Marriage can be one of the most beautiful unions two people will ever experience. At its best, it offers companionship, emotional safety, friendship, intimacy, mutual respect, shared responsibility, and the opportunity for two people to build a meaningful life together. But marriage should never require a woman to sacrifice her dignity, mental health, physical safety, financial security, or identity simply so society can continue calling her “a wife.”
Across many African communities, marriage still carries enormous social significance for women. Africa is diverse, and no single experience represents all African women, men, families, or marriages. Many African marriages are healthy and loving, and many African husbands and fathers are responsible, supportive, and deeply committed to their families. At the same time, research has documented how patriarchal expectations, gender inequality, male-dominant social norms, and attitudes toward intimate partner violence can make leaving unhealthy relationships particularly difficult for some African women (Stark et al., 2020).
For many women, the question eventually shifts from “Am I happy, respected, and safe in this marriage?” to “What will people say if I leave?”
That question alone can keep a woman suffering in silence for years.
Social media has added another layer of complexity. We now live in an era where some marriages can look perfect online while falling apart privately. Matching African outfits, anniversary photographs, expensive vacations, flowers, birthday tributes, coordinated family pictures, elaborate weddings, and captions declaring “my king,” “my forever,” and “my best friend” can create a beautiful public image.
However, Facebook does not live inside anyone’s home. Instagram does not know what happens when the bedroom door closes. TikTok cannot tell us whether a woman feels emotionally safe with her husband.
A beautiful photograph is not proof of a beautiful marriage. A wedding ring is not evidence of respect. Twenty years together does not necessarily mean twenty years of happiness.
For some women, protecting the appearance of the marriage becomes almost as important as protecting the marriage itself. Some women may contribute substantially to, or even finance, their own weddings. There is nothing inherently wrong with a woman paying for her wedding if that is her choice. The problem begins when a woman feels pressured to financially and emotionally manufacture an image of marital success while privately experiencing humiliation, infidelity, coercive control, financial abuse, psychological abuse, sexual violence, or physical violence.
She may post a beautiful anniversary photograph at noon and cry herself to sleep that night. Her followers see the photograph. They do not see the tears.
The World Health Organization has estimated that nearly one in three women globally has experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence by a non-partner during her lifetime (World Health Organization [WHO], 2026). Research across sub-Saharan African countries has likewise documented a substantial burden of intimate partner violence, although prevalence differs considerably across countries, communities, and populations (Muluneh et al., 2021).
However, when some African women finally find the courage to leave, society may begin interrogating the woman instead of examining what happened to her.
Why couldn’t you keep your husband?
What did you do?
Who will marry you now?
What about the children?
Why couldn’t you stay for the children?
Perhaps society needs to ask different questions: Was she safe? Was she respected? Was she being abused? Was the father fulfilling his responsibilities? What happened inside that marriage that eventually made leaving healthier than staying?
A divorced woman is not a failed woman. A single mother did not impregnate herself. However, in some African communities, divorced and single mothers can experience stigma while divorced men are given considerably more social freedom to move forward. A divorced man may quickly begin another relationship, remarry, and receive congratulations for “moving on.” In contrast, some divorced mothers are scrutinized, blamed, pitied, sexualized, or treated as though the end of a marriage permanently reduced their value.
Why should having the courage to leave mistreatment make a woman less respectable than enduring it? Why should motherhood be used against a woman when those children have a father too?
A woman does not become a second-class citizen because her marriage ended.
The story of Fatou and Modou.
On social media, Fatou appears to have everything. Every anniversary, she posts beautiful photographs with Modou. “My king. My best friend. My forever.” Her friends comment, “Marriage goals!” Fatou responds with hearts.
What nobody sees is what happens after Fatou puts down her phone.
Modou humiliates her during arguments. He controls the household finances. He insults her intelligence. He repeatedly betrays her trust. At times, his behavior becomes threatening and physically abusive.
Fatou thinks about leaving, but then she hears the voices around her: “Stay for your children.” “Marriage requires patience.” “Some men are just like that.” “After everything you have invested, you are going to let another woman enjoy your husband?”
So Fatou stays.
