The Case of Tribal Love

                                                     

So one day, I was with my Mum, an Aunt, and a Great Aunt when they started to discuss the recent break up of a married couple from a popular family in their hometown. They went on for a fair bit, about the ostentatious wedding, honeymoon in some exotic location that no one could pronounce, and then the downward spiral that led to their divorce. There were accusations of beatings, infidelity and immature behavior. It was all really very sordid. Then, my Great Aunt ended the conversation with: “you know, people say that women who marry into that boys’ family always end up in a mental institution”

We all gasped. Up to this point I’d been silent, but my curiosity made me open up. “But, why on earth would any woman marry into that family if they had a long history of wives who suddenly went loopy?” I asked. My Great Aunt sighed. “No one from his place would ever marry from his family” she said “that’s why they always marry women from outside who don’t know about them”. Then she leaned closer to me “You see, that’s why we always tell you young people, but you never listen….”

That was all my Mum and Aunt needed to get them started. “Yes, it’s true” my Mum added “ All this meeting in the city, dates at TFC and Reeds, you end up with some one who’s background you know absolutely nothing about”

“Mimi, you know” my Aunt said “I remember when Mum used to tell me these things; I thought she was being horribly old fashioned, but now I can see where she was coming from”

“Just better make sure, you don’t go and bring someone from some strange place that we don’t know” My Great Aunt added. “Oh, I’ll definitely have the person investigated” my Mum said grimly. I stared at her in shock “What do you mean investigated?” I asked her. “Oh don’t worry about that” she said cryptically “there are ways to see to that sort of thing….” Apparently, my mother has an alter ego, Charlotte Holmes. Who knew?

“Why don’t you just give me a brief run down of who I can and can’t marry then” I said jokingly, “It’ll make things much easier for me”

“Okay then” my Great Aunt said enthusiastically, completely missing my humor “First of all, don’t marry the Igbos!”

“But, er…aren’t you guys Igbo?”

“No!” my Great Aunt answered impatiently “We are Ibo not Igbo, its because we are Deltans , not easterners you see?”

“I see” I said, not seeing at all

“Yes” my Aunt affirmed “Igbos’ like money too much. Also never marry an Uroboh, Ijaw, or Isoko man. They’ll walk out on you after awhile and marry another wife. It happened to a friend of mine. Her mother tried to warn her, but she claimed her husband was too educated for all that nonsense. Plus he lived abroad for many years and had a very western approach to life. Yeah right”

“Also” my Mother added “No Itsekiri men, they are very stingy, No Edo men either, Edo people are too fetish”

“But-“

“As for Benue men, never! They are wife beaters” my Great Aunt declared “Don’t marry a Hausa man either, even if his family is Christian”

“But why?”

“The North is too far” she said flippantly “We’d never see you again. No Ijebu men either-for obvious reasons, also, don’t go near anyone from Ekiti, academicians are too poor these days, and people from Oyo state talk too much”

“Wow” I said “So… what about Rivers?’

“ They are womanizers, so are Bayelsans” my Aunt said “Don’t bother with Calabar men, either, they will only compare you to their women and you’d been seen to fall short of their acceptable, ahem, standards”

“You can marry a Lagosian” my Mum conceded “as long as he isn’t from one of those horrid bourgeois Island indigene families”

“Well, I”

“Have I warned you about the Kalabaris?” my Great Aunt asked

“What about them?”

She shifted closer “They are said to engage in ritual cannibalism! Don’t go near that side”

I sighed. “I suppose that means that I should make sure I marry someone from your hometown abi Mummy?” I asked

“Well….it depends” she replied “You can’t marry someone who is directly from my village, or my mother’s village, or any of the villages around our quarters”

“Why?”

“It’s a taboo” my Great Aunt stated firmly

“Why?’

“Well, we are family after all, so it’s considered incest” my mother said ‘also, there are some village quarters we are forbidden from having anything whatsoever to do with, and that includes marriage.”

“So my dear” my Great Aunt said patting me gently on the arm, “as long as you heed our advice you’ll be fine”

I nodded, hoping my lack of protest would get them off the subject. Luckily for me it worked, a few minutes later, they were back to discussing the issue of matrimony. This time, it was about young women who shamelessly hit on men during wedding ceremonies. That led to another conversation about the propriety or lack thereof of modern day bridesmaids dresses, (that by the way, is another blog post for another day) leaving me to wonder where I might possibly run into a young, upwardly mobile Cameroonian man or maybe even quite possibly, a Togolese.


Disclaimer: This article is not intended to create or promote setreotypes of certain ethnic groups. The writer of this blog is infact a product of an inter tribal union.
 
Cheers.