Pressure from family can push people into wrong marriages – Joselyn Dumas

Undoubtedly in our part of a world, as a female getting towards a certain age, if you’re not married the pressure starts to mount on you, especially from members of your own family who start questioning you in subtle and not so subtle manners.

This pressure can reach a tipping point and force some women into marriages they are not exactly prepared for.

Ghanaian actress and TV show host, Joselyn Dumas succinctly elucidated this point of view during a recent episode of her weekly episodic talk show ‘Keeping it Real with Joselyn Dumas’.

The TV host had three guests on her show to discuss the issue of ‘Social Media and Marriage’ – how the new age of the internet has changed the institution and how people relate to it.

Joselyn Dumas opined that the incessant pressures families put on certain people to get married can push them into marriages they end up being miserable in because it wasn’t their choice to get married at that time.

Dumas illustrated her point by telling the story of a guy with whom her parents linked her simply because they were both Ghanaians living outside.

She said eventually she realized the relationship was being pushed for the wrong reasons and backed out.

“If I had made that mistake of probably going along with this guy I probably would have been very unhappy,” she said.



Dumas, who is a divorcee, said she would love to get married again someday, but not under duress from family or society which can lead you down the wrong path.

“I want to get married too because, obviously, for the companionship…Eventually, when you are old and your kids are gone away you will want somebody to talk to. You want that friend, a best friend.

“After a while when you’re married the elders say that your husband becomes your friend or becomes your brother. For me, that is one of the reasons that I will want to do that but I also don’t want to get pressured into getting married…” she said.

Ghanaian-Canadian TV host Ivy Prosper, one of the guests, also narrated her experience with being pushed into marriage.

“…I’m not going to marry just anybody because people are telling me I have to get married”, she said.

“For instance, one of my aunts, she was like ‘Ivy, you haven’t married. I found a man; he lives down the road and I actually brought him to the house to meet your mother so your mother knows who he is already’.

“Really? Just let me pick,” she said in exasperation.

The other two guests, Christal Beeko and Wendy Donkor, also added to the interesting conversation about marriage.