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Why are young people in a rush to get married?


By Joseph Mtebe
This week, I visited the street where I was raised and the elementary school I went to.I was surprised at the rate at which my former playmates were rushing to motherhood and fatherhood.The question I therefore had to contend with at almost every household I went to was, when are you getting married?
“You’re grown up now, you should find a girl,” they kept asking.

I wasn’t surprised at all because lately it has become the life style around here.
Although I have been reading all these fine books on how to find a better half, I must admit that I haven’t been successful in that department.

I just can’t imagine thinking of diapers when I can hardly sort my own life out.The number of those who are already mothers and those expecting is enough to awe any one. As much as it astonished me, they were equally surprised that I was still in college with no wife and no child.

“What are you waiting for? Life doesn’t wait for anyone, it goes on and on. What legacy are you going to leave behind, just in case, something happens?” one said.

Here they were, talking about legacy in an era when parenthood is no longer about legacy but a great responsibility.
I simply quashed these guys’ assertions as some simply misguided fantasies. Many of these friends in the street never saw the inside of a secondary school, let alone college. And so, while pitying them, I can’t help wondering what the future holds for the poor off-springs.

However even then a second thought came up recently when Asha, whom we go to college together, called.
“I’m reminding you of the deadline.” She said.

“What deadline?” I had almost forgotten.
“It’s my wedding, it’s Sh50,000 for single and twice that much for a double card,” she said. Gosh,I hadn’t forgotten but I was just trying to forget. I had dozens of contribution cards to attend to, most of them from colleagues in college.

These cards all had something in common, a deadline and minimum pay contribution as though it were some loan of some type. Yet no one seems to care about the contributors when they are deciding to tie the knots. It has either become fashionable or people just don’t have a choice.

I say fashionable because everyday people come up with news that they want to get married.
The lack of choice comes in when there is a possibility of giving birth to an illegitimate child and because they cannot bear the shame, they have to wed ASAP!

But as I said, I think it is fashionable these days to have a baby, and well, start a family of your own.
Because like in my class these days, everyday there’s gonna be another girl coming dressed in some loose clothing aka dira.

I posed this question the other day to my friends and they had differing opinions.“Our course is a four-year programme, yet some people’s biological clocks are ticking away. The only recourse left is to at least do both things at the same time,” said Irene.

“I think these are accidents just like many others,” said Neema.Well accidents or no accidents, I thought people were entitled to their own, rational decisions. If someone of my age in the village or elsewhere can, and does actually marry, I shouldn’t follow the bandwagon because it’s the order of the day. If anything, to borrow Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s words, I will marry when I want, and to add, when I can.

Email: joefortunatus@gmail.com