WEDDED IN A BLACK GOWN. - by Strength ⚜️

Everyone said she looked beautiful. Her mother cried when she saw her. Her aunties screamed. Someone somewhere said, “Finally!” and everybody laughed because supposedly marriage was not only a union between two people; it was also a public announcement that a woman had finally become acceptable. She smiled. That was the first thing she learnt to do well in marriage. Smile. The gown was beautiful. Expensive. Carefully fitted to her body, embroidered so delicately that she had spent almost ten minutes tracing the patterns with her fingers before putting it on. The veil fell over her face like a thin curtain, soft enough to hide her expression and transparent enough for everyone to believe she was glowing. She looked like a bride, but felt like a mourner. Nobody noticed, and maybe, that was the point. Her husband stood beside her in a black tuxedo, smiling for photographs, shaking hands, receiving blessings from elders who spoke of prosperity, fruitfulness and a marriage that would last forever. Forever. The word sounded beautiful when other people said it. She wondered how long forever was. At the reception, somebody raised a glass to the couple and said, “To the woman who has finally found security.” The room erupted in applause. She smiled again. Security. That was what they had called it. She had thought security would feel like freedom. Nobody had warned her that it could also feel like a beautifully furnished cage. Her husband was not a poor man, neither was he foolish. He was intelligent, connected and wealthy enough to make problems disappear with a phone call. He was the kind of man people respected before he entered a room. Unfortunately, respect was something he gave very selectively. He respected money. He respected influence. He respected men who could negotiate million-naira deals over breakfast. He respected his name. He respected himself. He simply did not know what to do with a woman who had dreams that did not revolve around him. Before the wedding, she had told him about her plans. She wanted to build something of her own, to write, to create. To have a life that belonged to her beyond being someone else’s wife/ He had listened.Or at least, he had looked like he was listening. After the wedding, whenever she mentioned those dreams, he laughed. Not cruelly but casually, dismissively, like a man amused by the adorable ambitions of a child. “You have everything now,” he would say. Everything.She began to hate that word.Everything. Because somehow, in having everything, she had lost the things she could not buy. Her voice.Her direction.Her excitement.Her certainty that her life belonged to her. One afternoon, she brought up an idea she had been developing for months. She had spent nights working on it quietly, writing notes in the margins of old notebooks because she had become embarrassed about being seen trying. He barely looked up from his phone. “Why do you want to stress yourself?”“I don't think it's stress.”“You don't need it.”“I know I don't need it.”“Then why do it?” She stared at him. Because I want to. The answer sat on her tongue, but she had become very good at swallowing things.. so she swallowed it. One day, she stood in front of her wardrobe and realised something frightening. She could not remember the last thing she had done simply because she wanted to. Everything had become a response. A response to expectations, marriage, appearances, his preferences, her mother’s earnings and society’s definition of a successful woman. She touched one of her wedding photographs. There she was. Smiling. Beautiful. Accomplished. Married. Safe. A woman everyone had congratulated. And suddenly she wondered; Was she actually happy? The question frightened her, not because she did not know the answer. But because she did. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked around the room. It was beautiful. Everything was beautiful. Except her. And that was the cruelest part. Nobody had forced her into poverty. No one has beaten her, or taken food from her mouth. They had simply offered her enough comfort to make her afraid of leaving.Enough money to make her question whether her dreams were worth fighting for.Enough approval to make her ashamed of wanting more. She looked again at the wedding photograph. At the white gown. At the woman beneath the veil, and for the first time, she understood why it felt black. Not because the marriage was necessarily evil. Not because every wealthy husband is a tyrant. Not because every woman who chooses security has made the wrong choice. But because she had entered the marriage mourning the woman she had been told she could no longer afford to become. Then she looked at herself in the mirror and whispered the question she had been avoiding since the wedding day. “If money is the only assurance I have here…”She paused. “Is that enough?”

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