BEFORE YOU SAY "I DO".

Within the week that just passed, I was at work when a friend who was holding a book  walked up to me to discuss some work-related development. Before she left, I asked to see the book she was holding. Honestly I have forgotten the title of the book but I know it was a book on marriage because there was a quote behind the book which was so catchy that it got me thinking of something. The quote read "Before you plan your wedding, plan your marriage". When I saw it I was like "wow, I have never thought of this". I wondered if marriages that failed in the past would have worked out if the couples involved were privy to certain things before they tied the knot. Our generation is very lucky to have books and information on all subjects scattered everywhere. Our only problem is that we are sometimes not curious enough to find this information. Thinking of marriage, I began to realize that people, especially women had many bizarre reasons for entering into marriage. Just this past Saturday I was at a friend's wedding. As I sat waiting for the bride to be walked down the aisle by a proud father, the quote from the book I saw earlier run through my head and I started to ponder over it. First of all I focused my attention on the other young unmarried women who were at the wedding. I wondered what a lady's priority will be in a marriage considering her lifestyle as a single woman. I was wondering what was going through their minds when they dress beautifully to weddings especially the unattached ladies. Do ladies have an ideal age for marriage? I have always wondered if they felt insecure or that if they felt their time was running out whenever they attended a friend's ( someone who is the same age as them) wedding. What is more worrying was the fact that I wondered what went through the mind of a sister who saw her younger sibling get married before her. I was therefore scanning the faces of some of the young ladies in the room when it was time to kiss the bride and all, I could sense some of them showing mixed feelings. I may not be far from wrong but I think some of the expressions on their faces read " I am prettier than her so why am I still unmarried?" If you have ever attended the wedding of your girlfriend's friend with her, expect to hear things like "when are you coming to see my parents?", " I am not getting any younger, when are we taking our friendship to the next level?"on your way back home. Ladies, most guys are afraid of commitment and you would probably scare them if you constantly ask these questions. When you talk of weddings, the first thing you normally think of is the bride and in effect, the woman. Most people are of the view that one of the happiest days of any woman's life is her wedding day. I know most women have some of the world's wildest fantasies when it comes to getting married and planning their weddings. Some of their colour combinations when I hear them, they sound like chemical equations to me. An example is turquoise green. What colour is that? Green is green. That is just on the lighter side. Most women are more involved in day dreaming about their spectacular weddings and focus little on the marriage itself. I am not saying men are not at fault. My attention is on the women. Women are really amazing species and I believe that the world would have been a bitter place without them. My friends were having a discussion on what mattered most to them in marriage. Some were of the view that cooking mattered most, others were of the view that shelter was more important. When a woman gets married, she relegates a lot of things to the background. She takes on a number of jobs and adds them to her already tight schedule and it takes a lot of planning to pull this stunt off. People who normally think that marriage is a full time job either want to change jobs or put in their resignation letters (divorce) when marital situations overwhelm them. I think if we think of marriage as a commitment to a lifestyle, we will be aware that, just like a lifestyle, there will be times when things are good or bad but we still will not "abandon ship" due to those hardships. Let us therefore plan our marriages first before we plan our weddings because the wedding can take care of itself but the marriage cannot. Let us all consider this that marriage, like life, is a journey - not a destination - and that its treasures are found not just at the end but all along the way. Before we enter into marriage especially women, we must ponder over this that "Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal.  (Louis K. Anspacher)
Let us therefore strive to make our first marriages our only marriages by planning properly. My name is Edwin Oko Lamptey and this is a "married" R.A.T (RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT). More at randomafricanthoughts.blogspot.com