To be married Or Not To Be? That Is The Question
I’m just saying, marriage is a “crazy” idea! I don’t know why anyone does it, marriage is bad for you, did you know that your chances of becoming obese are 37% higher if your spouse is obese? 60% of married adults have had an affair. Sixty percent!
Everybody breathe, this is going to be a long read, factual as the assertion is, it is an excerpt from episode 91 of the American hit Television series, Scandal, a monologue by Quinn Perkins, Katie Lowes’ character. I shall refer to Quinn’s tirade in a jiffy, but first, we go back, way back to where it all started, traditional Africa.
The World Wide Web points out that in some parts of traditional Africa, depending on which corner of the continent one hailed from, a man showed his interest in a potential bride/wife by bringing gifts of gold, jewellery, bead necklaces, or clothing to his intended bride. The gifts also at times took the form of beer, palm wine or even livestock for the whole family to enjoy. To further woo his intended bride and her family over to his side, the man in some instances provided his services. These ranged from lending a hand in tilling the fields to helping out with household chores. Essentially, it was a situation involving the entire family and not simply two individuals. — As the street speak goes, most of y’all can’t relate and I guess this is where you draw the line but regardless, we move! — The gifts expressed that the bridegroom to be was an able provider who was interested in joining the girl’s family. In the cases where the said family accepted the man’s courtship, they too offered him gifts in return.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
This was a precursor to the engagement of the couple which followed a week-long exchange of gifts and visits between the two families providing golden opportunities for the all important bonding rituals that united the two families.
Traditionally, both families invited their entire villages to join in the festivities of the African weddings. They asked a close friend or relative to walk from house to house rattling a gourd. — Think the Larakaraka dance (which incidentally happens to be a courtship dance) or better yet the percussion musical instrument called a shaker. Whoever that task chanced upon had a hell of a job, I imagine they really didn’t need the coveted contemporary middle class gym membership. Or maybe they did because of the weight from all the food, milk and ghee that each household offered. I deviate.
With all the courtship and wedding rituals plus celebrations done and dusted, the marriage would then ensue in earnest and the primary purpose was procreation and providing for the children. An obsession that wasn’t quite founded on any firm basis. Nonetheless, often, a childless marriage constituted impeccable grounds for divorce and unfortunately the blame almost always fell on the woman. The other bases for divorce included; instances where a girl was found not to be a virgin on the wedding day, the man not being able to support the family, when one of the partners developed a serious illness like running mad or leprosy or epilepsy, when the man failed to complete dowry to the girl’s parents, as well as cases where the wife was lazy and negligent, alcoholism, and so on and so forth.
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Dear reader, the entire picture of marriage in traditional Africa can not be repainted here. Whereas I am inclined to strongly believe that it was the more appropriate system, it really wasn’t without odious flaws. Consider this therefore, as an invitation to a philosophical exchange of ideas. Your homework then is to dig up other aspects for instance what fate the children faced in cases of divorce. Daunting as it may seem, I shall bust a gut in an effort to draw a nexus between marriage in traditional Africa and what it has morphed into today.
A close friend, we shall call her Bianca (not real name obviously), a few weeks back, in jest, remarked that relationships, love and marriage are a scam. A loaded statement that immediately sent light bulbs in my head going off and the creative juices in my brain instantly lured me into thinking that that would be a brilliantly captivating statement to open my next blog. I told her as much. Still jesting, she retorted that she awaits her credit, we both laughed it off and let that short conversation, albeit off the back of a heavily loaded statement, die. Bianca here, is a married woman, with two marriage ceremonies under her belt, the customary version and the all venerated western style church wedding, I dare imagine that both these have marriage certificates that have been registered with the government.
Marriage as taught to us by the western society suggests that the institution involves the union of a man and woman with the exclusion of all others, sections of the same society have since more than attempted to recalibrate that definition but that will surely be a conversation for another day. So, Bianca, armed to the teeth with clear marriage papers and four offspring has close to no qualms in engaging outside of her marriage for whatever needs her marriage might lack, and this is the story of most marriages in the world today. And that is not even the worst of it all. Grisly stories have been told of children born from extra-marital affairs and hidden from marital partners or in some more chicanery instances, through cunning and deceptive scheming, partners are tricked into raising children that they never sired. Exclusion of all others they said.
At least, in most of traditional Africa, polygamy was openly embraced, the oppression and discrimination that came with it notwithstanding. The society then, also hinged procreation primarily on marriage and therefore outside of the institution of marriage, it was a taboo to reproduce and this is why, as earlier stated, the absence of virginity on the wedding night was grounds enough for divorce. I will not belabour to juxtapose that with what the situation is like today, no one needs any graphic metaphorical reminders.
Had she not been rudely interrupted by a bang and shrapnel from the explosion of the Cabin house she was walking towards, I imagine our fictional character up there, Ms. Perkins, was going to continue her diatribe into particulars of high divorce rates, increased mental unwellness, unloved children, financial stress, etcetera, on top of the obesity and extra-marital affairs.
The promiscuity aside, I won’t even get started on the materialism, lest I am labelled stingy (insert death emoji). Let’s attempt to stay with the primary reason why marriages were so much sought after then, which was procreation. Today, procreation can even happen in a laboratory with the mother and father of the child completely absent and the foetus later growing in the womb of a complete stranger. Some have opted, out of sheer free will to choose, to take on the services of sperm donors. Others, out of choice or unavoidable circumstances have gone at it solo as single parents. — Over Liberalisation of society has partly been blamed. Also, the world population now stands at a staggering 8.1 billion people with a healthy percentage of those below the age of 35. Hence the counter arguments that preach concern for extinction of the human race in the event that procreation stalls as well as the ones for a diminishing able bodied work force do not suffice at this point. Begs the question then, do the reasons for marriage still hold? Should facets like bride price and dowry still have a place in 2023? Must we be hounded by pleas to attend wedding meetings for weddings that have become symbols of forced opulence? Are a university degree, a job, a house, a partner, four children and a dog really the highest ideals of this day and age? or are we simply ticking boxes off (occasioned by pressure from peers and family) then labelling them as achievements?
The jury is still out. Adios!
ThE LAst TeSO cHieF