Eventually, she is no longer staying because the marriage is healthy. She stays because she fears the social consequences of becoming a divorced African woman. She stays for appearances. She stays because of family pressure. She worries about raising her children alone. She does not want another woman to “win.” She fears becoming the woman everyone discusses at weddings, naming ceremonies, religious gatherings, and family functions.
Then she uploads another photograph: “My forever.”
Nevertheless, privately, very little “forever” remains.
Eventually, Modou becomes involved with a woman Fatou once considered a friend. The betrayal is devastating. However, instead of asking whether Modou deserves continued access to her life, Fatou finds herself pulled into a competition with another woman.
This is where male-centered competition can become destructive. The girlfriend may feel satisfied believing she was desirable enough for a married man to choose her. Fatou may become even more determined to keep Modou because she refuses to allow another woman to “take” her husband.
However, neither woman is winning.
A woman does not win because her friend’s husband sleeps with her. A wife does not win simply because she manages to keep an abusive or repeatedly unfaithful husband. Moreover, while a person who knowingly becomes involved with a friend’s spouse is responsible for betraying that friendship, she should not carry all the responsibility for the husband’s infidelity. The person who made the marital commitment remains responsible for honoring that commitment.
This brings us to what is popularly called “pick-me culture.”
In some communities, girls and women are encouraged to compete for male approval: cook better, tolerate more, remain quieter, forgive everything, become more submissive, appear more sexually desirable, and prove that they are better “wife material” than another woman. These expectations can teach women to measure themselves against other women instead of evaluating the behavior of the man standing between them.
African women are not contestants, and marriage is not a trophy.
This is why many African women need to learn what it means to decenter men without demonizing men. Decentering the African man does not mean hating African men. It does not mean rejecting marriage, healthy masculinity, fatherhood, or loving relationships. It means rejecting the idea that a woman’s greatest accomplishment is being selected, desired, married, or retained by a man.
A woman existed before becoming somebody’s wife, and she continues to exist after becoming somebody’s ex-wife.
Her education matters. Her career matters. Her financial security matters. Her mental health matters. Her healthy friendships matter. Her spirituality matters. Her children matter. Her purpose matters. Her dreams matter.
She matters.
This is particularly important for the African girl child. Teach her to prioritize education and financial security before marriage. Teach her financial literacy. Teach her how to earn, save, invest, budget, and build a career or profession. Teach her that marriage should complement the life she is building rather than become her only life.
Research across sub-Saharan Africa has found important relationships among education, socioeconomic circumstances, gender attitudes, and intimate partner violence, although those relationships are complex and vary considerably by setting (Bhuwania et al., 2022; Gibbs et al., 2021).
Education does not guarantee that a woman will never experience abuse. Money cannot guarantee a healthy husband. A doctorate cannot prevent betrayal. A successful career cannot force another person to respect you. However, education and financial security can give many women something extraordinarily important: choices.
A woman with choices is better positioned to ask, “Do I actually want to remain in this marriage?” rather than, “How will my children and I eat if I leave?”
We must also stop romanticizing female suffering as strength.
For generations, many African women have been praised for enduring circumstances that should never have been normalized. Remaining silent while being humiliated is not necessarily patience. Accepting repeated betrayal is not automatically loyalty. Living in fear is not respect. Losing yourself to maintain the appearance of marriage is not evidence of successful womanhood.
Moreover, “stay for the children” should never automatically end the conversation.
Children do not learn relationships only from what adults tell them. They also learn by observing adults. When children repeatedly witness intimidation, humiliation, violence, hostility, or profound disrespect between their parents, those experiences can affect their emotional security and their understanding of relationships.
Sometimes preserving the appearance of a family comes at the expense of the people actually living inside that family.
Mental health must therefore be part of this conversation. For some women, separation and divorce may involve grief, depression, anxiety, loneliness, financial strain, trauma symptoms, reduced self-esteem, sleep difficulties, or social isolation. Survivors of intimate partner violence can experience depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress symptoms, and other significant psychological consequences (WHO, 2026). Research has also examined relationships among stigma, self-esteem, and mental health among divorced single mothers (Park & Kim, 2023).
Some women struggle tremendously after divorce. Some experience temporary grief. Some require professional mental-health support. Others experience enormous relief after finally leaving an unhealthy environment.
Divorce itself is not a mental illness, and a divorced woman should not be pathologized simply because her marriage ended.
