Last month, I took my little brother to the far and hilly dry lands of Makueni. He had wanted the backup of an entourage to accompany him in making a confession to the elders of the village that he’s the one behind the disappearance of one of their she-goats. The goat, as they could see, was well taken of and healthy, and had found another home, hence no need to keep looking for it.
On such occasions comes the aunties, who, despite serving life sentences in loveless, abusive and violent marriages, want to know ‘Mbona nimerukwa.’
My, don’t I loathe such questions. There’s only one good response to that. ‘You want to know when I’m getting married? How about you first let me know when you’re getting divorced?’
But you see, I’m at an age that don’t waste time engaging. You talk, I tune out, you finish, we go our separate ways.
Over the years I’ve watched so many of them in near death situations after their ‘loves’ left them for dead.
As a little girl I witnessed one being sent back to her parent’s home in the middle of a rainy night and I, being her relative, was to leave with her.
Another had to take an almost 10 kilometres trek at dawn after a quarrel with the love of her life with blood oozing off her splintered head.
Then there’s one who was left for dead and her supposed dead body dumped at a hospital entrance.
Of course, they all forgave as God commands and went back to their husbands. The saddest reason for return was where one had teenage daughters, and was worried her loving abuser would one night stagger in his drunkenness into the girls’ bed thinking it was his wife’s.
It puzzles me why our parents, despite ruining the marriage institution for us, and hearing them air their regrets and dissatisfaction, still, want to push and see us get entangled in those same chains. Wouldn’t you want a better life for your child?
Why is it okay to perceive all your husbands as lazy, mean, deadbeat, jealous, violent, disrespectful, bigoted…and expect that our generation’s prospective husbands will be any different when, you didn’t bring your sons differently? I see it even today, where young parents laugh off their little boy’s misbehaviors as ‘boys being boys.’ Clearly, the cycle will remain infinite.
It’d be much easier for me to get a husband if I lower my standards, the lady who last weekend was being pelted with stones by her husband for talking to another man, and is still nursing a broken arm, tells me.
I believe that if there’s a woman who has the lowest set of standards, is has to be a Kenyan woman, because, there’s barely any gentleman around. Have you checked the femicide data lately? 1 in 4 women is in a physically abusive relationship. This is based on reported cases. And well, a majority don’t report or even talk about it. That’s just physical abuse. There are emotional, financial, verbal and sexual abuse that are never discussed.
So when I say I can’t compromise my need for Peace and Respect, I’m told I have high standards.
One thing I know for sure is I can’t continue this cycle of abuse that one has to turn a blind eye on in order to make a marriage work, so they vumilia, go to church every Sunday to pray for their husbands and remain submissive as God commanded. And as much as I know many men would kill to have a wife like their mothers, I for sure is neither interested in being like them nor being with a man like our dads.
I asked one good woman if all older people have to take Blood Pressure meds, cos’ every woman over 60 I know of does.
‘Sio lazima. Kwanza nyinyi ni wakali sana hamtateseka na madawa kama sisi.’ She told me.
And that right there somehow healed me.
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