I love my mom. She’s hardworking, kind, and has always been there for me. Growing up, she worked two jobs so that my siblings and I could have everything we wanted and more. But there have been some serious hardships. For example, no matter how many times I tell her not to, she keeps trying to marry me off to a mean lord who lives in an abbey down the road.
Ever since I turned 18, my mom thinks she needs to marry me off to a nasty, mean old lord to increase our family’s ranking among noble society. I sort of understand where she’s coming from – it would be nice to marry into a wealthy lineage – but also it makes no sense whatsoever – mostly because it’s 2018 and we live in the Midwest, where feudalism isn’t so much of a thing anymore.
I used to love visiting my parent’s house in Racine, Wisconsin. Now, whenever I’m visiting, their house is full of evil, conniving lords who want to insult my piano playing or say that I’m “rather opinionated for someone so plain-looking”. Ugh, I can’t stand having to endure high tea with mean-ass lord after mean-ass lord! Does my mom even understand me at all?
My mom is so focused on marrying me off to an unkind family of “good breeding” that she quit her job as a nurse so she could have more time to find potential nobles from even more faraway lands for me to wed. I’m not sure why she’s so determined to earn acceptance into the cruel world of the landed gentry class since our family isn’t even British and she only went to England once in the 80s. I’m also not totally sure where she’s finding all these lords who seem hell-bent on making me feel like a common housemaid.
But the last straw was when I finally had a normal boyfriend, but she convinced him to break up with me because “someone of his stock has no business consorting with the future lady of a great house.” I really loved him and he never asked if I had prettier sisters or said my needlepoint looked “slovenly and ugly” like all of the mean lords I’ve met!
I’m not against marriage. Honestly, I could see myself getting married someday. I’m not even opposed to marrying a man who is due to inherit a sprawling estate. However, I want to meet and marry a mean lord on my own terms. It’s 2018 and if I want to have a future where I’m insulted for my poor posture and the only relief I’ll have is when my husband is away foxhunting then it should be one I choose, not one forced on me.
