Marriage is a Private Affair

by

Chinua Achebe

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Themes and Colors
Urban vs. Rural Spaces Theme Icon
Family, Love, and Marriage Theme Icon
Christianity Theme Icon
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

“Marriage is a Private Affair” begins in Lagos with a conversation between two of the central characters of the story, Nene and Nnaemeka. The conversation is tense as Nene tries to understand why her fiancé hasn’t yet spoken to his father, Okeke, about their engagement. The root of the tension, however, stems from the fact that both of the characters disagree about what the father’s reaction to their engagement will be, since Nene…

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Family, Love, and Marriage

In “Marriage is a Private Affair,” Okeke vehemently believes that as a father, he should be the one to choose who his son, Nnaemeka, marries. He believes this so much that in his letter to Nnaemeka, he does not ask about his son’s willingness to marry the woman he has found for him. Instead, he confidently declares that he has “found a girl who will suit [his son] admirably,” suggesting that Okeke’s approval of…

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Christianity

In “Marriage is A Private Affair,” Christianity is intricately linked to the question of marriage. Both Nnaemeka and his father are on the same page about the expectation that Nnaemeka marry a woman who is a “good Christian,” and thus implied to be a good woman and good wife. In fact, this is one of the only things they both agree on in the course of the story. Nevertheless, while Christianity is a unifier in…

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