Just My 2Kobo: Should She Own A Car Before Marriage?

By Iphie Obiechina

Hey guys, hope you are enjoying the long weekend courtesy of the Sallah celebrations. We wish all our Muslim readers a blessed celebration.

Today I would like to talk about something that has been bothering me, I would also like to know what your opinion is on the issue.
On Monday as I was about heading out to work, I went to say good bye to my Dad and he said something that got me thinking and seeking other people's opinion on the issue. He asked me to stop taking my Mum's car to work instead I should start driving the Corolla that my brother usually drives. Fair enough, my Mum's car was a Jeep, so I exchanged with my brother. His reason for saying this was simple, he had had a conversation with my uncle the previous day. In the course of their conversation, my uncle told him of how a friend ask him to stop giving my cousin his Honda Accord to drive if he wanted her to find a husband. My father thought it was something to be considered, I mean, no father wants his daughter to remain single, since that was what society perceived, he told me same the next day, funny thing is that my brother had said exactly the same thing the previous week.

I decided to bring it up in the office and hear what my male colleagues had to say about it. They were both of the opinion that what my uncle's friend had said was true. In their opinion it had a way of intimidating and driving away potential suitors. The guy would either start questioning how you got the car you were driving or he would start doubting his ability to maintain you. But one of them went ahead to say that for him it was not a problem, he would chase any girl he wanted, he understood that it was normal for parents to buy cars for their children these days, he wasn't going to be intimidated by cars.

Coincidentally I went to visit a male friend and my brother happened to be there, in the course of our conversation he asked if I drove down and I said yes, he jokingly asked how someone would employ me seeing as I was already driving, it would be difficult to meet my expected pay grade. I brought up the conversation with my dad and he shared the same views. He told a story of how when his sister wanted to buy herself a car, his dad asked her if she was not going to be driving away suitors by doing that. My friend went ahead to add his own opinion on the issue, seeing as we live in Abuja, he said that when he sees a young unmarried girl driving a car, two things come to his mind either her parents got it for her or she got it through means that most Abuja girls have been known to get whatever they want, sleeping with whosoever can provide it for them. According to him more often than not, his conclusion was that she slept with whosoever bought the car for her.

The three of us argued for a while and my question to them was simple, 'so because I came into the world female and I was yet to be married, I had to live out my unmarried days riding in the back of a taxi, because some guy's confidence would suffer if he sees me behind the wheels of a car, and so i would live out the rest of my life an angry, lonely old maid if i kept driving'? I really didn't get the logic behind the argument that if I am driving a car, my future husband would lack the confidence to approach me. In my opinion, it good riddance to bad rubbish, I really don't want to end up with a man that is not confident in himself, someone that can be defeated by a mere car. Imagine spending the rest of your life with some that lacks confidence in himself or his abilities, be prepared for a life time of been talked down on, all your ideas being pulled down, no encouragement from the one whose encouragement should be automatic. I am not even going to go into the myopic view that every girl that drives a car probably slept with the person that gave it to her. If you are going to jump to such nasty conclusions about people you don't know, is there really any point having you as my man, who knows what you thought of me the first time you saw me. I agree that there are some cars that are extravagant for a young adult to be driving whether male or female,  that is why I agreed with my father when he said it to me, sometimes we overdo it. But come on, me driving a simple car can't chase my potential suitors away.

What are your views on this? Do you agree with them? Do you think unmarried young ladies should live out their unmarried days at the back of taxis, even though their parents can afford any car they want, even though she has worked hard to buy a car by herself, just because a possible suitor would lack the confidence to walk up to them because they are behind the wheels of a car?

Picture From The Pink Tarah