This article is not about stirring the pot, but it is an opportunity to start discussions about modern marriage and the role ugali plays in exacerbating domestic abuse in Kenya.
It is not uncommon to hear Kenyan men describe young women as either being marriage material or not all based on whether she can clean the house, bear children and, most importantly, whether she can whip up a good bowl of ugali for her husband at the click of a finger.
The goal posts haven’t moved for women in Kenya on the home front. Not even as we modernise, and have an increased number of women in the workplace doing the same hours as men. She would still be expected — when both the husband and wife return from work — to assume the role of a cleaner, mother and ugali connoisseur.
In the meantime, the husband will have a quick change of clothes and head off to the nearest pub or hotel to watch an English Premiership League game or go to the mosque and hang out with other men for prayers or deals.
The discussions around the role of career women at home were started online, with me in the thick of it. This was after a video of celebrated gospel singer Mercy Masika surfaced online. In a candid interview, she opened up about how difficult her marriage was in the early years.
The singer said that she experienced culture shock after returning from work, and travel due to the nature of her career, she was still expected to cook for her husband. I assume the husband was at home all along. This is common in marriages.
Let’s take an example of a wife who could be a nurse by profession. Sometimes she returns home at the end of her shift at midnight, and she is still expected to cook for her husband, who has been waiting for her at home.
We need to have a serious discussion about situations like that one. People need to talk about how to manage modern relationships. Otherwise, it’s a domestic abuse bombshell.
A house husband is an alien concept in Kenya. However, there are some men who are “stay-at-home-husbands” who contribute little to the family kitty apart from child-siring duties. Such men would still be considered the “head” of the family in an African context. That is despite the bulk of the burden of keeping the home falling on the wife’s shoulders. For working couples, even if they both do the same type of work, the woman’s part will still be considered inferior. Once they reach home from work, the wife is expected to tie and lesso or wear an apron and do the house chores.
I still remember the story of a senior lawyer who lamented about how her husband expected her to cook for him when they arrive home before he left the house to play a game of golf. Both of them were lawyers.
In places like Nairobi, where it takes ages to reach home due to the traffic nightmare, it won’t be naïve to suggest that perhaps household chores should be shared so that a spouse doesn’t burn out.
Most men I engaged on X believe that it is not their duty to get into the kitchen, whether they are married to a stay-at-home mum or a career woman. They believe that if the wife feels inundated, she could get a domestic worker. Don’t they realise that raising children and running the house should be a shared responsibility. Loco parenting through a house girl is a bad idea.
In many cases, since wives bear the largest responsibility of putting food on the table and paying bills, house girls have become the second wives “in-waiting” as the woman of the house is tied up at work.
Many Kenyan men blame the “working woman” for their decision to marry their house girl. However, these men don’t see the part they played in the failed marriage. The rural mentality that a good wife must know how to make good ugali has not left most of our men. We have read of many reports of men beating up their wives for badly cooked ugali, or for cooking it late. I admit that I am the worst ugali cook. I don’t know when it is cooked. Is it 30 minutes or an hour?! I would want to believe my wifery material is measured on much more than a bowl of ugali.
For domestic abuse to end, we need to reestablish the roles men and women play in order to fit into the modern concept of what a family is. As more women go to work, unlike our mothers’ time, it is key perhaps to understand the importance of sharing responsibilities at home for a happy home. If a man can eat, then he can cook ugali! The Kenyan lion-hunting man is long dead!
