By: Jay Kt
When we talk about arranged marriages, the Western lens often shifts toward two extremes: a romanticized “cultural tradition” or a tragic “human rights violation.” But for those of us who lived it, the reality exists in a much more suffocating middle ground. It is the “Dilemma of the African Girl”, a weight that isn’t just about a wedding ring, but about the expectations of an entire community.
In many traditional structures, a daughter is more than a person; she is an investment. In my own journey from Ghana to America, I realized that my marriage wasn’t just a union between two people. It was a strategic move for a family. When you are the one chosen to go to the “Promised Land” (the U.S.), you carry the financial hopes of your siblings, cousins, and neighbors on your back. The pressure is immense; you are told that your success or your compliance is the key to lifting your entire lineage out of poverty.
How do you say “no” to a marriage when saying “yes” might mean a better life for everyone you love? This is the invisible cage. You aren’t being forced by a villain; you are being guided by people who genuinely believe they are doing what is best for the collective. This creates a psychological knot that is incredibly difficult to untangle. To walk away from the marriage feels like abandoning your duty to your ancestors and your living kin.
The struggle intensifies upon arrival in a foreign land. Imagine being dropped into a country where you barely speak the language, you can’t drive, and your only link to the outside world is the person you were “arranged” to be with. In Ghana, I was a woman of the soil, hardworking and capable. In America, I was suddenly a shadow.
In the beginning, the silence is physical. You don’t have the words to ask for help or even to describe your unhappiness. But over time, the silence becomes psychological. You normalize the control. You accept the “taboo” of divorce that was drilled into you back home because, in a foreign country, you feel you have no safety net. You look at the women in your lineage who endured in silence for decades, and you wonder if you have the right to be the one who finally breaks the chain.
But breaking free doesn’t happen in a single cinematic moment. It happens in the small, quiet victories. It happens the day you learn to navigate a grocery store alone. It happens when you finally get that driver’s license, providing a literal vehicle for your independence. For me, motherhood was the ultimate catalyst. Looking at my children, I realized I couldn’t teach them to be brave if I remained a prisoner of my circumstances. I did not want my daughter to see a mother who had settled for a life of “quiet desperation.”
The transition from a life defined by others to a life defined by self-love requires a total mental overhaul. I had to unlearn the idea that suffering was a prerequisite for being a “good woman.” Embracing concepts like the Law of Attraction and energy work wasn’t just a hobby, but rather a survival strategy. I had to manifest a version of myself that didn’t exist yet: a woman who was a successful real estate agent, a confident entrepreneur, and a grandmother who could look her granddaughter in the eye and say, “You belong to yourself.”
My story, while rooted in the Ghanaian experience, is universal. We all have “villages” in our lives, whether they are literal communities, corporate cultures, or family expectations, that try to dictate our path. The dilemma is always the same: do we stay small to keep the peace, or do we grow and risk the friction?
I chose the friction. And in that friction, I found my fire. I moved from being a girl who was “sent” to America to a woman who owned her place within it. I built businesses, I raised incredible children, and I finally learned that the most important “arrangement” in life is the one you make with your own soul. Resilience is not a personality trait you are born with; it is a muscle you build every time you choose your own voice over the echoes of tradition.
My journey from a cocoa farm in Ghana to the suburbs of America taught me one thing: the village may raise you, but only you can define where you go. Be brave enough to be the exception. I explore this journey further in my memoir, Arranged Marriage: The Dilemma of an African Girl.
