There is a prayer I grew up hearing back home:
“O ni mo iyi ara re o.”
May you never know your worth.
It was usually said to women. Casually. Warmly. Almost like a blessing.
And that is what makes it so unsettling.
Because the older I get, the less I hear tenderness in it. The more I hear instruction. A warning. A cultural message wrapped in soft language:
Do not become too aware of yourself.
Do not become too confident.
Do not become too powerful.
Do not become too difficult to lead, too difficult to manage, too difficult to marry.
It sounds harmless on the surface. Even affectionate. But underneath it carries an entire philosophy of womanhood. It suggests that a woman’s peace may depend on not knowing too much about her own value. That love may require self-erasure. That marriage may be easier if a woman remains slightly dimmed, slightly dependent, slightly disconnected from the full weight of who she is.
And once you hear it that way, you cannot unhear it.
What That Prayer Really Teaches Women
Where I come from, many women are not only raised to respect men. They are raised to shrink beside them.
Submit.
Bow.
Keep quiet.
Stay in the background.
Do not shine too brightly.
Do not know too much.
Do not become too successful, too visible, too outspoken, too socially free.
The man is the head. The authority. The earthly lord after God. He leads. You follow. He decides. You adjust.
Religion reinforces it. Culture reinforces it. Family life reinforces it. And over time, women absorb it so deeply that it no longer feels like oppression. It just feels like order. Like wisdom. Like how things are done.
That is how a prayer like “May you never know your worth” survives. It does not sound violent. It sounds practical. It sounds like advice for staying marriageable. For keeping peace. For living as a “good woman.”
But what kind of peace requires a woman to remain half-awake to herself?
How I Saw That Prayer Lived Out
I saw the shape of that prayer in my parents’ marriage.
Growing up, my mum called my dad “Daddy.” It sounded strange to me, but it was never something we questioned. It was simply part of the order of things.
She was educated. She worked. She had a mind of her own and a strong presence. But none of that changed the structure of their marriage. My father still carried the final authority. He made the bigger decisions, held the practical knowledge, and positioned himself as the one who knew best. My mother, like many women of her generation, seemed expected to trust that arrangement and settle into it.
Maybe it was love. Maybe it was patriarchy dressed up as protection. Maybe it was both.
That is how the prayer works. It does not always produce misery on the surface. Sometimes it produces order. Sometimes comfort. Sometimes even admiration. But it also produces women who are taught not to know too much, not to question too much, and not to build too much of life inside themselves.
And that arrangement can look perfectly stable right up until the day it breaks.
When the Prayer Turns Dangerous
Then my father died. Suddenly.
And that was when the hidden meaning of the prayer came fully into view.
Because a woman who has been taught not to know her worth is often also taught not to know too much else. Not the finances. Not the documents. Not the plans. Not the decisions waiting in the background. Not the full architecture of her own life.
My mother was not just grieving a husband. She was grieving the person who had functioned as her compass, her interpreter, her shield, her point of orientation. The person who had stood between her and the harsher, more complicated parts of the world was gone. And when he left, the world came rushing in.
She did not know where things were. She did not know what had been arranged. She did not know what needed attention. The life she had lived inside suddenly became a life she had to understand, and that is a cruel transition to make in grief.
We, her children, had to step in. Thank God we were already adults. But even then, it was hard. It interrupted lives. It created pressure. It exposed the cost of a system that had seemed normal for years.
That is when the prayer stops sounding poetic and starts looking dangerous.
Because a woman does not have to be unloved to be left vulnerable. She does not have to be abused to be unprepared. She can be cherished and still be structurally exposed.
And that exposure is often hidden until something breaks.
The Question the Prayer Left Me With
For years now, I have carried the same questions.
How do women change this?
How do we value our intellect, our presence, our power, and our worth without feeling like we are betraying culture, faith, or femininity?
How do we prepare ourselves for life without giving up the tenderness, protection, and partnership many women still desire in marriage?
Because that desire is real too.
I understand the appeal of being cared for. I understand the beauty of not carrying everything alone. I understand why many women are drawn to the symbolism of a husband who protects, leads, and provides.
But I also know now that protection without preparedness is not enough.
If a woman must remain uninformed, underdeveloped, or dependent in order to feel safe in marriage, then the safety is fragile. It depends too heavily on one person continuing to be present, responsible, honest, and alive forever.
That is too much risk to build a woman’s life around.
And that is why the prayer troubles me so deeply. Because it blesses dependence as if dependence were peace.
Why More Women Are Rejecting the Prayer
Women today are evolving, whether culture has caught up or not.
They are taking up space. They are contributing financially. They are asking questions. They are seeking transparency. They want partnership, not silent servitude. They want to understand the lives they are helping to build.
In many ways, modern women are rejecting that old prayer even when they do not say so directly.
Because to know your worth is to ask questions.
To know your worth is to expect honesty.
To know your worth is to want access, clarity, and dignity.
To know your worth is to refuse to disappear inside a role.
And that is where the tension begins.
