’T NEED A WOMAN”
yes, we do…
We as a society will always need both gender. Please, don’t confuse A MAN with WE. Society’s needs is very different from what one person cannot live with.
Every individual man and woman can and a lot of people do live without a man or a woman. Society cannot live without neither. That is pretty clear in the article itself.
No man we don’t, we have trained to think that way from birth.
Tonton Michel We men wouldn’t be here if it was not for a women, a women was our first teacher and you need to go and come back again!
Where do you get the Idea of a world without women from? How could anyone even imagine such a thing? We’re talking about our INDIVIDUAL NEEDS here. This means what ONE human being cannot survive without, like water and food.
I don’t wanna live life without a woman, just like you. I love women, just like you. however unlike you, I have spent long and happy years of my life without any woman in it, and I will find ways to enjoy my life if at any point the woman of my desired doesn’t want me no more (I can either find another one or stay happily single forever).
Perspective, believe it or not men are still running things, dysfunctional black community or not, men set the bar. Women are told they need to change to appease to men if they want to get married, because by patriarchal standards, men do the proposing, men find their wife; not the other way around. Men are never told they need to change or mold themselves to find a mate, and they are not looked at funny if they are still single by a certain age.
Black women are NOT withholding black men from building families, communities, palaces, castles and nations. Black men are the ones holding themselves back and making a whole bunch of excuses in the process; in a still very male dominated, male run patriarchal society, scape goating. The black woman is always the scape goat for the black man’s problems. She is always THE problem.
“Black women are NOT withholding black men from building families, communities, palaces, castles and nations.”
And this is the truth that his kind HATE to face. It ain’t happening here in America and it’s not happening any place else where black men are concentrated.
:O :O :O
How dare you fill clutch with your well thought out responses brimming with common sense Stanley!!!!
makes me fortunate that i chose to not base my existence on bearing kids and chasing after a ring.
*shrug* diff’rent strokes…