A Thermos by the Bed, and Other Things I Will Not Inherit

I was never the girl who dreamed of weddings.

I wasn’t the type that fantasized about white gowns or created Pinterest boards filled with peonies and table layouts. I didn’t measure love in carats or rehearse how I would say “I do.” Growing up, love, at least as it was shown around me, seemed like a transaction cloaked in ceremony. Marriage was never sold as a dream, it was a duty. Something a woman must endure to prove her worth. Something that, if not achieved, made you a question mark.

So, I chose indifference.

But then I grew up.I fell in love; the kind of love that makes you call someone your person. The kind that builds slowly and quietly, but makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, you're home.

Suddenly, the idea of marriage didn’t seem like surrender. It began to feel like a possibility. Like continuity. Like warmth.

But with that longing came fear.

Because what is marriage, really, as taught to African women?

A few months ago, I sat in a room filled with older women who I deeply admire. The conversation drifted to marriage, to bridal showers, to the things women are taught in secret rooms before they step into wifehood. And that’s when I heard it.

The thermos.

A thermos of warm water placed by the bed after sex. Not for both of you. No. Just for him. To wipe him down. To cool his skin, to show gratitude, to serve.

I laughed nervously.

But then came more: “A man becomes your firstborn.” “He’s your child now.” “You must carry him.”

Beast of burden.That was the phrase that struck me cold.

I smiled through the rest of the conversation, but internally, something cracked. Something started to ache. I began to reflect on what African society expects of us, not just as wives, but as women. What we are told. What we are shown. What is passed down; not as advice, but as doctrine.

We are not taught to thrive in marriage. We are taught to survive it.

And this is where I must pause and ask: do we still want to get married? Those of us from the younger generation, those of us who are hopeful, rebellious, soft-hearted, and sometimes unsure what version of marriage we are entering into? What version are we rejecting?

African Marriage as Inheritance

Marriage in African society has never been just a union between two people. It is family. Clan. Expectation. Control. Economics. In many African cultures, marriage is not about partnership, it is about placement.

In the books I’ve read, in Things Fall Apart, The Joys of Motherhood, So Long a Letter, marriage is not a soft place to land. It is an obligation. It is survival. It is the thing a woman must enter, no matter what it demands of her. And these aren’t just fictional tropes. These are reflections of lived realities.

Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood shows a woman who, despite all her sacrifices, is discarded in old age. Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter painfully documents the betrayal of sisterhood and self in the face of polygamy. In these books, and in the societies they reflect, a good wife is one who swallows. Who adjusts. Who makes herself small enough to carry it all.

Even in Sex Lives of African Women, the stories are full of women wrestling with inherited roles. Many of them unlearning in their 30s and 40s what was sown into them at 19. Women who were told to endure. Told to pray instead of protest. Told to hide bruises under foundation and marital failures under shame.

Sex which is supposed to be pleasure, intimacy, and connection, is made into another form of service.

You must be ready. You must not say no. You must not be tired You must perform. And then you must reach for the thermos.

The Making of a Wife

It begins early.

Little girls are given baby dolls and toy kitchens. We are taught to pretend to be mothers before we even learn menstruation. We are taught to cook for brothers, clean for uncles, and kneel for elders. Our training is subtle but persistent.

By the time you are of “age,” it’s already assumed that your worth will peak with marriage. You’ve already heard relatives whisper at gatherings: “She’s of age.” “What is she waiting for?”

And so, we start waiting for the ring; not necessarily for love, but for permission, to be visible, to be respected, to be whole.

You see, in many African societies, a woman is almost. Almost respected. Almost grown. Almost complete.

Until marriage.

But What If I Want Something Else?

This is the thing, I still want to get married. But I do not want to inherit this version.

I do not want to be trained in silence. I do not want to be a beast of burden. I do not want to be told how to serve, without being taught how to be seen.

I want to choose who is in the room when I prepare for marriage. Not just the older women with thermos tales, but women who will ask me what I want. Who will remind me that submission is not subjugation. Who will say, “Softness is not weakness and asking is not nagging.”

I want to learn about intimacy, not just as a duty, but as a language of love.I want to be taught about boundaries, pleasure, balance.I want to know how to share power, not surrender it.

What We Must Leave Behind

There is a line in Sex Lives of African Women that I cannot forget: “We don’t talk about the weight of being a ‘good wife.’”

We need to start talking. Loudly. Publicly. Privately. We need to rewrite the scripts.

We need to stop laughing off things that are not funny:A husband who is coddled like a child.A wife who is expected to mother her man.Sex that is endured, not enjoyed.Pain that is dismissed in the name of culture.

I will not inherit silence.

I will not inherit service without love.Sacrifice without return.Marriage without partnership.

My Own Room

I built my own room.

A room where love is not earned through exhaustion.Where my voice is not lost in the title of “wife.”Where “wife” means partner, not servant.Where “home” feels safe for both of us.

In that room, I will welcome women who speak truth with tenderness. Women who reject shame, who honor rest, who believe in love but not in chains. Women who say: Be bold, be soft, be you. That is enough.

I was never the girl who dreamed of weddings.

But today, I am the woman who dreams of love that does not ask me to disappear. A marriage where my full self is not just tolerated, but cherished. A union where there is no thermos by the bed unless we both put it there.

And maybe, just maybe, that is the beginning of something new.

Something radical.Something sacred.