When it comes to choosing a wife, a man really is drawn to someone cut from the same cloth as his mother, says Fiona Macrae.

According to Dailymail.co.uk, “Research proves the truth of the old adage that men tend to marry their mothers.” So in an attempt to find out if this is the case with black African men, we asked for Marvin’s opinion.

Marvin says…

This is very true! We date our mothers or the woman who embodied the mother role in a man’s life while growing up. The longest relationship any man has with any woman is probably his mother. The most unconditional love any woman has for any man is probably their son. This goes to the basis of the male and female roles; mothers always understand and are much more lenient towards their sons compared to their daughters. We learn about life, what we like and dislike, from the people we spend the most time with and usually that’s our mother.

My ex-girlfriends have either been the only child or they have one other sibling from a different father – that’s my type! I once dated a woman who had the identical upbringing to my mother. I only discovered this about six months into the relationship. We look for familiarity in the people we date and usually we are looking for our parents in our partners because it feels like home.

We develop complexes based on relationships we have or don’t have with our parents. Therefore we choose our partners because they represent unfinished business from our childhood. If you’re not aware of this, chances are you’ll make the same mistakes your parents did. This means if your father was never there, you have more chances of doing the same thing to your children.

To your mother, you are her ‘boy’ friend, her son, her provider and everything else she believes she is to you. She made you; she built you to be the man that you are today. You’re probably the man she hoped your father would be, and this is why mothers can make it difficult for a new woman in your life to live up to her expectations.

Mothers often don’t like their son’s girlfriend or wives because she is so similar to her, even though she might deny this. Because of the similarity, she knows the tricks her daughter-in-law will use on her precious son. The mother may also be afraid that she is losing you to a younger, possibly even better version of her.

To answer the question, we do date our mothers – or someone close enough. The sooner women accept this, the better their lives as part of a couple become – and they are able to make better choices.

Published on AssaysOfAfrica by Hlulani Masingi