Love isn't enough: Power of assimilation in marriage

I disliked the brown ugali made from sorghum flour. It reminded me of past traumas and historical economic injustices. As our financial situation worsened, my father had to go to the village, and soon he could no longer afford maize flour. Brown ugali thus became a reminder of the lean season. When I got married, I discovered that it was my wife’s favourite food.

One day, when I went to the village, I overheard my mother planning to buy maize flour for my ugali. I told her not to worry — I would eat whatever she cooked. My father asked me when I had started eating brown ugali. I told him that love is powerful. I had struggled with it, but ultimately gave in to what my wife loved in the name of healthy eating. That is assimilation in marriage.

In 'Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking', Malcolm Gladwell writes that psychologist John Gottman can predict a couple’s likelihood of divorce after just a few minutes of observing them interact. Gottman calls this concept “thin-slicing”, and identifies the “Four Horsemen” of communication: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling.

The most damaging of these is contempt, which is characterised by feelings of disgust or rejection. This is evident in facial expressions and body language. One such expression is rolling one's eyes, which indicates contempt, disrespect and dismissiveness. Gottman discovered that marriages where the woman rolls her eyes are unlikely to survive.

If you are unfamiliar with the psychological term 'passive aggression', eye-rolling is a form of it. It enables someone to express negative emotions without confrontation. If this is an indicator of a fragile union, then what is an indicator of a strong marriage? Assimilation.

This term is often used to describe the absorption of a smaller group into a larger community. The same applies to marriage, but in this case, the partners are equal. However, in our patriarchal African societies, it is the woman who is expected to assimilate into her husband’s family and community.

We always hear in weddings that “two shall become one”, this is what I call assimilation. The faster a couple assimilates by adopting each other’s preferences, the higher the chances of that marriage surviving. One day, I met an old acquaintance from Central Kenya who had married a man from Vihiga County. I know Vihiga very well so I interrogated her about her husband.

Common preferences

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She spoke passionately about her husband’s village giving me names of the villages you pass to her matrimonial home. I was impressed and I immediately picked that she is happy in the marriage and well assimilated. Kenyans have this thing about stereotypes of communities and clans you should never marry from. A good example is Kabete, the informal name of urban side of Kiambu. People also believe that every community has their “Kabete” whose ladies are not marriage material.

Meanwhile, I dispute this narrative because it doesn’t matter from which community you marry from, if there is no assimilation. Even if a couple hails from the same community, if there is no merging of common preferences and tradeoff where there is divergence, then the marriage rests on shaky grounds.

In an era where marriages are breaking up faster than political coalitions, it is prudent for those getting married to be aware of red flags and slippery zones. If a couple cannot agree on simple things like cooking, shopping and other simple chores, then the union is at risk of disintegration. The nature of marriage makes them conflict zones.

To ladies, your husband’s family may not be the best, cultured and amenable. However, as long as your husband is close to his people, then you must embrace them. A whole family cannot be bad; a wise wife will find a few people in there to make allies. I find ladies who can travel to her matrimonial home alone and stay there for a few days as the real marriage material. It is a mark of assimilation and a sign that the union is strong.

This means that the husband must make sure the integration happens slowly at a pace where his wife is not pressured into anxious moments. Our individualistic world makes most people to believe they married an individual and his family doesn’t matter. The reality is, the individual is part of a community.

Trade-offs are important, so the couple must find out how to navigate these communities and even agree to join new ones if they cannot agree to fit into any of their set ups.

That is why I believe the biggest indicator of longevity in marriage is where a couple has weaved their lives into one. None of them cannot claim superiority as they move in and out of each other’s life gently and happily. Love is important, but it is not the indicator of a long fulfilling marriage.