Marriage pressure.

I remember the year I finished the Nigeria compulsory service popularly called youth service, the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC). My father called me, he said he needed to see me in the village. I was wondering what happened. At some point, I was worried, but I kept calm after I called my mother to ask if there was any issue on the ground, and she said no. The following day, I was at home in the village. Do you know why my father sent for me? Just guess. Laughing out loud whenever I remember what he said to me. Back to the contest hints.

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Marriage pressure is that urgency to be married or to get married. The pressure could be from people or from oneself.

Pressure by others could be from family members, friends and people around you trying to persuade you to get married for some known and unknown reasons.

Meanwhile, pressure on oneself can come when an individual feels he/she is ageing and no one shows interest in marrying them. That happens to ladies most especially. At that point, they feel left behind and sometimes lonely and, so, they want to be married at all cost to whoever is ready for marriage to them, whether good or bad. Or maybe all your friends and family members are all married except you. You'll be personally pressed to get married in order to feel among.

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There are many reasons, but I'll only highlight a few.

1. Ageing: when people clock a certain age, African society feel they should be married and if they don't get married, they'll be pressured into getting married before it gets too late.

2. Procreation issues: Most people are pressured to get married in order not to exceed the age of procreation, basically for women. People believe if a woman gets to a certain age without getting married or having children, she may clock menopause and may not be able to have children of their own again. And so, pressure to be married comes in so that she can have children to avoid clocking menopause.

3. Raising children: Apart from procreation, our society believes that early marriage will enable one to have children in time and also raise them effectively. This is because it is believed that when people are young they can take care of their children rather than in old age. It is believed that when you get married and get children, you'll raise the children up to a great level before you get old, because raising children at an old age can be challenging compared to when one is young.

4. Unwanted pregnancy: most people are pressured into marriage because they are pregnant or have a child with a man. Because of the pregnancy/child in the picture, they must get married in order to rub off public shame or mockery of having a child out of wedlock.

5. Financial status: people are usually pressed to marry people out of their wish because the partner they will be getting married to is wealthy. They may not care about anything else. They think by pressuring the person to get married to a wealthy man, especially, their poverty will come to an end as the man will be used as a source of income.

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I don't support being pressured to get married. Meanwhile, I think some pressures can be on the positive side sometimes. For instance, we have one of our family members who is a man of over 50 years. He has refused to get married. He had a child while he was in secondary school. That child is his only consolation.

He has never been married to any woman in his life before because he has a very bad character. He doesn't tolerate, he feels he is better than everyone because he is a PhD holder, he is rude and arrogant. People and family members have introduced different kinds of women, even tried to match make him, yet, no way, because the man has a very difficult character and he's not ready to change or amend some of his bad behaviours.

If it's for people like this man's case, he should be pressured to marry by fire. Other than that, no one should be pressured to get married in other to avoid regret in the future.

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• It may lead into being in relationship/marriage with the wrong partner. The partners may not love each other or may even be abusive.

• Since it wasn't based on true love and passion, the marriage may not last long

• It can lead to emotional and psychological problems where the individuals begin to think low of themselves.

It may not be easy, please take your time. Rushing into marriage due to pressure by people may lead to so many things. It's better late than marrying the wrong partner. Getting married to the wrong person is as good as being in hell already.

I'm inviting @nsisong2022 @missyleo @ruthjoe