Which women are happier?

The happier woman is the one who has ample life choices and is aware of them. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Life is not a competition. By the time you get to your 20s, you should have learnt that the grass will always be greener on the other side.
  • Single or married, there’s always going to be someone doing better than you, or happier than you are.

A few days ago, a young mother was left enraged after a visit to a government health facility with her child.

While waiting in line, she noticed that the women accompanied by men seemed to be getting preferential treatment from the nurses.

She was enraged and rightly so. I mean, this is 2018 and one would expect that all this bias against unwed mothers would have died, but no.

A big part of society still feels that when it comes to marriage and motherhood, there is only one path for all women to walk. There’s still a lot of work to be done in this regard.

What I found more fascinating was how this incident sparked the never ending debate on which women are happier. The married women went first with how they always have someone to come home to.

Women on the other side of the tracks bragged about their freedom, not having to answer to or clean after anyone, and of course how they are not worried all the time about someone cheating on them.

WE'RE MISSING THE POINT

These arguments are all valid. But when we venture into such conversations, I’m afraid that we are missing the point.

First, life is not a competition. By the time you get to your 20s, you should have learnt that the grass will always be greener on the other side. Single or married, there’s always going to be someone doing better than you, or happier than you are.

Second, that single life decision that all women should make so they can find happiness doesn’t exist. Why? Because we are all cut from different cloths.

For some women, freedom to come and go is paramount. She will not be tied down and hates the fact that when in a long-term relationship, her every decision will directly affect another person.

On the flip side, there are women who just don’t know how to be single. Women who consider romantic relationships a big part of who they are. The kind of woman who will begin pursuing another relationship as soon the one she is in begins faltering.

It’s for the same reason we have women who find fulfilment in motherhood while others run away from it. The same way we have women who’ve never worn make-up their whole lives and others who will not leave the house without a full face.

So which women are happier? From where I stand, it is the woman who has ample life choices and is aware of them. The woman who is married not because she gave in to societal pressure or because it was the only option for her but the one who stays in a marriage because she wants to. The woman who makes this choice every day because her partner complements her. The happier woman is the one who is single not because she is trying to prove a point but because she chooses to be and is content that way.

Let’s stop with the competition because unless we are all from the same backgrounds and have gone through the exact same experiences, we can’t all be the same.