Marriage Is A Private Affair By Chinua Achebe Summary

The story, “Marriage is a Private Affair” by Chinua Achebe arose a very interesting subject in which I wanted to research and analyze. It highlighted the old and more traditional way of the adjoining of two families through marriage and the more modern and “private” love-based marriage between two individuals who chose each other with no outside influences. It was a story about a man named Nnaemaka who married a girl named Nene from another tribe in Africa. They loved each other and decided to disregard their own culture because they knew that their cultures traditional ways of marriage would never allow them to be together. When his father Okeke found out he did not approve of this marriage because Nene was from a different tribe and was not

To narrow the topic down and to provide a more specific comparison between cultures, I chose to compare the idea of arranged marriages in India versus Free Will marriages in the United States. This huge difference in culture can be related to Achebe’s story where Nene and Nnaemaka’s father discuss the problem with their proposed marriage. Nene, being from a more developed and urban part of the country where culture has evolved says, “...I don’t believe anybody will be so unlike other people that they will be unhappy when their sons are engaged to marry.” Right after this statement, Okeke responded with, “Yes. They are most unhappy if the engagement is not arranged by them. In our case it’s worse- you are not even an Ibo.” This response is the difference I wanted to analyze. As you can see with this exchange, the two different cultures have completely different perspectives on marriage. Okeke believes in a more traditional way of marrying within the tribe and arranging the marriage. This allows his tribe to maintain its strength and maintain the bloodline. On the other side, there is Nene from the more developed culture in the city. She believes in our concept of love and marriage as essentially a private affair between those married. This difference in culture can be attributed to the evolution of society. A tribe like the Ibos will of course have a more

Arranged marriages are essentially that, the choosing of an individual deemed suitable to join their family. In India, “Marriage is treated as an alliance between two families rather than a union between two individuals.” (Prakasa 15) In India marriage is not necessarily about love, “Prakasa states that arranged marriages serve six functions in the Indian community: (1) helps maintain the social satisfaction system in the society; (2) gives parents control, over family members; (3) enhances the chances to preserve and continue the ancestral lineage; (4) provides an opportunity to strengthen the kinship group; (5) allows the consolidation and extension of family property; (6) enables the elders to preserve the principle of endogamy”