‘He told me I was filling his toilet and eating his food for nothing’- Confessions of women in childless marriages

• Unlike in the Western world, the importance of children in a Kenyan, and by extension African, marriage cannot be gainsaid.
• So special are children around here that, at times, a marriage is not official until the birth of a child.

In the West, however, children in marriage are probably considered a ‘non-issue’. Little wonder then, that, there is a sharp decline in birth rates in Europe. So much that in some countries like Germany the life expectancy is slightly higher than fertility rate, leading to a big number of adults and the elderly than children.

Childless by choice or fate

Take, for instance, Theresa May former Britain’s Prime Minister. Despite being married for over 35 years, the lady leader has no children. When asked by local press why she doesn’t have children, she insinuated she has been trying to get some, but all has been in vain.

“Sometimes things you wish had happened don’t or there are things you wish you’d been able to do, but can’t,” she said, adding: “Not having children is a bit heartbreaking”. This is just a high profiled example of how, in the West, many couples are able to lead their lives happily without children, either by choice or by fate. In some instances, couples who can’t, or are not willing to, give birth in the West adopt children. For instance, celebrities like Dolly Parton, Portia de Rossi, George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey are all middle-aged and married, but have no biological children of their own. And their society is okay with it.

Chased away, beaten, co-wifed for inability to give birth

Closer home, things are very different, especially if it’s the woman who is barren. Tales, for example, have been told of women who get kicked out of marriages, get second or even third wives imposed upon them, for not being able to give birth. Around here, a marriage without a child is considered a big scandal. So much that we saw the case of 34-year-old Stephen Ngila who reportedly battered his wife Jackline Mwende, 27, and cut her on the head and neck before chopping off her hands for allegedly not being able to give birth. But surprisingly, according to a medical report, it is her husband who has a low sperm count. Mwende’s case is an example of the burden women bear when in childless marriages, even if it is their partners who have challenges.

Children’s special place in Kenyan marriages

Mzee George Lukoye, 72, says children play a vital role in an African marriage. Much as we may want to wish away the perception, he insists it’s a cultural aspect that we may have to learn to live with for a while before people embrace childlessness in marriages.

“The place of children in an African marriage can never be gainsaid. In Kenya, for example, marriages tend to be communal. There are relatives, especially grandparentS, who put pressure on newlyweds to make babies as early as possible because they are itching to be immortalised through naming — a very vital aspect of many African cultures,” says Lukoye.

He adds that children play many other roles like providing cheap labour, security and acting as investment that parents falls back on in old age. “Seeing as, unlike in the West, we have poor social security for the elderly, most Africans put a lot of pressure on their kin to give birth to as many children as possible, so as to act as their social security in retirement,” says Lukoye. He goes on to say it’s always a catch 22 for spouses who don’t give birth — even if they are barren. “Such individuals are always considered as being rebellious or sabotaging labour, security and perpetuation of family history, posterity or lineage,” he says.

Why locals find child adoption un-African

Take, for example, 41-year-old Anita Nafula and her husband John Wekesa, 44, who have been married for 15 years without a child. Numerous visits to fertility experts have revealed that Wekesa has low sperm count, thus cannot sire a child. But because the couple was married in church and are both from overly religious backgrounds, both divorce and polygamy are out of the question. When talking to us, Nafula confessed that despite her husband’s inability to sire children, she still loves him to bits. Wekesa, on the other hand, still loves his wife and is open to adoption, but there is another problem.

“I find adoption a bit un-African. It’s a concept my people may not accept. I just hope God will intervene one day and help us bear children. Actually, adoption will be the last thing I will do,” says Nafula. Being the good wife that she is, Nafula has never revealed the fact that it’s her husband who has a fertility problem. “I always take one for the team. So most people, especially his relatives, think I am the one with the problem,” says Nafula. She says so much is the stigma that her visits upcountry have become limited. “I hardly visit my in-laws because they are no longer friendly. They strongly believe it’s me who is barren, a conversation I have steered clear, lest I spill beans and scandalise my husband,” agonises Nafula.

