We wouldn’t have known, had we not been told. He’d lived on the streets because his father was dead but, as a young man, he already knew what was expected of him. Now that he was a Christian, now that he was educated, he had some big choices to make. This is one reason why Africa is Africa. This is what he wrote:
In marriage, young people from age zero to thirty-five years are not allowed or permitted to talk with any one of the opposite sex. In case you’re found standing near each other, it is a grave offense.
In these days, adults from age thirty-five and above are forced to marry when they neglect or refuse to marry, because parents are the people to make the decision for their children. The parents want to have grandchildren. If you reject the decision, you will face it roughly.
You can’t bring a lady from just anywhere as a wife because the people in the villages will properly reject you and curse you very badly (i.e. you will have no children or your wife will run away). You must talk to your aunt to bring for you a wife from where she married. Even up to this day, even Christians choose their child’s mate, but they don’t put a curse on the one you choose. If, however, the aunt is not a Christian, she may choose for you a wife of bad character, so if you don’t want to marry her, she might put a curse on you.
If you go to your wife’s place or home, you must go with some gift to please the mother to your wife. Before taking dowry, you should not look at the roof of that house or even look at the face or eyes of your mother-in-law because that shows disobedience. Also, her mother should not be allowed to see your chest because it shows disrespect to her.
If you’re married, your mom and dad are not supposed to sleep inside your house no matter what the situation is. As well, you cannot have sex with your wife at your parents’ house. Though you can visit them, you cannot spend the night there. If you do, later you will (supposedly) get a disease called chira, which is like AIDS—getting thin, little by little. If you have not said what you did, you will actually die. If you admit what you did, they can do some things which will help you become well and healthy. They would go to the elders, give a sacrifice of goats, chickens, and cattle, then they will perform witchcraft. Christians that live in the rural are generally not strong enough to withstand the pressure of this cultural way, so they also participate. Because they believe in the laws of this culture, it worries them, and they become confused. They don’t believe in the Word of God firmly.
Most men are always treating their wives mercilessly, miserably, and unfairly, because they know that women are like donkeys, doing everything in the house, on the shamba [garden], fetching water, looking for food, and all the work areas. Men are just going for a walk in the morning, from ten o’clock, out of the shamba in order to take alcohol. They roam around, finding nothing to do. They come home stinking of alcohol, gambling, quarreling, and their eyes are like Chinchilla rabbits (those with red eyes). Nevertheless, some men are kind to their wives, but it is because of the way they were raised. There are some foolish and arrogant men who are just ruling their wives and supervising them all day long. They don’t allow their woman to see the sky, but only the ground, jembe [garden hoe] and the seed.
If a married woman divorces her husband, and if she then has an accident and dies, she will be buried outside the fence of her father, not inside the compound. When a girl marries, she becomes part of her husband’s family and should be buried there. But being divorced means she has no place to be buried, so her father will bury her outside his compound as if she is a visitor.
If the second or third son marries a lady before the first son marries, he should not stay in his father’s compound with his wife. They must stay outside the compound in a rented house until the first son marries. Also, the married followers to the first son should not enter the house of the first son, even without his wife.