President hand-holding wife symbolised claim to Western patriarchal 'civilisation'
President William Ruto and First Lady Rachel Ruto disembark from their plane at Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta on May 20, 2024.
What you need to know:
- Although the origin of kneeling to make a marriage proposal to a woman is not categorically documented, it is assumed to derive from the medieval habit of a knight going down on one knee and handing over his sword to the ruler as a sign of total loyalty.
- Ordinarily, kneeling is a sign of subjugation that hegemonic men would not engage in.
During the recent presidential visit to the United States, the Kenyan public was captivated by the image of President William Ruto gingerly holding the hands of the first lady, Rachel, as they disembarked. Kenyans’ surprise was informed by the fact that it is not a habit known of him locally.
For this, the President was supposedly summoned by the ideational men’s conference to explain why he went against being an archetypal alpha male jealously preserving patriarchal hegemony, where public display of romance is a form of weakness and a betrayal of the norms.
The display brings us to the various romantic practices common in Kenya today, but which are foreign in origin and many of which reinforce patriarchy. One is the idea of kneeling to make a marriage proposal to a woman.
Although its origin is not categorically documented, it is assumed to derive from the medieval habit of a knight going down on one knee and handing over his sword to the ruler as a sign of total loyalty.
Ordinarily, kneeling is a sign of subjugation that hegemonic men would not engage in. But in this case, it is a technique of inversion through which the man feigns suppleness to beguile his prey after which he resumes his true colours. This is akin to a viral cartoon in social media depicting a what looks like a hyena promising sheep and goats that he will become herbivorous once elected, a behaviour fresh in the mind of the Kenyan voter.
Two is the idea that red is the colour of love. This derives from the medieval French poem “Roman de la Rose” by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. This is an allegory of a male lover’s quest for a female partner. The rose flower symbolises female sexuality in the poem. This coheres with presentation of flowers to lovers, which dates back to the 16th century Persia, where the tulip featured in paintings and poetry as a symbol of passion and desire.
White wedding
In a March 14, 2004 article of Daily Nation, relationship columnist Chris Hart expounded on the origins and implications of the Western white wedding tradition. He relates the idea of a best man to the fact that in olden days, a bride was often kidnapped, hence the groom brought along a trusted friend who could assist should a fight break out.
Today’s best man symbolically keeps watch over any intruder seeking to disrupt the wedding. The bride standing on the left of the groom was to leave his right arm free to draw a sword, should that be necessary, to protect his catch while still ensnaring her with his left arm. This conforms to the patriarchal rightist ideology also found in local traditions regarding even burial places in the homestead for a patriarch and matriarch.
Chris goes on to explain that honeymoon was basically meant to hide the bride from would-be snatchers. In the process, her ownership transfers to the groom. This was the reason couples ordinarily kept the location of the honeymoon secret.
The article then explains the demand for payment by the bride’s family, then in the form of a gold ring, handed over to the father. In church weddings even today, it is the father who gives away the bride. This is a blatant patriarchal practice in which the bride is a commodity for exchange between men.
The treatise explains the wedding cake as a symbol of fertility, underlining the primacy of reproduction in marriage. This can easily be related to the norm that women’s value in marriage is judged by their fertility. Another practice is that of the groom carrying the bride over the threshold of the new home.
Initially, Chris explains, this was to “keep the bride away from the evil spirits believed to lurk in thresholds”. Lately, it means that whoever physically sets foot in the house first is the superior partner.
By carrying brides into the house (or bridal chamber on the first night of honeymoon), grooms claim authority and dominion. Also notice the superiority assigned to men in Christian weddings when the priest announces that the “groom may now kiss the bride”, not that the two should kiss each other.
The President’s gesture must thus be scrutinised not merely from a romantic perspective but an ideological one as well. It was not merely an expression of love, but a visual symbol and claim to Western “civilisation”.
The perception that he was the one holding her hand aligns with the patriarchal norm that men initiate romantic relationships in which women are objects. In this context, the partner whose hand is held becomes a trophy on exhibition.
The writer is a lecturer in Gender and Development Studies at South Eastern Kenya University ([email protected]).
