It’s every girls’ socialization; grow up get married have a family, have status. One lady in Mombasa took this goal to the next level – she got married, was sadly widowed and then she got married again, to two men. Turns out, they were both determined to maintain their relationship with her even after discovering their rivalry and agreed on contract to share her as a wife. Unfortunately, one of them talked to the media about it and his part of the deal was promptly cancelled, as she chased him away.
Speaking of the Coast, I have a doctor friend who works there. She tells me how the women will come to the hospital having been in labor 3 days at home and desperately needing a caesarian section and will not consent to the procedure until “Mwenye” says it’s all right. Who is “Mwenye”? Why the guy who paid a couple of goats for you of course!
Johann Ludwig Krapf is forever credited with making the Swahili language more superfluous in the mid 19th century, but I am quite sure he never anticipated this sort of linguistic evolution of terms. Whereas the Swahili proper term for “Husband” is interpreted as “Bwana” meaning “Master” the word “Mwenye” is correctly interpreted to mean “Owner”.
Here is where some definitions are in order. In the Swahili cultural context, “Bwana”, your master does not necessarily own you; this is a person who is to be seen as a superior, in administration, in status, in politics or employment. When used by a woman to refer to her husband, the term “Bwana” indicates a close personal, romantic and sheltered protection; she is thus neither owned nor a slave but at the same time belongs to and is protected by her man.
In contrast, the term “Mwenye” is mainly a prefix, used to indicate distinct ownership of property. “Mwenye Nyumba” for instance indicates who owns a particular house.
You can imagine thus, how the usage of the term “Mwenye” in a marriage relationship connotes the sort of ownership that the man wields over the person and body of the woman, which is why she won’t consent to a much needed caesarian section unless “Mwenye” gives his permission.
Here is the thing. It’s no surprise that the moment some women get married they cease to think for themselves. Come on ladies, all of a sudden you need permission to lunch with your friends. It’s a common phenomenon, where basically the new wife supplants her independence and replaces it with fully depending on the man for every single thing. Some call this submission; I call it being infantile. This is not submissive behavior by the way, it’s a refusal to be an adult capable of handling her half of an adult relationship like the grown up she is. To be even more precise, this foolish behavior is the anti-thesis of being female, being feminine and being mature.
I say it for your own good. You don’t need to call “Mwenye” and ask him if you should consent to a life saving procedure. You don’t need his permission to eat lunch. You need to grow the hell up and behave like a grown woman because that’s who he wanted to marry.
Incidentally, my doctor pal assures me that 9 times out of 10, “Mwenye” has passed out under some coconut tree having imbibed copious amounts of Mnazi wine in celebration of his anticipated new born.
The whole “Mwenye” deal is not just about a refusal to grow up and be responsible; it’s about a power play in marriages that is quite dangerous. Let’s hope that all ladies who have a “Mwenye” and not a “Bwana” are living with a benevolent owner. It’s likely though that the willful giving of extreme power over one’s own life indicates that they most likely live with a genuine bastard.
See, when you value yourself monetarily and somebody coughs up that price, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he values you too. No. If a man is going to “buy” a wife he then can easily take liberty to treat his “property” any which way he pleases. Come on, gents, you know that is how many men behave. They treat women as less than human, creatures that are to serve them, to give them sexual pleasure and to bear their children without question. In exchange the women get to be provided for. It’s a trade off, a terrible one, but you both do it voluntarily so no judgment here.
I had this rather interesting exchange with an acquaintance – he postulated that polyandry in Kenya is “repugnant to justice”. Why? Because men should not share a wife. Also, in his view it was a mark of low self esteem for a man to share a wife.
I am leaving the legal question of polyandry’s possible “repugnancy to justice” in family law to the lawyers; I choose to deal with the psychology behind the idea of sharing a wife. If a man sees a woman as some sort of commodity he then surely will not see fit to share that which he deems his own. Same with the women who declare “I don’t share some things” when asked if they would consider polygamy.
The fact is, when you think about marriage the way most Kenyans view it, it’s about ownership. It’s about “YOU are never leaving me, you are mine.” The couple may not refer to each other as “Mwenye” and… I suppose “Mbuzi” (Goat) would be the term of endearment the man has for his wife there. The two may even call each other darling, but let’s not mistake that to mean an equal partnership of any sort.
In a relationship where there is a “Mwenye” that is called voluntary slavery or self-sale. According to Wikipedia – “Voluntary slavery (self-sale) is the condition of slavery entered into at a point of voluntary consent. This was a common way for impoverished people to provide subsistence for themselves or their family and provision was made for this in law.”
