The third biggest gender bias problem that women face today is marriage and motherhood being everyone’s business.When a woman gets to a certain age, her prospects for marriage and motherhood then become everyone’s business. If she has not found a man on her own, the people around her will then be seized by the idea that it is their sacred duty to undertake this mercy mission.And yet, even when she successfully finds a groom and finally walks down the aisle much to everyone’s delight, it still doesn’t stop the world from sleeping in her bed.“When is the baby coming?” And when there are no signs of imminent pregnancy, “What’s wrong?” Before she knows it, she’s being given detailed instructions on how to conceive.It never stops.Why does the world feel that every woman must be a wife and mother? And if she can’t come close to stepping into these roles, why does the world feel it should heroically step in to save her from a life of ruin?Is it a life of ruin? Or is it a life of freedom—the kind of life men do not want women to discover so that men’s lives will not be ruined.It’s nobody’s business what a woman wants to do. To date. To not date. To marry. To not marry. To have a baby. To have many babies. To have no babies. It’s her life. Her choice. Her uterus. Her signature on a legal document.During her wedding, a friend was so overjoyed to have found the love of her life that she was overcome with the mad idea that her maid-of-honor, me, should walk down the aisle with her best man too—for good.Many years later, she apologized to me for those moments of lunacy. I forgave her because I knew her heart was in the right place. But she backtracked when the best man married someone she had little love for.“It’s your fault,” she told me, “Because you wouldn’t date him.”Yet, the most shocking revelation I’d hear would come straight out of my bestie’s mouth. Some ten years ago, she confessed that decades ago, her husband had some prospects lined up for me, too.I don’t know how long my mouth hung open. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that my bestie and her hubby had been in the business of marriage and motherhood, too. Had I, all these years, been sleeping with the enemy?“But I rejected all of them,” she told me. “None of them were good enough.”I had to smile. Though, tragically, no one passed the initial screening and a prince could not be found, I do trust her judgement and thank her for saving me from kissing a lot more frogs.My uterus has retired. My friend and her hubby, too, I hope. The search for princes has stopped. But God forbid, my bestie is now looking at kings. All I know is she has a playlist for my wedding.It never stops.