How To Break the “Man Curse”

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For a superstitious society like Nigeria, it’s not rare to hear sentences like “that woman is cursed” or “that family is cursed, all their husbands die”. The stigma of that tag follows the person or family around so much so that they actually start to feel cursed.

 

What is the man curse?

The man curse is the belief that a person or a family is doomed to live a loveless life due to history or the presence of a factor such as appearances and money. A single successful woman has got to be the greatest man curse in Nigeria. People won’t  shy away from telling you that you will not get married because you’re a woman whose hard work paid off.

 

If you are one of those who believe or feel they are in the throes of the man curse, then African American writer, Raqiyah Mays has just the book for you.

 

The Man Curse is a book by Raqiyah Mays, a woman empowerment activist. The book follows the story of a young successful woman who tries to break the man curse of her family by getting to the root of the failed love stories of the generations before her.

 

Essence had a short interview with Raqiyah to find out what she thinks about love and if she really does believe in the man curse.

 

“My novel, “The Man Curse,” is a fictional account about a young woman who is working to break the man curse that the women in her family believe has prevented them from marrying. They believe that they are hexed.
I’ve had countless women come to me and tell me that they feel cursed. I’ve had women talk about coming from different families of women that aren’t married that don’t speak of this publicly but privately say that they’re cursed. I heard this from gay men, white women, and I’ve absolutely have heard it from black women.
Is there a curse? I believe in the power of the mind. I believe if you feel that you’re cursed, then you are. You manifest it, you believe. Do I believe that sometimes like my protagonists in my novel, that if you are taught to believe something about yourself, that you become what you’ve been taught? Absolutely. Generational cycles and ways of thinking about ourselves that I talk about in my novel, are definitely part of and one of the reasons some feel like they don’t deserve love.”

 

When asked how to break the cycle of generations worth of failed love stories, Raqiyah responded that the key is to be self-conscious.

 

“In my novel, Meena really has to become conscious of herself, why she thinks the way she does, where she got it from and the less than positive ways that it’s affected her love life. Sometimes our ways of dealing with love and seeing love comes from what we saw consciously and subconsciously. If you grew up in a house full of women and you did not see a good relationship between a man and a woman, you are almost destined to repeat that cycle. Not because you want to but because that is all you know.
The mind is interesting. Psychology is interesting. Sometimes we don’t remember what we saw when we were kids [but] we end up repeating those types of things until we do the work. Get therapy, which I advocate for and discuss in my novel.”

 

Raqiyah also wants you to know that if you think you are cursed, you will be. “You are what you think” she says.

 

To see the full interview, go here

 

You can purchase a copy of The Man Curse on Amazon