THE BIG QUESTION: Is Having Kids Out Of Wedlock A Solution To Delay Marriages For Middle Aged Women?

When I was growing up, baby before marriage was only common among the most disadvantaged. Most of these children were teenagers who were considered to be ’very bad’ and no parent wanted their children to associate with such people. Because in the African society there is a sequence for success: education, job, marriage, and children. Anything less than that was and is still considered inappropriate.

However in recent times, a new trend has developed among most middle aged women. Most of these women have had good upbringing with the best jobs you can think of. In the area of education they have excellent credentials and were brought up to be what society would call ideal women with lifestyles worth emulating.

After attaining the first two essentials of the societal sequence-education and a good job, the third in line seems to have become difficult for most of these women. While some people argue that the inability of highly educated women to get married at the ‘appropriate’ age is because most men feel intimidated by these women, others insist that these women have a wish to marry ‘high standard’ men who do not exist. Others claim these women spend too many years in school that they fail to invest precious time in relationships that may lead to marriage.

I was talking to one of my very good friends-Yaaba who has a PhD, a good job and is still very single. I know she is ready to settle and eagerly looking forward to settling down and have a family of her own.

As beautiful and as educated as Yaaba is, one would wonder why she is still on the market. My curiosity made me asked her one day if it was her attitude or something about her that kept most of the men away, this is what she said.

“When men find out I’m a PhD student, they either end the conversation or make really lame comments about how they can’t measure up. Even male medical students and law students end conversations with me when they find out I’m just as educated as they are (if not more).

I find it really hard to believe that all men are insecure like this. I know I’m attractive and I have good social skills, so what’s up with this? Why am I not getting asked out more often? I am thinking of having kids and then forget about the prospect of marriage altogether”

Yaaba is just one woman out of a pool of Ghanaian women facing this problem. Are men really threatened by highly educated women?

The tragedy of men is that they fear giving women freedom. They fear losing control of them.

The point I am driving at is that, most of these women who do not get married have found a way of lessening the pressure society puts on them by having babies out of wedlock. This pandemic if I am allowed to call it so, is gaining grounds among most black women in the world at large.

A recent research by a women advocacy group shows that 50 percent of most educated women had babies outside the walls of marriage.

Is the forbidden now becoming the new normal? Is the pressure on women to marry at a certain age weakened by having children out of wedlock? Is the act of having children by middle aged women the new escape route from desperation?

Whatever happened to the importance of having a father figure at home? If you ask me I think father figures are no longer figure, as more and more women think money and a good job are a better substitute for a man in the home.

Let me add that, there are women who have had kids out of wedlock without planning or prior preparation. Others had their kids at an early age before becoming successful. That is not much of an issue to me.

My worry  is how the twenty something and thirty something have become the new teen mom… And the fact that most of these pregnancies are planned simply baffles me.

Just as it used to be the case when teenagers were shamed; should we shame these women who have babies out of wedlock? I think we should not make excuses for them because children need more than a successful mother to make it n life.

Again I ask, what exactly are the reasons for such a shift and why is it becoming acceptable among Africans?

Written By Joana Makeba Akaziru For GhanaCelebrities.Com