As I lay in bed contemplating my existence, a random thought floated into my mind: did I ever actually want to get married, or was that desire planted there by society?

When I was a little girl, I had big plans for myself. I wanted to be a lawyer—specifically a prosecuting attorney—so I could lock all the bad people up.

After practicing law for a few years, I planned to run for political office, win and become the first Black woman Attorney General of Illinois.

Somewhere alongside all of that, marriage fit neatly into the picture. I would marry and have two children—a boy and a girl—because, in my child’s logic, having a house full of kids just didn’t make sense. I’d stay home with them for two years, then return to my career as an attorney.

Such big, bold dreams for a kid.

Naturally, life got in the way. I had two children by the age of twenty-one. Engaged twice, never married. According to many, I should hang my head in eternal shame, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a scarlet B for baby mama.

I feel no shame. I have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. My life is my own, and no one can shame me about a damn thing—not anymore, and certainly not at my vast age.

Over the years, I’ve come to understand that marriage is a beautiful thing. But it isn’t everyone’s dream, and it doesn’t have to be. Choosing not to marry is just as valid as choosing to do so. And that, too, is perfectly okay.

Marriage is an institution that has been around since Methuselah—ancient, revered, and treated as inevitable. It has survived centuries of revision, contradiction, and selective memory. It has been used as shelter, as currency, as control, and sometimes as love. But longevity alone does not make something sacred, nor does tradition make it mandatory. But women are still shamed for not being married (never men because men are always absolved from everything.)

I wonder if this is why I automatically assumed I would get married when I was a little girl. I was a child who didn’t know her ass from a hole in the wall, yet I was certain I would marry someday.

How did I know this?

My mother? Other female relatives?

Shit I don’t remember.

So is it the socialization of little girls—quietly and consistently taught that the greatest achievement a woman can have is marriage?

That her worth peaks when she is chosen?

That love is a finish line, not a landscape.

That becoming a wife matters more than becoming herself.

These lessons aren’t always spoken aloud. They arrive in fairy tales, family stories, church pews, and side-eyed questions about “settling down.” They settle in early, long before a girl knows how to name desire, ambition, or autonomy.

By the time she’s old enough to ask whether she wants marriage at all, the assumption has already taken root and their entire lives revolve men and getting chosen.

The shaming of women who aren’t married needs to stop. Women are allowed to have autonomy over their bodies and lives. Our worth is not determined by whether a man is attached to us like a permanent accessory. We are whole, capable, and complete all by ourselves.