Black Men and Marriage: What Black Women need to Know

There was an article written on MSNBC about the 5 traits that men have on their marriage checklist. The article was nice, but wrong! I am not sure what woman wrote the article, but she needs to do her homework.

So, based on my own experience and conversations with my friends, I will give you the list of things that many men think about before choosing marriage. No, it's not scientific, so if that leads you to ignore the advice, then so be it. But as a black man, I can tell you that many black men might agree with some of this:

1) We don't want to get hassled: No, I don't want to be told that I can't watch the football game or that I have to get up on a Saturday morning to go shopping with you at the mall. Yes, I will spend time with you, but I don't want to be harassed when I am trying to seek peace or go play ball with my friends. Let me be and I will be happy to see you rather than irritated.

2) Can you cook? If you can't, then we are both going to starve. So many women have gotten caught up in this feminist mindset that tells them that men should want to cook, clean and change diapers as much as they do. Not in my world. In my world, a woman knows how to be respected, but is still ok with wearing the skirt in the household. She also makes her man want to be with her and want to come home every day. No man wants to marry a woman who wants to be a man.

3) Don't use sex as a weapon. That will make other women start looking really good. Men need sex, really badly. Don't think that because you have a ring on his finger that you control whether or not he gets sex.

4) Take care of your body and try to look good for him. Every man wants a woman who tries to look her best. A lot of men believe that women throw in the towel on sex and looking good after they know that they have him locked down. That's why many men don't get married. Why would you want to be stuck with a woman who let herself go when there are single women who look good out there?

5) Don't take him for granted. Some women have their first child, and then they seem to forget to please their man or give him attention. All their time is spent talking about how the kids need this and the kids need that. The man becomes the stage prop that you're using to play house, as you use him as a provider, order him around and then refuse to have sex with him. That kind of relationship would make me unhappy. No one wants to be in a place where they are not happy.

Take the advice or leave it. All I know is that after seeing many of my friends get financially destroyed after divorce and having their kids taken away, it doesn't whet my appetite to walk into that same line of fire. So, if you want to get a man to take this risk, you better find a good way to make him want to do it. There's a reason that half of marriages end in divorce and half of the successful ones only look good on the outside.