Marry Him, Marry His Family

In the 20th Century:
You marry each other.

In the 21st Century:
You also marry each other’s parents, grandparents, and ancestors.

If you’d said something like that to me in my twenties, I would have been VERY offended.

I’d worked hard to be who I was and stand on my own two feet.

But the more life you live, the more you realize how many of the things you struggle with are the very same things the women in your family have historically struggled with.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make the same choices they did.

You might be defined by the struggle to break your family legacy.

But your partner can’t understand you without also understanding your context:

Who you became in response to your family environment.

The same goes for him.

You may fall in love with a man who’s wonderful, only to marry him and find out that he’s a harsh and self-centered husband.

What was his father like?

What was his father’s father like?

Is he aware of his family legacy?

Has he ever questioned or looked closely at the lessons the men in his family taught him?

If I could give one piece of advice to women before they get married, it’s to study his family well.

He may be determined to break his family legacy, but he carries it inside of him whether he wants to or not.

P.S. Prince Harry is a surprising example of a public figure reckoning with his family legacy. My favorite story from his memoir goes like this…