Why marriages go bankrupt when social capital dries up

We were recently discussing how chapatis were a rare phenomenon. Today, chapatis are made by the roadside and you can grab one for as low as Sh20. Back in the day, most homes savoured chapatis on Christmas day or when they were hosting visitors.

Today, the price of maize flour rises higher above wheat flour.

We have grown in economic power at the cost of social connections. This reminds me of the idiom — something must give. When we aspire for something, we must give up some part of us.

The price something is not what you pay for it, but what you give up or sacrifice to acquire it.

Mental health

Rising economic levels means growth in economic capital. On the flipside, you pay for it by social capital. Those who try to maintain social capital at equilibrium with economic capital end up frustrated. This has led to individualistic tendencies and the rise of crises like mental health which were unheard of in the past.

I have refused to buy into this “boundaries gospel”, I believe it is a pre- middle class confusion. I have told people that if a WhatsApp group must be created when you die to raise money to bury them, then they have no business preaching boundaries.

Boundaries will keep you safe emotionally but will also deny you the authenticity that fulfilling relationships require to flourish.   I am always left as the lone preacher in the desert.

The loss of social capital has led to break ups in marriage, many men delaying or keeping off marriage altogether and deluded single women. All this because our partners in romantic relationships are expected to offer what a village offered in the past.

The romantic relationships and marriage were just one of the many symbiotic and mutually benefiting relationships we had. Nowadays, we spend most of our time either at work in production lines or sleeping. We give the remaining dregs to family and friends. Meanwhile, we are told that our colleagues at work cannot be our friends yet we spend our productive times of the day with them.

We have also developed another cliché – friends who became family. This is with the sole purpose of relegating all family members to the toxic pit. Yet we know that when shit hits the fan, it is family who stick, even if they don’t have a choice. Yet we don’t give our relatives the time of day and a seat on the table of our best moments.

Stand up

The rise of women economically is an oxymoron in our social circles. Women now believe they have the power to stand up to men, which is true, however, the maxim that what a man can do a woman can even better is a lie. This is an oxymoron because women held households in the past, exactly what they are doing today. Women managed everything bestowed on her by her husband and she was expected to multiply it for the benefit of her children.

This has brought us to another phrase — mankeeping.

Mankeeping refers to the one-sided emotional and social labor women take on to manage a male partner’s social life. This revolves around social management around friends and family, coaching the man to communicate and being his only confidant.

Women will remain women and men will remain men. There are things women are good at and that is management. They have been doing it since our hunter-gatherer days so mankeeping is not a new phenomenon.

Meanwhile, men have never been lonelier. Modern friendships cannot cure this loneliness because of time and the nature of modern world.

Capitalism is a cloak and dagger set up where your best foot could have your Achilles Heel. So we tend to bring the preferred sides to specific circles. This has pushed men to their women which has made women complain that they mankeeping.

In the past men went hunting as a band of friends and across generations so the younger men learned from the older men.

Circles of men

Even when agriculture grew, men would rotate to work in each other’s farms so as to complete their tasks faster.

In the early days of industrial revolution, elite circles of men came up with clubs for sports and fraternity where they would be vulnerable and enjoy life as men.

Meanwhile the common men formed fans clubs around their favourite clubs and all. There were people who watched football live and they were respected because there was no live football on TV.

Fast forward and everything shifted online. Now people are following football matches online and human contact as reduced to bare minimum. Men are casualties in this because women are innately built for connections so they still find ways to connect. Men have grown lonelier hence the rise in mental health issues among men.