Exactly how long will we continue to tell ourselves that the institution of marriage is some grand romantic notion? Marriage has always been about the acquisition of property and procreation and that has not changed in the least no matter how much we pretend otherwise. A man is supposed to spend, what, three months of wages on a wedding ring? We’re bought even before we sign the marriage license and the crazy thing is we are the ones who want it more. Once we actually acquire property together and then have children, we really are stuck together. How have we, as women, become brainwashed into wanting exactly the things that take away our freedom and how can there not be an inherent power dynamic that is generally not in our favour? I mean, very few of us will make more than our husbands in this lifetime. It’s probably why men fight so hard to keep the wage gap. Why would we even marry them if we didn’t need help paying the bills?

Here I am, living my own very full life in my very own studio apartment and seeing who I want on my own terms. It’s only when I want and if I want, yet society feels bad for me. I never feel obligated to make anyone dinner or even be home for dinner. I don’t have to text to say I’ll be home later than expected. I don’t have to justify a penny I have spent on anything because there is no such thing as ‘our’ future. We are told over and over again that we need to compromise in marriage. Doesn’t that just mean that most of the time neither of us gets our way? We want love, but we settle for the very thing that kills love. When you need someone, you can’t want them at the same time and when you share ownership of things, you own and need each other, no matter how hard you try to deny it. Here is the thing, when I choose to spend my time with someone, it is actually much more meaningful than if I just happen to come home and it just happens to be where he lives too.

Caged birds don’t fly free not because they love their cages, but because the safety of the familiar is less scary than the uncertain beauty freedom can hold. There can’t be growth without an element of uncertainty though.

Perhaps the reason men still feel entitled to make decisions about our bodies is because they have owned us for centuries and nothing has changed in that regard.