Question and story below. Any questions or concerns regarding the assignment ask.

One of the issues explored in this story is the relationship between fathers and sons. What, specifically, do you think is being said about that relationship?

Find at least one quotation from the story that helps to support your answer and use proper MLA to cite it.

Title:

Marriage Is a Private Affair

Short story, 1973

Author(s):

Chinua Achebe

Nigerian Writer ( 1930 – 2013 )

Other Names Used:

Achebe, Albert Chinualum

ogu; Chinualumogu, Albert;

Source:

Girls at War and Other Stories

. Chinua Achebe. New York: Fawcett Premier, 1973.

p22.

Document Type:

Short story

Text:

“Have you written to your dad yet?” asked Nene1

one afternoon as she sat with Nnaemeka in her

room at 16 Kasanga Street, Lagos.

“ No. I’ve been thinking about it. I think it’s

better to tell him when I get home on leave!”

“But why? Your leave is such a long way off

yet—six whole weeks. He should be let into our

happiness now.”

Nnaemeka was silent for a while, and then began ve

ry slowly as if he groped for his words: “I

wish I were sure it would be happiness to him.”

“Of course it must,” replied Nene, a

little surprised. “W

hy shouldn’t it?”

“You have lived in Lagos all your life, and you know

very little about people in remote parts of

the country.”

“That’s what you always say. But I don’t believe

anybody will be so unlik

e other people that

they will be unhappy when their

sons are engaged to marry.”

“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 was said so seriously and so bluntly that

Nene could not find speech immediately. In the

cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city it had always seemed to her something of a joke that a

person’s tribe coul

d determine whom he married.

At last she said, “You don’t really mean that he

will object to your marrying me simply on that

account? I had always thought you Ibos were

kindly disposed to other people.”

“So we are. But when it comes to marriage, well,

it’s not quite so simple. And this,” he added,

“is not peculiar to the

Ibos. If your father were

alive and lived in the

heart of Ibibio-land he

would be exactly like my father.”

“I don’t know. But anyway, as your father is

so fond of you, I’m sure he will forgive you soon

enough. Come on then, be a good boy and send him a nice lovely letter . . .”

“It would not be wise to break

the news to him by writing. A le

tter will bring it upon him with a

shock. I’m quite sure about that.”

“All right, honey, suit yourself

. You know your father.”

As Nnaemeka walked home that evening he

turned over in his mind different ways of

overcoming his father’s opposition, especially now th

at he had gone and found a girl for him. He

had thought of showing his letter

to Nene but decided on second t

houghts not to, at least for the

moment. He read it again when he got hom

e and couldn’t help smiling to himself. He

remembered Ugoye quite well, an Amazon of a gi

rl who used to beat up all the boys, himself

included, on the way to the stream

, a complete dunce at school.

I have found a girl who will suit you admirabl

y—Ugoye Nweke, the eldest daughter of our

neighbor, Jacob Nweke. She has a proper Christian upbringing. When she stopped schooling

some years ago her father (a man of sound judgme

nt) sent her to live in the house of a pastor

where she has received all the training a wife

could need. Her Sunday school teacher has told

me that she reads her Bible ver

y fluently. I hope we shall begi

n negotiations when you come

home in December.

On the second evening of his re

turn from Lagos, Nnaemeka sat

with his father under a cassia

tree. This was the old man’s retreat where he went

to read his Bible when the parching December

sun had set and a fresh, revivi

ng wind blew on the leaves.

“Father,” began Nnaemeka suddenly, “I

have come to ask for forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness? For what, my s

on?” he asked in amazement.

“It’s about this marriage question.”

“Which marriage question?”

“I can’t—we must—I mean it is impossibl

e for me to marry Nweke’s daughter.”

“Impossible? Why?” asked his father.

“I don’t love her.”

“Nobody said you did. Why should you?” he asked.

“Marriage today is different . . .”

“Look here, my son,” interrupted hi

s father, “nothing is different.

What one looks for in a wife

are a good character and a Christian background.”

Nnaemeka saw there was no hope along the present line of argument.

“Moreover,” he said, “I am engaged to marry a

nother girl who has all of

Ugoye’s good qualities,

and who . . .”

His father did not believe his ears. “What did

you say?” he asked slowly

and disconcertingly.

“She is a good Christian,” his son went on, “and

a teacher in a girls’ school in Lagos.”

“Teacher, did you say? If you consider that a qualif

ication for a good wife I should like to point

out to you, Emeka, that no Christian woman should te

ach. St. Paul in his lett

er to the Corinthians

says that women should keep silence.” He rose

slowly from his seat and paced forward and

backward. This was his pet subject, and he c

ondemned vehemently those church leaders who

encouraged women to teach in their schools. Afte

r he had spent his emotion on a long homily he

at last came back to his son’s enga

gement, in a seemingly milder tone.

“Whose daughter is she, anyway?”

“She is Nene Atang.”

“What!” All the mildness was gone again. “Did y

ou say Neneataga, what does that mean?”

“Nene Atang from Calabar. She is the only girl

I can marry.” This was a very rash reply and

Nnaemeka expected the storm to burst. But it di

d not. His father merely walked away into his

room. This was most unexpected

and perplexed Nnaemeka. His father’s silence was infinitely

more menacing than a flood of threatening spe

ech. That night the old man did not eat.

When he sent for Nnaemeka a day later he app

lied all possible ways of dissuasion. But the young

man’s heart was hardened, and his father

eventually gave him up as lost.

“I owe it to you, my son, as a dut

y to show you what is right

and what is wrong. Whoever put

this idea into your head might as

well have cut your throat. It is Satan’s work.” He waved his son

away.

