The danger of marrying too young: What men need to know

Some time back, a clip made rounds on social media and caused quite a stir. In it were about ten Maasai morans, with an equal number of obviously underage girls.

With the camera focused on the seriously shy girls, the morans would ask the girls, in turn, who their betrothed was. Cheers from the morans would follow each answer.

For obvious reasons, it was a divisive clip. Women were naturally opposed to it, the men tended to support it and even those who opposed it would excuse it with, ‘it is tradition.”

We support what benefits us – it is the nature of humans. On average, the youngest morans are about sixteen-years-old. The ones in the clip looked older than that, perhaps nineteen.

The girls on the other hand were definitely not older than fifteen.

We could all pretend that it was all teenage banter and infatuation, but deep inside, we all know that those borderline children will be wifed in a few months. I could say it is every man’s dream to have an innocent virgin wife, but I so hate to generalise. Men need to stop marrying young girls. I could just end this piece here because that is the long and short of it, but my editor would blow off the roof. 

A man, in this age and time, has no business getting married to a woman younger than twenty-five years old, especially if that man is five or more years old.

We could excuse juvenile love that gets two twenty-two-year-olds getting married, but we cannot and must not excuse a thirty-year-old man marrying a twenty-two-year-old. It is selfish.

Men feel the need to marry young, ‘unspoiled’ women for the simple reason in a sick way, they are trying to protect the ones they marry from people like themselves, those who do things to girls that age.

So they nip them when they are young, and perhaps hope that the universe forgets their misdemeanours. But the universe has a good memory, and it is not very forgiving.

The only problem with that solution is, the women will get to a point where she realises that she got the raw end of the deal, then do something about it. She will eventually admit to herself that she regrets getting married at a young age, then she will do something about it.

Humans have an inbuilt regret-app, and when it is uploaded, they start looking back at all the things they did not do, things they should have done, like going to college, meeting more men, having a choice of those men, clubbing and many others. If the app is activated, be ready.

To try to get away with bad behaviour, some men will quote the lifestyles of forefathers who married young and married even younger girls.

It is however, grossly unfair to expect to live like they did a hundred years ago when electricity was not even an idea over here. People married young because there was not much else to do. Now we have doctorates and equity to think about.

I am against men marrying young girls, but I know I cannot stop them. However, I can warn them about the consequences. The women will wake up one day. Those women, because they are surrounded by triggers, will realise that the world, and humans, are ungrateful to their sacrifices, then it will be game-on!

They will get that illicit boyfriend, and you as the husband will have no idea. She will not even be doing it for the money – just for thrills and probably for an explosive sexual experience you have never provided her.

She will sleep with the shamba boy who works for the neighbour, or the widower. You will have no idea, because if a woman does not want to be found out, she will not be found out.  

She will still cook for you, take your usual nonsense, look after the children, but she will be having a good one on the side.

The point is, marrying someone young because you do not want ‘used goods’, so to speak, is futile.

Also, I know men reading this will be thinking, not my woman, but that is what they all say.

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