We should go back to our African roots when marriage was forever

Modernisation is causing the extinction of African culture. Perhaps our forefathers were correct in being wary of the snaking rail that opened up Africa's interior to the Western world.

Only a few tragic heroes, such as Okonkwo from 'Things Fall Apart,' are left to carry the weight of the community's culture and customs on their shoulders as things continue to turn and turn, widening the gyre even further.

We were pro-family, and we put in place all structures to ensure families thrived. Marriage was not an open door that men and women could enter and exit through. Once you're in it, you stick with it and work your way through it, even if it means hiring a 'helper' to get you through the tough times.

Our forefathers were not as self-centred as their descendants are today; they occasionally turned away and let a neighbour or two borrow salt, their wives, and a grinding stone from them. The term "complicated" did not exist - you were either married or not, and if you had problems or were dissatisfied, the community was there to help.

Because divorce was not an option, disgruntled partners would flee only to be reunited because that was where they belonged. Vows were so important that even after death, a woman would be returned to be buried alongside her estranged husband and co-wives.

Chasing happiness

In our pursuit of elusive happiness, we marry and divorce, repeating the cycle in the hope that the next partner will be better than the previous. We leave broken children in our wake, making excuses like unhappy couples make unhappy children. We have children whose identities we cannot trace because men have become more slippery than the eel.

African men of the past fiercely guarded their offspring; they took responsibility for the children they sired and made certain their offspring were aware of their identity. We have decided, somewhere between modernisation and Christianity, that it is acceptable to abandon our children when marriage fails.

We reason that a child destined for greatness will thrive in any environment. True, a child can become Obama if he wants to, but a better child will become an Obama among his people in Alego, not in Kiambu.

Fathers, not parents

There are many people in today's generation who prefer to be sires but not fathers. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, getting a woman pregnant was sufficient reason to marry her, but not any longer.

We're wallowing in a world where men have become simps and women have become more aggressive. In our struggle for dominance over one another, we have lost our way back to our stable past and are unable to fully replicate the white man's principles on family dynamics.

Our African tradition placed a high value on the well-being of children, so decisions to dissolve or continue a marriage were frequently based on the implications for the children and their future.

A woman who left her husband to marry someone else was always reminded of her children's roots and where their placentas had been buried. Even when their mothers were adamant about their newfound love, children always found their way back to their fatherland.

The Oxford Dictionary defines modernity as the process of transitioning from "traditional" and "primitive" communities to "modern" societies. When we compare what we have now to what we had then, it is safer to say that modernity is backward.