'Why I believe marriage is a scam'

When Maria Nyambane wrote a book titled Marriage is a Scam, she got all kinds of criticism from people who judged the book by the cover.

People said she was discouraging marriages, they said she wrote it because her marriage was in trouble and even went as far as saying the book was satanic because it went against the church’s beliefs. They criticised it without reading it first.

Maria was raised in a Christian setup. She is a mother of two boys, a wife, and an author. She studied medical lab and then later pursued journalism. She realised she had a passion for writing and started a children’s magazine called The Young Magazine, wrote a book called Love the Original You, and then her latest book, Marriage is a Scam.

So, why does she think marriage is a scam, yet she has been married for years?

”When I was dating my husband, I saw him do anything to make me happy. I would ask for anything and he would sacrifice his entire being to make me happy. On getting married I realised that when you get married things are different,” says Maria.

“The idea of writing the book came to me when a friend who was only three months into her marriage told me she was upset her husband was always on his phone. She expected all his attention to be on her since they were newly married and did not have children yet. I remembered I went through this with my husband and that is when I decided to write about marriage being a scam. Marriage is a scam because what you expect is not what you get; no one has ever gotten what they expected, “says Maria.

The author realised that some challenges she went through in her marriage were similar to challenges other people went through. She decided to do her research and talked to many couples; from those in one-year marriages to those in 50 years marriages, and realised there were some common challenges in almost all marriages. 

“I want us to be realistic about marriage. I needed to come up with some kind of manual for people to understand the problems others have gone through and problems you will most likely go through when you get into marriage. When people know exactly what they are getting themselves into, they can be prepared for what is to come,” she says.

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Maria says that people go into marriages unprepared and come out heartbroken, saying marriage is a scam.

“Why don’t you go into it seeing the scam part of it so that you are prepared mentally? If you are not willing to walk in and walk out because you know there are sacrifices you are not willing to make, what is the point of putting yourself through it? So many people I talked to have regretted their choice and say they are still in it for the children or simply because they do not want judgment from society,” she says.

She adds, “We were raised to believe that marriages must work and I am here to say not every marriage is meant to work. Times have changed but marriage is one thing that has remained old school. You tell your children to abstain till marriage but you do not tell them that being married does not guarantee intimacy.

Girls are advised to never deny their husband’s sex but no one has ever told the husbands the same. And you find that when people are forced to live that way, they become bitter and hurt. And that is why this old idea of marriage makes it a scam. We are taught one thing but find something completely different once we get married.” 

A devoted Christian, Maria says people have a way of selecting verses from the Bible that mostly favour the agenda they could be pushing without necessarily being open and objective. She reasons that God hates divorce but that said, she thinks he does not enjoy the deaths that come from bad marriages.

”A lot of people do not want to make sacrifices and that is why a lot of marriages are failing. Marriage takes a backseat most of the time because people fear their bosses, and their families more than their marriage failing. People do not understand the level of sacrifice needed to make marriages work,” she says.

When asked about her marriage, Maria says people are bashing the book thinking she wrote it because her marriage is not working but it is. She says her husband is an amazing person, and that they face the same challenges everyone faces in marriage.

She says she and her husband are open about what they want to achieve in their relationship and that she appreciates him for that. They solve problems as they come up. Their marriage has rules and they both have clearly defined boundaries.

“Marriage is the most beautiful thing, a very beautiful experience but not all marriages were meant to work. And no marriage is going to work without hard work; it is one of the hardest things you will ever do. It is up to you two to work on it and make it as beautiful as you want. The reason modern-day marriages are not working is because those sacrifices are the hardest to make. Once you read Marriage is a Scam, there are things you will see that will be hard for you but let me challenge you. There are also beautiful things in marriage that you will want for yourself,” Maria says.