Hardest things to give up once you get into marriage... (2024)

• Arguments for more marriage (and for marriage needing better PR) fall short of addressing the quality of marriages.
• I have long held the belief that we make our lovers our be-all and end-all. If we as a culture view seeking personal fulfilment as a sacred duty, staying in an unhappy marriage is then seen as an act of self-betrayal.

Did you know you are 10 times more likely to get robbed in Nairobi than in Kisumu? That's because you don't live in Kisumu.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you I am in Kisumu. I drove down to Kakamega first to pay my respects to the ancestors and that village girl I promised I would marry when I make it in Nairobi. I made it (to Kakamega); I am still making it in Nairobi and if she can wait for a few more years, I will marry her. Kuna deal flani tu nangoja iivane.

Then I went to Kisumu for the fish, and then later to fish, if you catch my drift. There was another nobler reason I wanted to be in Kisumu—a long-time friend was marrying. When I heard the news, I laughed it off and changed the channel, which is also what I do when the President is about to launch another borehole in some village burrowed in the armpits of Shamakhokho.

“Umesikia Stivo is getting married?”

“Stivo mmoja?” I asked.

“Eh. Stivo, Stivo.”

I mean, even if it were you, wouldn’t you go? I did not want to be told, I wanted to see it with my own two eyes, a doubting Thomas demanding Jesus show me his hands. Will you get married again? [Stivo, not Thomas. Or Jesus]. He told me every chance he got that it wasn’t going to happen.

Then he’d puff and take one of those cancer sticks and smoke them. I won’t. Me, marriage? Afadhali waninyonge. Now you see why I couldn’t miss it. I had to come and hang out with these guys who were about to hang him. My boy was finally gazumped (I waited a long time to use that word). Jamaa was getting married. Stivo, Stivo. After he swore they would have to get him to stop smoking first. Stivo mmoja. A lot of his ex-girls would have given up their citizenship to see this version of him. This was the man they’d all been waiting for.

I have been intrigued by marriage since before I met someone’s daughter. Societal expectations of marriage have continued to balloon. Movies, songs, and books tell us that your spouse should not just be your lover, or queen, or star but your “everything”—I am looking at you Sauti Sol. I often question whether my parents call each other “everything” or whether they were happy or they just get along to get along. I also don’t think marriage is for everyone.

And I remember how during one of the weddings I attended last year, one of the key guests said a blessing: “May you always feel about each other how you feel today.” And I thought about how that was damning by faint praise, perhaps even a slight curse, a way of wishing for stagnation.

This is all, of course, putting lipstick on a pig. People on both sides seem to be covering the same old song every few years, just with new lyrics. Ever heard of the success sequence? You have, you just don't know it. Goes like this: go to school, get a good job, get a good woman (or man I don't know what you are into) then get two children. But with jobs becoming that rare thing and financial security a major insecurity, most people I know just get children and decide if they want to do life together.

There is a reason advice is the only commodity in the world whose supply exceeds the demand so I won't bore you with mine. I'll however tell you this. I do think marriage should be customised experience. We do it on our auxiliary brains—the smartphones. So why not for society’s oldest institution? We try, as a society, to shoehorn people, and that is the source of strife.

I do not think anyone is fit to tell the other how to live, but can give some useful pointers. I know marriage works. It does. But only if you work at it. I understand this idea is a counterweight to our current culture, which insists that marriage should be, if not constantly blissful, free from the intense animus that many married people of previous generations endured. But dysfunction is not the same as discontent.

Arguments for more marriage (and for marriage needing better PR) fall short of addressing the quality of marriages. I have long held the belief that we make our lovers our be-all and end-all. If we as a culture view seeking personal fulfilment as a sacred duty, staying in an unhappy marriage is then seen as an act of self-betrayal. I know this because some of my married friends speak on it like they surrendered their identity to marriage. It was what was asked of them.

For instance, when I tell them I am cycling to Narok, or going to Maandamano or dancing with a cobra in Ukambani they tell me to enjoy it! Do it now before you get married! Live your life now bro! And then they touch touch their eyes, as if something entered them and they suddenly became watery.

They talk about marriage like it’s a civilisation where the barbarians are cavorting in the ruins. Everybody knows this. You know this. The barbarians know this. The government knows this.

In Lurambi, we say when you marry a person you marry their family too. And this is one of the joys of marriage, the connections it builds. We bind families together. We bring friends together. I think we got it wrong because we tend to weaken romantic relationships by expecting too much and undermine friendships by expecting too little. I also gather then that not all the feminists will not be too pleased with my simplism.

What does marriage ask us to give up? That’s a question only you can answer. The only advice I ever got about marriage was from a movie where the husband was in hospital, which should probably be a cause for concern but I am going with it. He said don't get so much life insurance that "you're worth more to them dead than alive...seriously watch your back." I think I can pass that on.

I don’t know if Stivo has life insurance but he seemed happy. Me? After a couple of potent Ugenyafiddich, my eyes opened, and I could see clearly. My Luo women embargo was jettisoned. Finito. Their daughter hurt me once but I can learn to love again. I swallowed saliva at the women and shouted at them that if I was staying in Kisumu longer, they would see. Not to propagate stereotypes, but those who came before us knew something we don't when they said you are still a prude until you've been with a Luhya. And you are still unloved until you've been loved by a Luo woman.

Anyway, I won’t talk your ears off with the details of what the bride looks like but men, if you weren’t in class during your boy training, this is the memo you missed: Before you marry, visit Kisumu. Omera. In Lurambi, we also say the eyes do not have curtains, and I saw what I saw.