Many women are still expected to submit no matter what. Whether the man is wise or reckless. Whether his leadership is sound or disastrous. Whether his decisions protect the family or slowly endanger it. Questioning him is treated as rebellion. Discernment becomes disrespect. Intelligence becomes pride.
And so women are forced into impossible choices.
Shrink yourself and be chosen.
Or become fully yourself and be called difficult.
That is the quiet violence inside the prayer.
Because “May you never know your worth” is not just about modesty. It is about keeping a woman manageable.
What Happens When Women Obey the Prayer
Some women obey it.
They soften their instincts.
They downplay their minds.
They make themselves smaller to preserve the relationship.
They tell themselves this is wisdom. Patience. Submission. Maturity.
And sometimes they do remain married.
But many do not remain whole.
They become frustrated, silenced, resentful, spiritually cramped. They endure marriage rather than enjoy it. They live beside themselves. They survive inside roles they were taught to honor, but cannot fully breathe inside.
That is the tragedy of the prayer. It promises peace, but often delivers suppression. It promises order, but often produces quiet internal collapse.
A woman who does not know her worth may keep the peace for a time.
But at what cost to her soul?
What Happens When Women Reject the Prayer
Other women reject it.
They ask more.
They see more.
They expect more.
They refuse to purchase marriage with self-erasure.
And for that, they are often punished.
They are labeled rebellious. Too strong. Too opinionated. Too proud. Too difficult to lead. Too exposed. Too modern. Too much.
Some are left. Some are resisted. Some are misunderstood. Some become single not because they were incapable of love, but because they refused to build their lives around being made smaller.
So the prayer traps women on both ends.
If she obeys it, she risks disappearing.
If she rejects it, she risks being rejected.
That is not wisdom. That is a rigged system.
The Prayer Harms Men Too
And if I am honest, I do not think this prayer harms only women.
I actually feel for men too.
Because men are often handed their own impossible script: carry everything, know everything, decide everything, provide everything, hold everything together. Be the head. Be the shield. Be the map.
That is a heavy burden.
But a woman who has been taught to dim her power cannot truly share that burden. She cannot fully support what she has been trained not to understand. She cannot step in wisely when life demands it. She cannot hold up the home in his absence if she has been conditioned to depend rather than develop.
That is why this prayer is dangerous for everyone.
A man may think he wants a woman who does not know her worth, but in reality, he needs a partner who can think, carry, adapt, discern, and steady the home when life shakes. He needs a woman with presence, not just obedience. Strength, not just silence.
There is no such thing as a half-powered woman. A woman is either growing in her strength, judgment, and selfhood, or she is being trained out of them.
A woman who does not know her worth may also struggle to raise children who know theirs. She may normalize dysfunction. She may remain quiet when something needs to be confronted. And when years of suppression finally crack open, the damage can be enormous.
So no, the prayer does not protect marriage. It weakens it from the inside.
The Other Extreme Is Not the Answer Either
Of course, the answer is not for women to dominate and men to disappear.
Some men, feeling threatened by strong women, retreat altogether. They hand over the full burden and then resent her for carrying it. She becomes the leader, the planner, the provider, the emotional manager, the practical thinker, the one keeping life moving. Then he mocks her for the strength his absence required.
That does not work either.
But that is exactly why the prayer is outdated. We no longer live in a world where women can afford not to know their worth, and men cannot thrive in partnership with women they secretly need to remain diminished.
Healthy love requires more than roles. It requires two adults who are both fully present to themselves.
So Is It a Blessing or a Curse?
That is the question I keep returning to.
“O ni mo iyi ara re o.”
May you never know your worth.
Is it a blessing? Or is it a curse?
I understand why previous generations may have treated it like wisdom. In a world where a woman’s value was closely tied to marriage, perhaps not knowing your worth did make it easier to survive. Easier to adjust. Easier to stay chosen.
But survival is not the same thing as wholeness.
And what looks like peace from the outside may simply be a woman learning how not to disturb the structure that contains her.
That is why I can no longer hear this prayer innocently.
I hear fear inside it now.
I hear the anxiety of a culture that knows a woman who understands her worth may ask more, challenge more, refuse more, and no longer fit so neatly inside old expectations. I hear the attempt to preserve a version of marriage that depends on female diminishment.
And that is why the prayer is dangerous.
Not because a woman who knows her worth becomes a threat.
But because a system built around her not knowing it has always been one.
A Better Prayer for Women
If we must pray for women, then perhaps the prayer should change.
May you know your worth deeply and carry it wisely.
May love never require your disappearance.
May protection never come at the cost of your preparedness.
May marriage never demand your silence in exchange for belonging.
May you be loved without being diminished.
May you be partnered without being erased.
May your dignity remain intact inside love.
That sounds more like blessing to me.
Because the real danger was never a woman becoming too aware of herself.
The real danger was building her life around not being allowed to.
Call to Action
Have you ever heard a cultural saying, prayer, or piece of advice about women that sounded harmless at first, but carried something deeper underneath? Share your thoughts in the comments. What messages about womanhood, marriage, and worth have you had to unlearn?
