Have you ever dated someone for maybe a year and then all of a sudden, you get bombarded with, “So when are you guys gonna get married?!?!”Sometimes women are notorious for shaming other women for not wanting to have children or get married, but why is that? Can’t a woman create her idea of a perfect and meaningful life? The greatest writer to have ever done it, Shonda Rhimes, joined Oprah for a conversation on the Supersoul Sunday show. She confessed loud and proud, “I have never wanted to get married.”
Rhimes says that she’s never been interested in marriage because she believes that there’s so much pressure put on older women to marry and have children. “You’re supposed to want it, and if you don’t want it, what’s wrong with you?” she questions. Sure, she’s always wanted three daughters, but that doesn’t mean that she needed a husband to do so. Rhimes clarified that she loves to date and loves having a boyfriend, but she made it abundantly clear when she told Oprah, “I do not want a husband in my house.”
The 45-year-old never said these words out loud and is finding it incredibly liberating! “[It] feels obvious and maybe silly or something to people who are married or people who are older, people who have been through it, but if you’re a woman in your thirties or forties, that’s a big deal. Everybody’s asking you all the time if it’s going to happen … There’s a huge amount of pressure.” Oprah agreed, but chose to open up about her experiences with being engaged and deciding not to marry.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever said this publicly, but I really wanted to be wanted to be married to,” Oprah said. “I wanted Stedman to want to marry me. The moment he asked me to marry him I was, like… ‘Now I actually have to get married?'” The mogul revealed that her long-time partner, Stedman, proposed to her back in 1993 while her career was popping off and she was getting ready to write a book (that never happened). Oprah went into further detail and explained that their wedding would have been overshadowed by everyone’s curiosity about her book and Stedman definitely didn’t want that. So, they chose to postpone the wedding…
It’s now been 22 years and Oprah doesn’t care to get married anymore. “What I realized is, I don’t want to be married,” she said, “Because I could not have the life that I created for myself … I knew that I couldn’t do it.” Rhimes knew what her mentor was feeing all too well as she doesn’t believe that there’s enough time and space for her to have a husband. “I have so much going on inside my head in terms of writing, there’s such a large space in my life taken up by that. I can’t imagine it being taken up by a husband and children and writing, and everything getting its due. I don’t believe there is room for all of it. I really don’t.”
Roommates, what’s your position on marriage? Do you think that marriage is the only way to prove you love someone? Tell us what you think in the comments!
Source Cited: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/shonda-rhimes-oprah-marriage_56451041e4b08cda348828db
TSR Intern: Talia O. @theclosetratchet on Instagram & @tallyohhh on Twitter!