Hate, pressure barren women get from in-laws

Nafula says her in-laws have prevailed upon her husband several times, urging him to marry another wife to bear him children. But considering the fact that he is infertile, he knows such a move would yield no fruit. He has, instead, stayed put, of course at the expense of is wife who now has to bear the rage of the inconsiderate in-laws. “One of my sisters-in-law told me to my face that I had bewitched their brother and made him a fool to the extent he has refused to marry another fertile woman,” she says.

A certain Njoga is still ruing the abortion she procured while in campus. A costly pregnancy termination that is still haunting her ten years later. Despite trying several times, she has never gotten a child. A doctor told her womb was ruptured. “My husband turned into a monster when five years down the line I could not give him a child. He said I was filling his toilet and eating his food for nothing,” she says.

Mary said all her friends and sisters had children, and whenever they met at chamas or other social gatherings, they would ask her what she was waiting for. “Unagoja Kengele (Are you waiting for a bell to start giving birth)!? Some friends would joke, without knowing what exactly I was going through. Some comments were really mean. When I opened up, some friends even advised me to try my luck outside my matrimonial home by sleeping with other men,” she says. She said her husband finally got another woman and kicked her out of the house. She has since buried her pain in her career. She, however, plans to adopt a child once she is financially stable.

Unprepared newlyweds’ pressure to make babies

Silah and Joan kosgei decided not to rush into having children after their colourful church wedding. They mutually agreed to enjoy their marriage and focus on their careers for a few years in order to build a stable home and be ready when the babies came. Interestingly, this did not go down well not only with their families, but also the church. Silah says his friends, family and even fellow members of the church “were just not getting it”, terming the move “crazy” and “un-African”. Joan says her parents became too concerned, especially when she told them the initial decision not to have children was mutual.

“This man paid your dowry according to our Kalenjin culture and you are obligated to give him children whether he is ready or not,” Joan says her mother told her. They say their pastor and friends from the church told them it was wrong to delay God’s blessings by choosing to wait.

“When we were ready, we stopped using contraceptives and as we speak, have two kids. But it was hell before,” laughs Joan, adding: “Society puts too much pressure on newlyweds, as if they would help you raise the children”.

Where wives who only give birth to girls are frowned upon

What’s more, in most communities in Kenya, it is not only unacceptable to be childless, it is also akin to a sin when a woman bears only female children. Some communities in Western Kenya and Nyanza place a high premium not just on children, but on the boy child. Women who only give birth to girls always find themselves between the hammer and the anvil.

For instance, Joyce Kandie — the woman in a video that went viral, vandalizing her husband’s car after he allegedly caught him cohabiting with another woman in Migori County — told us that her marital woes got worse when she bore her fourth daughter. “He often chided me for only giving birth to girls and even insinuated that my youngest child was not his. He abandoned us for a woman way older than both me and him,” she said. Kandie is not alone. Phoebe Otieno is separated from her husband of twenty years when her marriage because a living hell.

“After my third daughter, my husband took in a second wife and I had to contend with it. Strangely, her first child was a girl. It was in her second birth that she got a boy,” said Phoebe. Phoebe says things got from bad to worse and even though years later she bore a son for her husband, her marriage had become irreconcilable and she walked out with her son.

If you doubted the fact that women go through hell in some marriages, think again. Just when you thought not having a child was the problem, it has been revealed that in some communities having ‘less’ of them could earn you the wrath of old school in-laws, too. Stories have been told of spouses, especially women, who are forever under pressure from in-laws to have more children. Evans Bosire, for instance. Despite having two lovely children, his mother has been on his case, insisting he gets more children.

Efforts to explain to her that times have changed and economic climate cannot allow for big families always fall on deaf ears. “She claims, she needs at least a daughter to be named after her. She whispers that if my wife is unwilling, I get another woman,” says Bosire.