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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Marriage is a Private Affair, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Urban vs. Rural Spaces
Family, Love, and Marriage
Christianity
Summary
Analysis
In Lagos, Nene asks Nnaemeka if he has told his father, Okeke, the exciting news. Nnaemeka reveals that he hasn’t and would prefer to tell his father about it “when [he] gets home on leave.”
The beginning of Nene and Nnaemeka’s conversation hints at the diverging expectations of city life in Lagos and rural life in Nnaemeka’s home village. While Nene believes in delivering the “news” as quickly as possible, regardless of Nnaemeka’s father distance from them, Nnaemeka believes the news should be delivered personally. In other words, it should be an intimate conversation between father and son.
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Nene wonders why Nnaemeka doesn’t just write to Okeke instead of delaying the news for another six weeks until his trip. She is eager to “let [Okeke] into our happiness now.” Nnaemeka disagrees, however, slowly telling her that he is uncertain about what Okeke’s reaction to the news will be.
Nene shows her unfamiliarity with the importance Okeke places on marriage decisions. To her, delaying the news for another six weeks delays the opportunity to share their happiness with Okeke. However, Nnaemeka tempers her reaction, hinting that the couple’s happiness is not necessarily a factor in Okeke’s possible acceptance and support, and may be a secondary concern to Okeke.
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Nene continues to believe that Okeke will be pleased—she can’t fathom how anyone could “be unhappy when their sons are engaged to marry.” Nnaemeka explains that not only are his people unsatisfied if “the engagement is not arranged by them,” they find it even more concerning when the woman is “not even an Ibo.”
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Themes
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Nene is taken aback by Nnaemeka’s bluntness. Growing up in a big, urban city, she always that it was “something of a joke” that marriage would hinge on a person’s tribe. For the first time, she wonders whether Okeke will be unhappy about the news after all. She tries to reconcile this possibility with her long-held belief that “Ibos were kindly disposed to other people.” Nnaemeka, however, reminds her that this particular belief about marriage is not specific to Ibos, but a feature of other groups as well. He even suggests Nene’s father would react in a similar way if he “were alive and lived in the heart of Ibibio-land.”
Nevertheless, Nene continues to urge Nnaemeka to send a “a nice lovely letter” to his father. Again, Nnaemeka refuses, preferring not to “shock” him quite so abruptly. At last, Nnaemeka finally concedes, agreeing that Nnaemeka knows his father better than she does.
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Later, on his way back to his home in Lagos, Nnaemeka thinks about ways to break the news to his father. He remembers a letter his father sent him recently about Ugoye, the woman Okeke has chosen to marry Nnaemeka. When Nnaemeka gets home, he reads the letter again and remembers Ugoye fondly as “an Amazon of a girl who used to beat up all the boys” and a “dunce.”
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In the letter, Okeke professes to have found a girl for Nnaemeka that will “suit [Nnaemeka] admirably.” Okeke praises Ugoye for her “proper Christian upbringing” and reveals that after she stopped attending school a few years ago, “her father (a man of sound judgement) sent her to live in the house of a pastor where she has received all the training a wife could need.” He also adds that Ugoye’s Sunday School teacher “has told [him] that she reads her Bible very fluently.” Okeke ends the letter hopeful that all parties involved will be able to “begin negotiations” when Nnaemeka returns to the village in December.
Eventually Nnaemeka returns to his village, and on day two of his return, he joins his father under one of his favorite spots under a cassia tree. Nnaemeka begins their conversation by asking Okeke for forgiveness. Okeke is bewildered by his son’s request and asks him to explain why he’s asking for forgiveness
Nnaemeka explains to his startled father that he is asking for forgiveness because of the “marriage question.” Okeke is still confused, so Nnaemeka cautiously but decisively explains that “it is impossible for [him] to marry Nweke’s daughter,” Ugoye.
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Okeke implores his son to explain why it is impossible, prompting Nnaemeka to explain that he cannot marry someone he does not love. His father responds by telling Nnaemeka that he does not have to love the person he marries, but Nnaemeka implies that he must because “marriage today is different.”
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Okeke, however, insists that “nothing is different,” and that Nnaemeka should only worry about whether his wife has “a good character and a Christian background.”
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Nnaemeka changes tack and finally reveals that he has found another woman, with all of “Ugoye’s good qualities.” His father reacts with disbelief to the news, but Nnaemeka continues by describing Nene as a “good Christian.”
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Nnaemeka goes on to explain that Nene is also a “teacher at a Girl’s School in Lagos.” Okeke reacts angrily to this news. He points out that not only does Nene’s job disqualify her from being a good wife, it also proves that Nene is not following St. Paul’s command in Corinthians that “women should keep silence.” Okeke begins to pace as it is revealed that he “condemned vehemently those church leaders who encouraged women to teach in their schools.”
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Okeke composes himself and asks about Nene’s background and who her father is. Nnaemeka explains that her full name is Nene Atang, which further shocks his father. Nnaemeka explains, however, that she is from Calabar and “is the only girl [he] can marry.” Nnaemeka knows he’s being too abrupt and waits for “the storm to burst.”