“You will change your mind, Father, when you know Nene.”

“I shall never see her,” was the reply. From that

night the father scarcely spoke to his son. He did

not, however, cease hoping that he w

ould realize how serious was the

danger he was heading for.

Day and night he put h

im in his prayers.

Nnaemeka, for his own part, was very deeply aff

ected by his father’s grief. But he kept hoping

that it would pass away. If it had occurred to him

that never in the history of his people had a

man married a woman who spoke a

different tongue, he might have been less optimistic. “It has

never been heard,” was the verdict of an old

man speaking a few weeks later. In that short

sentence he spoke for all of his people. This

man had come with others to commiserate with

Okeke when news went round about his son’s beha

vior. By that time the son had gone back to

Lagos.

“It has never been heard,” said the old man again with a sad shake of his head.

“What did Our Lord say?” asked another gentleman.

“Sons shall rise against their Fathers; it is

there in the Holy Book.”

“It is the beginning of th

e end,” said another.

The discussion thus tending to become theo

logical, Madubogwu, a highl

y practical man, brought

it down once more to th

e ordinary level.

“Have you thought of consulting a

native doctor about your son?” he asked Nnaemeka’s father.

“He isn’t sick,” was the reply.

“What is he then? The boy’s mind is diseased

and only a good herbalist can bring him back to

his right senses. The medicine he requires is

Amalile

, the same that women apply with success to

recapture their husbands’ straying affection.”

“Madubogwu is right,” said another gentle

man. “This thing calls for medicine.”

“I shall not call in a native doc

tor.” Nnaemeka’s father was known

to be obstinately ahead of his

more superstitious neighbors in these matters.

“I will not be another Mrs. Ochuba. If my son

wants to kill himself let him do it with his ow

n hands. It is not for me to help him.”

“But it was her fault,” said Ma

dubogwu. “She ought to have gone to

an honest herbalist. She was

a clever woman, nevertheless.”

“She was a wicked murderess,” said Jonathan, w

ho rarely argued with his neighbors because, he

often said, they were incapable of reasoning. “T

he medicine was prepared for her husband, it was

his name they called in its preparation, and I am su

re it would have been

perfectly beneficial to

him. It was wicked to put it into the herbal

ist’s food, and say you were

only trying it out.”

Six months later, Nnaemeka was showing his

young wife a short letter from his father:

It amazes me that you could be so unfeeling

as to send me your wedding picture. I would have

sent it back. But on further t

hought I decided just to cut off

your wife and se

nd it back to you

because I have nothing to do with her. How I wi

sh that I had nothing to do with you either.

When Nene read through this letter and looked at

the mutilated picture her ey

es filled with tears,

and she began to sob.

“Don’t cry, my darling,” said her husband. “He

is essentially good-natured and will one day look

more kindly on our marriage.”

But years passed and that one day did not come.

For eight years, Okeke would have nothing to

do with his son, Nnaemeka. Only three times

(when Nnaemeka asked to come home and sp

end his leave) did he

write to him.

“I can’t have you in my house,” he replied on one

occasion. “It can be of no

interest to me where

or how you spend your leave—or yo

ur life, for that matter.”

The prejudice against Nnaemeka’s marriage was not

confined to his little village. In Lagos,

especially among his people who worked there, it

showed itself in a different way. Their women,

when they met at their village meeting, were no

t hostile to Nene. Rather, they paid her such

excessive deference as to make her feel she wa

s not one of them. But as time went on, Nene

gradually broke through some of this prejudi

ce and even began to make friends among them.

Slowly and grudgingly they began to admit that

she kept her home much

better than most of

them.

The story eventually got to the lit

tle village in the hear

t of the Ibo country that Nnaemeka and his

young wife were a most happy couple. But his fath

er was one of the few people in the village

who knew nothing about this. He always displaye

d so much temper whenever his son’s name

was mentioned that everyone avoided it in his pr

esence. By a tremendous effort of will he had

succeeded in pushing his son to the back of his mi

nd. The strain had nearly killed him but he had

persevered, and won.

Then one day he received a letter from Nene, a

nd in spite of himself he began to glance through

it perfunctorily until all

of a sudden the expression on his f

ace changed and he began to read

more carefully.

. . . Our two sons, from the day they learnt that

they have a grandfather, have insisted on being

taken to him. I find it impossible

to tell them that you will not se

e them. I implore you to allow

Nnaemeka to bring them home for a short time dur

ing his leave next mont

h. I shall remain here

in Lagos . . .

The old man at once felt the resolution he

had built up over so many years falling in. He was

telling himself that he must not gi

ve in. He tried to steel his heart

against all emotional appeals. It

was a reenactment of that other struggle. He

leaned against a window

and looked out. The sky

was overcast with heavy black clouds and a high

wind began to blow, filling the air with dust

and dry leaves. It was one of t

hose rare occasions when even Nature takes a hand in a human

fight. Very soon it began to rain, the first rain in

the year. It came down in large sharp drops and

was accompanied by the lightning and thunder which mark a change of season. Okeke was trying

hard not to think of his two grandsons. But he

knew he was now fighting a losing battle. He tried

to hum a favorite hymn but the pattering of larg

e raindrops on the roof broke up the tune. His

mind immediately returned to the children. Ho

w could he shut his door

against them? By a

curious mental process he imagined them standing, sad and forsaken, under the harsh angry

weather—shut out from his house.

That night he hardly slept, from remorse—and

a vague fear that he mi

ght die without making it

up to them.

 

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