Of Relationships and Marriage

 

A story is told of a girl who having finished college and secured a job met a man. He was a charming man and they soon started a relationship. All was rosy until the girl found a job in a different city and got physically distant. Away from the man of her dreams and love of her life, the girl started noticing something strange. The charming prince stopped giving her the attention she had always wanted and gotten while they lived in the same city. Then wind of rumour found her that the guy was seeing another lady. Efforts to talk it out were futile. Soon the young man confessed that he was seeing another and ended the relationship. The young lady was depressed. When the storyteller was meeting the once beautiful young lady, she could barely recognize here. Her shape that used to attract the attention of young men was gone. “This is not you, (insert name)”. “Men are dogs”. She replied with a feeble voice. The two girls continued their conversation which was to take an interesting turn. The heartbroken lady had given up on finding love and decided to let the family come through for her Fast and Furious style. Uncles were going to do the job of finding her the man she was going to settle with. Reason? She did not want to keep blaming herself for her own poor taste of men....

“That is the wedding I was at last week”.

I forgot the traditional opening. 

It is another Friday and once again we have a piece. In case you have not noticed yet, we are back to our issue of marriage and relationships. Let us get on with it.

In a world where breakups are very prevalent, a lot of young people have been asking as to what the future holds for the institution of marriage. Some have given up and concluded that marriage is a thing of the past. Do I agree? I am not sure. I will see once I am done putting my thoughts on paper.

There are times when I think that marriage is not supposed to work. Think of this. I am 28 now and have been living on my own for 5 years having lived with my parents for the first 23 years of my life. Somewhat it doesn’t make sense that I should move in and share a bed with some lady who has not been there in the foundational phase of my life. What would motivate me to do that? And what would motivate her to make such a bold move and rubberstamp it with a legal document or a man of the collar’s blessing? Do not bother to answer the questions because I can think of a few things that can make me go into such a covenant. Once in a while I do forget that my home needs to be actively managed and I could use a person who would remind me of the things I need to do and to have in the house. I am told that someone called a wife is very good at that. Then there are those lonely Saturdays that you wake up and start looking around the house for any sort of family before you realize that you are just a lone wolf. Those ones get me and I think they are nature’s way of telling me that man is not supposed to live alone. I am not sure about whether women can live alone, though. Thoughts?

Until the last generation, people had the “banja ndikupirira” saying engraved in their hearts and brains. This is the one thing that young women were told on their entry into matrimonial homes and when marriage went sour. If you are to tell a modern day young lady to endure marriage along those lines, they would tell you off without hesitation because to them marriage is meant to be enjoyed. But let us take a pause. What if I told you that “banja ndikupilira” still has a place in the modern-day society?

Before you start stoning me for commenting on marriage when I have never been married before you should understand that I am commenting from the knowledge and experience of attributes of relationships that can be projected into the scope of marriage. Think of it this way. When people are in relationships, they get to know each other more each passing day and that moment may reveal undesirable characters that may have been hidden by one’s partner intentionally or otherwise. Then there are issues of uncovering things from your partner’s past. I will not even start with that. That is where the endurance comes in. If you are dating me and discover that I do not like pictures of us together or that I do not have as much money as you thought, what do you do? If am dating you and then discover that you once slept with one of my distant friends, do I break up with you? These may sound extreme but people have had trouble with their relationships and marriages because of these very issues leading to breakups. And divorces. That is where we and our parents stand on opposite extremes with our old people.