In many ways, given the economic situation in Kenya, I don’t blame women. The idea that marriage is an indentured voluntary slavery is so ingrained that women won’t think twice about the terms of the marriages they are getting into. Its part of our culture, that to save yourself from grinding poverty you will auction your daughters, it’s no wonder they refer to the buying party as “Mwenye”. Yes, we know men won’t go into the labor wards, but that doesn’t mean that you wait for him to rise from a drunken slumber and save your life. You may choose to be a slave, but a dead slave is useless. Voluntary slaves should have the brains to consider their own survival first and foremost after all. Think, ladies.
I never really thought about why I personally balk at the idea of marriage. I am surprisingly romantic – I surprise even myself sometimes. Anyway, this guy who talks too much and who makes me consider running away and screaming like a banshee when he walks into a room I am in, well he cornered me a few weeks ago. I can’t be rude to him, he has connections with my family, and my family… So he said eventually after asking way too many and too personal questions: “But you don’t have to get married. I mean, even if you lose your job, your folks can support you and your brothers aren’t kicking you out of the house.” I tried really hard to see the connection between my getting married and my having a job, or parents who can support me, or brothers not kicking me out of the house…) Well, Betty explains it here, doesn’t she?
Yes. What she said! Voluntary slavery! Something many women resort to when they have no family support and no means of taking care of themselves (a job).
Then what is marriage? A nightmare, if it’s defined as such.
I believe in partnership. Not this “mwenye” nonesense!
I love the submission comment. Being submissive is a constant task, not an excuse for self-infantilization and handing over all responsibility, while sucking blissfully on one’s thumb (or on Master’s c*ck, or wherever), and else not caring anymore. Religious orders know that and know that “obedience” – in the spiritual sense – is far more than just bleating “Yes, Father Abbot” or non-thinking “Mother Superior will know best, duh-dah”.
In the hinted case, every dominant knows such (insupportable) dumb pseudo-submissives. S/he is the successor, in a way, to the passive-aggressive recalcitrant house slave of yester-century.
[Master: “Slave, fry me an egg.”
[Master, after 20 minutes, goes into kitchen to see why nothing happened. Slave is idling on a chair, staring out of window.
[Master: “Slave, why did you not fry my egg?!”
[Slave: Yes Master Sir, but you did not tell me WHICH egg to fry !”
[Master: *bumps head against wall in despair*
As to polyandry, there is a famous – if apocryphal – anecdote attributed to a great banker of the Belle Époque, maybe the old Rothschild. A friend felt fit to observe that R.’s concubine would also see another man, and how could he, as a man of honour and social standing, suffer such a slight… blah bleh.
Whereupon Rothschild keenly rebutted: “Now: would I rather have 50 % shares in a good enterprise, or 100 % in a bad one?!”
I disagree with you on one issue — the permissions thing. First, it works both ways, even husbands do that so-called “asking for permission” thing. Secondly, it’s not “permission” — remember, no married person has (or rather should have) total dominion over himself/herself; for example, a man’s financial decisions affect his wife and he should therefore include her in them, and likewise, his wife’s reproductive health affects him, and she should include him in any decisions around that as well. For this reason, I prefer the term “consult” — if I’ll be leaving the office late, I’ll consult with my wife so that she doesn’t get inconvenienced in the process (e.g. by making supper early then having to watch it get cold while waiting for me); if she’s going somewhere on Saturday morning, she consults with me so that I plan my time knowing that I’ll probably be the one cooking lunch. This is how marriage works, it’s partnership, it’s a relationship based on goodwill, trust, communication and mutual respect … and yes, joint decision-making.
Now, the mwenye example is an extreme (real example) of that misguided notion of obedience in a wife. However, even in the ‘modern’ lady about town will confide in her doctor sometimes about her reluctance to bear a third pregnancy considering the physical difficulties of pregnancy and childbirth but since the husband insists on it, she’s asking the doctor to concoct a reason that makes it rather ‘medically risky’ for her to carry anymore pregnancy. In the same breath she expresses worry that he might decide to sire more children out there if he gets wind of her ‘condition’. Ladies and gentlemen, if this isn’t self-imposed slavery, what is it? That someone has such a gripping control over one’s life and it is taken as a matter of course by the controlled party is beyond belief to me. So, do you expect such a woman to ‘deny consent’ to her husband the day he decides to take on a second wife to bear him ‘sons’? I’m sure the day she agrees to the presence of a second wife (who has been there all along anyway) she’ll console herself with the fact that in the fine print to the agreement, she managed to ensure that all weekends and holidays are spent at hers. (only for her to end up with only those few days with him while he spends the rest of the year with number two. And he’ll convince her that Valentine’s day does not qualify as a holiday and therefore number 2 gets that one as well).
It’s a huge joke to choose to be owned. Even your own parents who bore you at some point cut the emotional umbilical cord and set you loose upon society. Why then the need to feel as if one needs reigning in like a wild horse?