Many eligible Kenyan men are nowadays saying no to marriage. Take Brian Ochieng’. He is what is widely considered as ‘an eligible bachelor’. He is easy going, kindhearted and charming. He is well educated, and has a Master’s degree. He lives at his own bungalow in Kikuyu, Kiambu County, and has a well-paying job as a tax and financial consultant in Nairobi. His close friends say he is an honest man who accomplishes whatever he sets out to do. With a well-paying job and a well-furnished home, the next natural thing for him would be marriage. But Brian is stuck in his ways. “I am not in a rush to get married. It is not a priority for me,” he says.
Brian has resisted all manner of pressure from his mother and aunts to get married. His response has always been an emphatic ‘I will marry when I want!’ And he is not the only middle-aged man shying away from marriage. “I don’t think marriage is for me and I don’t see any problem with staying single,” says Eric Cheruiyot, a former Sous Chef who now runs a fast food and bakery business in Nairobi. Cheruiyot says that a wife has become an avoidable, unnecessary expense in the modern world. “I have always been happy on my own. I do enjoy the company of women when I feel like. But that doesn’t mean I should tag them along and get hitched. I cherish my space and freedom to come home anytime I like and do things however I like,” he says.
According to Dr. Dennis Shilabukha, an anthropologist at the University of Nairobi, social dynamics have evolved and created a lot of choice on marriage, including whether one will marry or not. “In the 20th Century, marriage was a milestone in life. Men were subjected to a lot of pressure to find a wife and settle down because of their patriarchal position in the society. In the modern world, the migration of labour from rural to urban and vice versa has increased social distance between young men and their communities,” he says. This has resulted in the decrease of social pressure to marry. “Human beings socially operate under gate keepers. If the gate keepers who would push men into marriage are no longer around, it becomes easy to keep away from marriage,” Dr. Shibalukha says. In addition, getting married is no longer the best option for the modern man.
Women who would be ideal marriage candidates for men in their 30s and 40s are now putting their career and education ahead of marriage. A 2016 study by Consumer Insight shows that 52 per cent of Kenyan women would choose a better paying job over marriage. This implies that days when women had to get married in order to survive have faded away. At the same time, the ideal woman many young men would want to settle down with is nowadays more economically empowered and sexually liberated.
“The marriage pool has gotten shallower. With financial independence, the woman a man in his thirties would want is harder to manipulate, and can determine which man or men she wants to be with, and at what point in her life,” says sociologist Joseph Orinde. He says that the evolution of social behavior and sexual interactions has altered the sexual and marital models. Take the sponsor syndrome. It has entrenched itself as an alternative to attaining financial freedom through sex, relationships and even within marriage. It has become widely accepted by women around marriageable ages.
A study on the sponsor phenomenon that was conducted by communications firm, A Well Told Story in 2016 found that over half of all Kenyan youth believe having an extra relationship with richer partners is okay. 65 per cent of Kenyan youth said it is okay to have a sponsor while 35 per cent admitted to having a sponsor. This study was titled #SEXMONEYFUN. Dr. Shilabukha points out that the sponsor phenomenon could be breeding a cycle of revenge and bad marriages.
He says that when a young marriageable man is shunned by a prospective girl because he isn’t rich, chances are high that he may delay marriage until he gets the money. “If he decides to marry after getting the money, he may go into revenge mode. On one hand, he may think that the person he is marrying may have shunned him while he was poor. On the other hand, he may marry and become a sponsor on the side to revenge for the rejection he sustained,” he says.
Sexual liberation is also at play. According to Ochieng’, sex has become too easy to get, especially for the single well off man. “I can get anything that a wife can give elsewhere with great variety. Why should I then be in a hurry to tie myself down?” he poses. Ochieng’ admits that he is currently seeing three different women, all of who he has no intention of marrying. “They cook, clean and give me good sex without taking away the freedom which comes with living independently,” he says.
In some cases, men are not postponing marriages because they don’t want to get married. They are delaying in order to get it right. “Marriage used to be the first step into adulthood. Now it is often the last. “The modern man views marriage as a form of capstone. The capstone is the last brick you put in place to build an arch. It is the last piece in the puzzle of life for most men,” says Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist and the author of Labor’s Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class Family. This is largely driven by the cultural perception that the man ought to be the bread winner in the family.
“I want to get married by age 40. But for now I am busy trying to get rich,” says Frank Kiama, 33, a County Government procurement officer. Kiama says that his measure of worth as a man in marriage will be determined by his material possessions, career development and personal achievements. “Women are more educated than before, they have advanced in career and are making good money. If I want to retain my respect and position as head of the family, then I must first get richer, and advance my career,” he says.
Some men like Kiama would want to make it in life before getting hitched. For others, the perception that women are only interested in men who have already made it is the stone-wall standing between them and marriage. Joseph Kimani is one of these. He is well off, runs a wholesale hardware in Nakuru town and resides in the posh Milimani estate. “I know I can get a beautiful wife. But if I get married, I will live knowing that she chose me because of my money and social status and not because of love. My marriage will be crowded with fear that if the money is gone, she will be gone too,” says the 39-year-old businessman. His fear stems from his past two relationships with women who tried to turn him into their cash-cow.
There are also men who feel that the modern urban and rural woman has become very complicated. Robert Wambua who runs a cyber café business along Tom Mboya Street in Nairobi says that marriage has become a competition and an equal rights movement of sorts. “We used to say that if you want to settle down, go to the village and get a girl. She will make you a good wife. Not anymore!” he says. “All women now want to be equal with us. They don’t give us the same respect our mothers gave our fathers. Their higher education is making them think we are equals.” Wambua adds that the concept of equality in marriage has been distorted to such a point where well off women within marriageable age think marriage is a pass time they can get out of at will. “No man wants to spend the rest of his life with such boisterous character as his wife. It’s fairer to stay alone,” he says.
Fear, domestic strife and family disintegration are the other fuel driving men from marriage. This includes experiences men had when growing up. “My parents divorced when I was ten after my father caught our mom having an affair. She left me behind with my father in Yala, Siaya County,” says Collins Okello, 35. He says that his father never remarried.
“He brought me up single handedly. In bitterness he would often quip that women are a man’s health hazard.” For two decades, Okello never saw or heard from his mother. “She left and never looked back. Not even for me.” This experience installed an intense fear of marriage within him. “I have never understood why she would leave her own flesh and blood. I have lived my years seeing my father suffer in silence from the humiliation of that affair and his broken home. He never quite recovered,” he says. “I am afraid of marriage. I can’t survive living the kind of painful and heartbroken life my father has lived.”
READ MORE: Why Kenyan men don’t want to own property jointly with their wives
Local stats on the state of marriage
According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics;
- The number of married people was approximately 12.6 million by 2014.
- The number of married people was approximately 16.7 million by 2020.
- The rate of divorce was approximately 10.5 per cent by 2014.
- The rate of divorce was approximately 17.7 per cent by 2020.
- One-third of all households contain two related adults of opposite sexes, who are presumably married.
A version of this feature was also published in the Saturday Magazine. The Saturday Magazine is a publication of the Nation Media Group.
