The Hope of Marriage

Our daughter with neighbor couple and baby

“How was your holiday?” I asked our good friend. She's in her first year of marriage and over 8 months pregnant.

“It didn’t go well,” she replied. This was an invitation to talk. People usually just say “it went well” even if it didn’t. She obviously wanted to tell me about her troubles.

Her husband didn’t get her anything for the holiday. This might not seem like a big deal, except that island husbands are almost required to get their wives something for the holiday. Then came the rest. He didn’t really want to marry her. It had been arranged by their mothers. She was getting up there in years (in her twenties) and his mother wanted the marriage. They didn’t even know each other. She didn’t know that her husband was going into it begrudgingly. But here she is about to have a baby. She should be happy, she should be loved and cherished. Instead she’s miserable. He hasn’t given her any money to buy things for the baby. He waited more than a month to give her the funds for the ultrasound she needed. He has more than one job, he shouldn’t be strapped for cash. He also gives her no affection and almost no attention. She tried to talk to his family to be intermediaries, but they are too embarrassed by his behavior to come and listen to her. She is not sure what to do, but she’s considering telling him to leave if it doesn’t change. She muses that maybe she could start again and find someone better.

Last week two more young women disgruntled with marriage were in our house. Both are young (early twenties) but divorced. They talked about families not wanting them to marry their sons because their skin was too dark or because their families are too poor or because they’ve already been married.

Kids putting on a play

Then there have been other recent conversations about marriage on the islands— about how everyone expects their spouses to be unfaithful, about how almost all island marriages start with the pronounced “blessing” that the marriage “would start well and end well”. Apparently the speeches at weddings often include instructions about how to divorce peaceably. But ultimately marriage is more about status and economic security than about relationship. All islanders see marriage as important. It is actually considered a religious requirement that everyone marry and have children if they are able.

Polygamy is also another complicating factor on the islands, a destructive factor. It is within their religious and societal rights here to have more than one wife. Polygamy means a man isn’t necessarily 'cheating' on his wife, he may simply be looking for his next wife.  All of this erodes trust dramatically so that even the man who might try to be faithful (although he has little incentive to do so) will be always suspect.  And where there is no trust, there is little love.

So lately we've been thinking about marriage, in particular island marriage and whether it could be a bridge to deeper truth especially when talking to women. 

Island women generally have low expectations of marriage--extremely low by our standards. At most they hope that their husband won’t take a second wife and that he will provide for her and the children. The ideas of love, partnership and friendship in marriage are not usual expectations. But still they hope that their marriage might be different.  They expect almost nothing, but if they could find it--yes they would love a marriage built on love, respect, and faithfulness.  They would love a spouse who truly cares for them, sacrifices for them, and gives their all to love them.  Everyone seems to agree on this.

Almost all women can complain about marriages here. So as we look for ways to engage women in deeper conversations, could this longing for a good and faithful marriage be a bridge for talking about eternal things. We want to think about this in the coming months and would welcome your thoughts as well. Perhaps the story of a bridegroom that would lay down his life to redeem and marry his bride would touch hearts here?

Celebrating teammate's birthday

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammates burns have been healing well. Thanks for praying. Our colleague was with us for several days. His travels were fine and he was able to get people started on the project that they will hopefully be able to continue and finish even now that he has left. We’re excited to have the final product in coming months. We’ve started doing some lessons with our kids in both the local language and in French to encourage their language learning— so far the kids have been very receptive.



PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for our pregnant friend and her disengaged husband. Pray for the growth of real communication, understanding and affection. Pray for her as she is more emotional at this time and it is hard to feel unloved and uncared for when she is about to have a baby. One of our teammates is on her way to the States for some vacation— she’s already made it to mainland Africa. Pray for safe travels and that the vacation (despite long travel, jetlag and lots of people to see) will be encouraging and rejuvenating for her. Pray also for her housemate as she is alone for the next few weeks. Pray for us as we go into wedding season and have lots of opportunities to attend and talk about weddings and marriage. May we be lights.