THE BIG QUESTION: Do Tribal Marriages Really Last Longer?

Since I was a child, my aunties have always hammered into my ears the need to marry from our tribe.

They claim it is more secure, it is forever, it will last long and he and his family will treat me like family because we consider ourselves one. Almost like going home with a sibling. He will treat you well and not take undue advantage of you.

I sit and I wonder why they lied to me. I am not one to follow regular dogma; I know the marriages of my aunties (who have all married from the tribe) are not perfect. Even my mother is not a happy woman. But all these women, they had other suitors, very good suitors. Most of whom they did not accept to be with simply because they were not from our tribe.

Flimsy excuse if you ask me. Just like a smile, love has no language so therefore, it has no linguistic barriers.

If marrying from your tribe is really a proof, why are they not happy wives? I think there is only one auntie I know who has sovereignty in her home and marriage. There’s one whose husband beats her so often I think it has affected her mentally, because I always have to reintroduce myself every time we meet. There’s another whose husband is a chronic womanizer who openly cheats on her. But they still live together and pretend all is well.

I do not blame my aunties, I believe whoever you marry will come with unique problems so why limit yourself so much to just your tribe when you could be so much more loved elsewhere?

More importantly, my friends all have this kind of pressure in their houses too. You are Ga, marry a Ga man. No matter how bad he is, he is better than a stranger from another tribe! You are Ashanti, marry an Ashanti, you are Ewe, marry a Ewe. And so much more rhetoric!

A good friend of mine who is Krobo decided to marry her Krobo brother two years ago. Then they moved to London after the marriage. Her reason for marrying him is the same-He is my brother.

Well last week she called me to tell me she is back in Ghana to start all over again because her husband, has impregnated two women since they got married, meanwhile, he has not been able to impregnate her yet.

I know this can happen regardless of who or where you marry from. But really, should tribe be a factor to consider in marriage? Should it be a barrier to loving freely? Totally? I think not, especially since I am yet to find a man from my tribe who wows me to the point of saying ‘I DO’ to him.

Will the tribe of a person stop you from being with him or her? These things sound like issues we dealt with and abandoned many years ago but believe me, the only difference is that we have stopped talking about them but honestly, we are still very obsessed with these trivial factors.