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Instead of lashing out, though, Okeke reacts by walking away, which to Nnaemeka feels far more alarming and hostile than a “threatening speech” from his father. Later, Okeke refuses to eat as well.
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A day later, Okeke tries to dissuade his son from marrying Nene, though Nnaemeka remains committed to his decision, and his “heart was hardened.” Okeke gives up and sees his son as a lost cause. He dismisses him by arguing that as a father, it is his job to teach Nnaemeka right and from wrong. He also admonishes his son, telling him that “whoever put this idea into [his] head might as well have cut [his] throat,” and “it is Satan’s work.”
Afterwards, Okeke barely speaks to Nnaemeka, though he continues to hope that Nnaemeka will recognize the error of his ways and grasp the severity of “the danger he [is] heading for.” Every day and night, Okeke prays for his son to realize his mistakes.
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Meanwhile, Nnaemeka continues to hope his father will come around. He remains optimistic because he fails to realize that “never in the history of his people had a man married a woman who spoke a different tongue.”
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News about Nnaemeka’s plans continue to spread among the people in the rural village even after Nnaemeka has returned to Lagos. More people share their opinion on the issue to commiserate with Okeke. Another person in the community claims that Nnaemeka’s actions are alluded to in the Bible: “Sons shall rise against their Fathers; it is there in the Holy book.” Yet another person decrees that “it is the beginning of the end.”
As the conversation becomes increasingly religious, a “highly practical man” named Madubogwu suggests an ordinary solution to Okeke’s problem. He suggests that Okeke “[consult] a native doctor about [his] son.” Okeke, however, denies that Nnaemeka is sick, but Madubogwu insists that his “mind is diseased,” and that Nnaemeka needs a “good herbalist [to] bring him back to his right senses” with a medicine called Amalile. He explains that women use the medicine to “recapture their husbands’ straying affection.”
Though others in the community agree with Madubogwu, Okeke insists he will not involve a native doctor and make the same “superstitious” mistake as Mrs. Ochuba. He explains that he prefers Nnaemeka to “kill himself […] with his own hands.”
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Madubogwu insists that Mrs. Ochuba’s mistake “was her fault,” as she did not go to an “honest herbalist.” Another man from the village, Jonathon, interjects and disagrees. He claims that Mrs. Ochuba was a “wicked murderess,” who did not use the medicine on her husband, who it was prepared and intended for. Instead she used it to kill the herbalist—who it was never intended for.
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Six months later, Nnaemeka receives a letter from his father, which he shows Nene—who is now his wife. The letter accuses Nnaemeka of being “unfeeling,” for sending a wedding picture to Okeke. Okeke reveals that he wanted to send the picture back as is, but has instead cut Nene out of the picture and sent just that portion back because he wants “nothing to do with her.” Okeke also reveals that he wishes he could have “nothing to do with [Nnaemeka]” as well.
Nene begins to cry, but Nnaemeka implores her not to and reassures her that his father “is essentially good-natured” and will come around eventually.
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However, eight years pass and Okeke still refuses to speak to Nnaemeka. Okeke writes to his son only three times during those years, but only to refuse his son permission to “come home and spend his leave.” Okeke is adamant that he cannot let Nnaemeka into his home and writes to his son that it doesn’t matter to him “where or how you spend your leave—or your life, for that matter.”
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Meanwhile in Lagos, Nene and Nnaemeka face prejudice from Ibos there as well. Though the women aren’t openly mean to Nene, they pay “her such excessive deference as to make her feel she was not one of them.” Nevertheless, Nene “[breaks] through some of this prejudice and even [begins] to make friends among them.” Gradually people in Lagos begin to accept her after they realize she “kept her home much better than most of them.”
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News of Nnaemeka and Nene’s happy marriage spreads throughout Okeke’s village, but no one dares to mention this to Okeke because of how his son’s name triggers his temper. Hence, Okeke successfully “[pushes] his son to the back of his mind,” though the “strain […] nearly [kills] him.”
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One day, Okeke receives a letter from Nene. At first, he glances at it briefly, but its contents spur him to read more closely. Nene writes that her two sons, “from the day they learnt that they have a grandfather,” have begun to ask to see Okeke. She admits, however, that it feels “impossible to tell them that [Okeke] will not see them.” She ends the letter by hoping that Okeke will allow Nnaemeka to bring their children to visit Okeke next month, while she stays behind in Lagos.
After reading the letter, Okeke senses the cracks in the “resolution he had built up over so many years.” He tries to fight his waning resolve, and the effort of the struggle makes him look out the window and notice the world outside. He sees that the sky is overcast, and the wind is aggressively blowing leaves and dust, suggesting that “it was one of those rare occasions when even Nature takes a hand in a human fight.” It begins to rain soon after that, “accompanied by the lightning and thunder which mark a change of season.”
Okeke continues to attempt to suppress thoughts about his two grandsons, albeit unsuccessfully. He even hums a hymn to distract himself, but the large rain drops from the storm interrupts him, and he begins to think of the children again.
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Okeke begins to feel guilty and wonders how he “could [have] shut his door against them.” He imagines them outside in the “angry” weather, locked out of his house, sad and forsaken. Consequently, he is unable to sleep that night because of his guilt and the fear “that he might die without making it up to them.”