Healing is not always immediate. A woman may have to rediscover an identity she buried beneath years of marriage, motherhood, caregiving, and survival. She may need therapy. She may need prayer. She may need supportive friendships and family. She may need financial counseling or legal assistance. Most importantly, she may need time.
There should be no shame in any of it.
We must normalize healing just as loudly as some societies have normalized women’s endurance.
We must also normalize holding fathers accountable after separation and divorce. A man can divorce his wife, but he cannot divorce his children.
However, some single mothers are left carrying most of the physical, emotional, logistical, and financial responsibilities of raising children while society continues criticizing them because their marriages ended. If we genuinely believe in family responsibility, accountability cannot stop with mothers.
Fatherhood does not end when romantic love ends. Child support is not a favor. Showing up emotionally for your own children is not babysitting. Raising children remains both parents’ responsibility.
Society should direct at least as much scrutiny toward an absent father as it directs toward the mother raising his children.
To the African girl child, understand this before the world convinces you otherwise: You deserve better.
Learn who you are before becoming someone’s wife. Educate yourself. Build a career or develop a skill. Understand money. Build financial security. Protect your mental health. Develop healthy friendships. Know your boundaries. Know your value before someone else attempts to determine it for you.
Marriage can be extraordinarily beautiful when two people genuinely love, respect, protect, communicate with, and support one another. Many African marriages demonstrate that beauty every day, and those marriages deserve to be celebrated.
However, when persistent abuse, humiliation, violence, coercive control, fear, and profound disrespect replace safety and love, remaining married at any cost should not be treated as a woman’s moral obligation.
Sometimes choosing yourself means seeking counseling and rebuilding a marriage when both people genuinely want change and safety can be established. Sometimes choosing yourself means establishing stronger boundaries. Sometimes it means separation.
Moreover, sometimes choosing yourself means saying, “Enough.”
African women must collectively challenge the idea that our worth depends on whether a man chooses us. We must stop competing with other women for unhealthy relationships. Stop treating another woman’s divorce as entertainment. Stop calling single mothers failures. Stop teaching girls that becoming a wife is more important than becoming themselves. Stop asking abused women what they did to provoke abuse. Stop expecting mothers to raise children alone while making excuses for disengaged fathers. Stop teaching women that tolerating everything makes them “wife material.” Moreover, stop allowing social media to convince us that every smiling photograph represents happiness.
To every African woman who has ever been made to believe that divorce makes her less valuable: you are not second-class. You are not damaged goods. You are not somebody’s leftover.
You do not have to settle because you have children. You do not have to accept disrespect because you have been married before. You do not have to compete with another woman for love. Moreover, you do not owe society a lifetime of unhappiness to maintain the title of “wife.”
Some marriages end.
The woman does not end with them.
Let the next generation of African girls inherit something different. Let them know that marriage is beautiful, but self-respect is essential. Let them understand that love should never require self-erasure. Let them know that motherhood does not diminish womanhood and divorce does not cancel their future. Let them know that another woman’s marriage is not a competition. Let them prioritize education and financial security and build identities that extend beyond romantic relationships.
Let them know that they can love African men deeply without making male validation the center of their existence.
Let them choose healthy love rather than simply choosing marriage.
And above all, remind the African girl child that choosing herself is not selfish. Sometimes choosing herself is the beginning of her healing.
By:
Dr. Mimi Fatou Ceesay.
Journalist / Psychologist
Marriage and Family Therapist.
References:
Bhuwania, P., et al. (2022). Tuition-free secondary education and women’s attitudes toward intimate partner violence: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. World Development Perspectives.
Gibbs, A., et al. (2021). Economic empowerment and intimate partner violence: A secondary data analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys in sub-Saharan Africa. BMC Women’s Health, 21.
Muluneh, M. D., et al. (2021). Effects of rural–urban residence and education on intimate partner violence among women in sub-Saharan Africa: A meta-analysis of health survey data. BMC Women’s Health, 21.
Park, S., & Kim, S. (2023). Self-stigma and mental health in divorced single-parent women: Mediating effect of self-esteem. Healthcare, 11.
Stark, L., et al. (2020). Evidence of sociocultural factors influencing intimate partner violence among young women in sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review. BMJ Open.
World Health Organization. (2026). Violence against women.
