The Beauty You Designed

Hi Daddy,

I haven’t written to you in a while. There’s been so much going on in my life that I’ve kinda just lost my spark. I honestly think I’m just coasting right now. Just existing.

But I had a thought today. My man and I have been talking about marriage a lot, and I think because that’s the phase I am in life right now, I’m noticing a lot more around it. Everything just feels a lot more amplified.

I went on Twitter today, just doomscrolling like always, and I saw this tweet from a lady saying she really wants to get a clove tattoo on her left shoulder but she doesn’t have "another husband" yet. Ascribing to the fact that her husband wouldn't let her. Another lady responded saying she had to beg her husband for almost four years before he finally let her get a second ear piercing.

And you know me. You know this isn’t really about tattoos or piercings. It’s about the part that’s not said out loud. The part where a woman has to beg for her own autonomy. And it just bothered me. Does being married mean you stop having your own mind, your own voice?

It’s a rhetorical question for me because I’m confident in the man you gave me. I have never had to question my autonomy with him. But still, it worries me, seeing how so many awful, awful narratives about marriage are being pushed. How marriage is painted like a place where women are meant to shrink or disappear.

It disgusts me.

And it’s not even about gender wars. It’s about how some women have created entire discourses around lowering or removing the voice God gave them. And encouraging others to do the same.

But you didn’t make marriage like that. You said that two would become one, not one erasing the other. You made marriage beautiful. A covenant, not a prison. A partnership, not oppression. You said in your word that "two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor" (Ecclesiastes 4:9). That’s what marriage is meant to be. Something that lifts, not something that crushes.

I guess I can’t believe that my first letter to you in months is a rant. Looool.

Your ever loving daughter.