In the 60’s, our Humber riding grandparents fathered children that would only be discovered on their funeral. Then came our Carina riding fathers who got caught along the way. Did our mothers divorce them? You know the answer. Meanwhile their WV Polo-driving direct descendant gets in trouble and a breakup for sending money to parents before covering the Brazilian hair bill. I am not saying that our ancestors were always right but our generation is one where people who have invested a lot of time and resources into a relationship or marriage break up for petty reasons. Here is where it gets interesting. Did you read the singleness article? I mentioned that singleness is a problem, right? Our generation is one that keeps jumping from one relationship to another and we all know what that means for our sex lives. By the time I am ready to settle I will be a damaged good trying to do some window shopping in what is a shopping mall stashed with mostly damaged goods. You date for 2 months and after doing all sorts of unspeakable things you discover that he also has a “crush” on your cousin. Then you leave him and go to the next one; adding to your body count. It is a total mess. What you leave is a digital trail of high definition pictures from Distinct works which people will then show your new man to wreck your next relationship. Ruined it for you? Let me calm down.

Perhaps it is time to suggest solutions. I know that people do not like it when I bring these controversial issues on this blog but I do that for a reason. I think we all need to learn to have a purpose for our relationships and to treat the genesis and maintenance of relationships with the seriousness they deserve. Osamangobakashabakasha. Some little introspection with recognition of one’s own flaws and imperfections is needed to help us understand that we do not need a perfect partner. Then there is the need for that objective background check. Tricky as it may be, we need to do it in one way or the other and where there are red flags it is imperative that we stop despite the curves or the money. Without this, every Saturday we have lots of weddings my bald-headed friend from Zomba will keep posting “Koma lero ndiye anthu mwakwatira mahule” on his WhatsApp status. And know what? We will keep having these divorces.

Let’s get back to the story I shared at the opening of this epistle. That girl who had a colourful wedding after uncles came through for her by finding her the man of her dreams. I do have all the faith that she is going to have the best of marriages because she somewhat bypassed a certain stage of relationships in this click-bait generation. Our relationships nowadays start with share your number, then sex, then what are we then getting to know each other. She inverted the process by trusting her folks to get her a guy they thought was good for her. Once they kicked it, they discovered they liked each other and love developed until they finally decided to take it to the altar (that place scares me). Would you call this an arranged marriage? I wouldn’t and I think this is a perfect hybrid. I think we need to learn to from this kind of arrangement.

I have a feeling that I would have been married at my age if I was born in the olden days. If I was as resistant to marriage as I am, my uncle who we fondly call “a Kamuzu” would have gone around the village to look for a suitable girl who I would have had two children with. There would be no crushes, sharing numbers or anything of the sort. Just a man who needs a woman and a woman who needs a man. Get the two together and let them head on towards the rest of their lives. Such schemes worked and I would like to think that such a utilitarian approach is what we need to save the future of marriage which according to Pope Francis is under attack. Do we need to do it like the girl in the story? Maybe. Maybe not. In what I would like to think is the diluted modification, I am advocating for honesty and clarity at first contact. Two people need to agree as to what they are on about at first contact before everything starts to escalate. They should talk it out and discuss what they need their relationship goals are and see whether they can make a compromise. After that they should sign some terms on reference regarding the duration of dating, what milestones they should have, frequency of meetings and all that stuff. All these need to be agreed on and signed for. You can even slot in a lawyer just to spice it up.

Maybe what I am proposing is a bit extreme. Maybe it is not. If you think about it, however, all I am advocating for is courting the normal way. One of the reasons we have messed things up as a generation is that we are not following the normal order of relationships citing that there is no formula. There is a formula and it dictates that people talk it out, ask each other out the old school way and have some rules for their relationship. Relationships should not be based on the foundation of feelings, peer pressure and high definition photos. I will maintain my proposal for utilitarian marriages and relationships. Ones in which people pick partners based on the potential complementarity through the identification of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Let’s just do our homework before we get entangled in these things.

There we are then. For those of you who thought that marriage has no place in today’s society, I put it to you that it does. Know what has no place? Your stupid social media driven and rushed relationships which you end at the least disagreement and inconvenience. It is these "textationships" that you have just because your friends are also in one.

I should end it here. Mundiopsezenso tikakumane m'makwalalamu. Isn't that what you do when I write about relationships?

Happy Friday the 13^th and Happy birthday to Dr Emmanuel Kafulafula.