In many countries including some African countries, the dream of many people is beyond the ordinary.
It goes beyond simply being alive to living the life that you have in full and without dogmatic social restrictions. It involves you making conscious and feasible choices.
In Ghana, many of us have lost track of the dream and given in to a lower level of making a day to day living.
Women especially are less motivated and not eager to achieve beyond their immediate world. When a young woman leaves school, what are the expectations? Right after University, the most prominent among questions she receives from both friends and relatives is; ‘when are you getting married?’ They will not ask about her job or how her pays her bills or who will even finance the marriage.
At weddings she will be grilled, at funerals, birthdays and any small gathering, she will be asked ten times. There is a saying that the education and development of the women in a country go a long way to determine the level of development of the country in general and I believe in this…
Educated and achieving women have children who are more likely to grow up right and achieve higher.
In Ghana, it seems the dream of many is immediate marriage after school. Countless young people are pressured into marriages before they can even blink or reach to the next level of life after school. They get into marriages, get busy with it, have way more babies than they can take care of and spend forever trying to make ends meet. Before they know it, the years have flown by them and life is over. Then they wonder, what did I do with my life? What did you see of the world, what did you achieve?
While many young people in the West leave school and fight their way up the development ladder to make a name and reputation in their chosen fields, those in some Africa countries (especially Ghana) come out of school and compete over who marries first. Many consider marriage as the highest form of blessing for a woman. Grim situation!
How did we arrive at such a situation where marriage is the ultimate achievement? Such people do not even care to whom or how it will shape their future. They do not understand that marriage can make or break you and your future. All we know is get married to anyone, anyhow. As long as you are married it is an achievement.
Meanwhile thousands of people wallow in marriages that are bleeding their lives out.
My question is; What is your dream?
Nice article. I guess that has always been the Ghanian mentality. Societal pressure is the main factor here. People are been forced to get married because of some non -existing/unnecessary age bracket, society has set such that we marry these days neglecting the impact it has on our future. People rush into it and quickly find out that marriage doesnt always produce the beautiful things it promises. I guess u should marry when you have a career at least or on course to achieve same and most importantly the requisite mentality to recognise that you are married and that everthing changes after marriage. There has to be re-orientation though on priorities after completing the tertiary education.
You are right on point. My Mum used to pressure me to marry my long time boyfriend since its the Ghanian tradition and in my case, I had a child with him, but I knew in my heart he wasn’t the one for me, eventually she let go, am still not married but am very happy. Although am single, am in a better place now. I have started a new business and life couldn’t be better.
Well your article makes some very accurate points but you forget to make note about the differences in the job market in other westernized countries n countries such as Ghana where finding job after uni is very difficult. Job opportunities for women in countries like UK is endless where as the Ghanaian culture still limits women abilities to what they cant and can do and for some reason makes family seem Luke the main priority priority yo women.
I am working and still schooling to achieve a higher level in my job and my education…Apart from this, it is part of my dreams to settle down and have a family so i am working seriously on that too… i intend to achieve all my dreams(if not all, at least 90%) so i am working on all of them, marriage isnt all the dream i have but it is part of the major ones…