By James Tar Tsaaior

In his book significantly titled The Meaning of Marriage, Emevwo Anselm Biakolo, an emeritus professor of communication and an eminent marriage counselor and therapist, describes marriage as a sacred institution with a divine origination. Appropriating biblical theology, epistemology and hermeneutics, Biakolo situates marriage within the dynamic of a heterodox spousal relationship between a man and woman for the purposes of procreation, communication, communion, co-operation and friendship. Benefitting from this theology, we can safely and uncontroversially attest or affirm that the earliest beginnings of marriage can be attributed to the pleasure of the Godhead. The biblical creation myth informs us that the primary beneficiaries of marriage were Adam and Eve, our primaeval parents. And the core of their marriage, in accordance with divine fiat or ordination, and ever since, is the imperative for communion. Communication. Community. Procreation.   

Marriage, therefore, constitutes the epicentre of social, cultural and societal engineering. It is the foundation for all other human institutions. In traditional Nigerian/African cultures, marriage forms one of the cardinal rites of passage for individual social belonging and cultural becoming. A man or woman is not, and cannot, be a man or woman in the authentic, metaphoric sense until he/she is married. Otherwise you are still a boy or girl, no matter your age. Marriage is believed, in ideal circumstances, to confer maturity and impose responsibility on individuality. Indeed, in some societies, you cannot be initiated into certain cults, take certain titles or even be accorded full recognition and speaking rites during council meetings until you have settled down, that is gotten validly married. Although these traditional expectations are gradually being eroded and considered anachronistic with the unrelenting onslaught of modernity, it is still prohibitive to think full-valued personhood without thinking marriage as a requisite for social and cultural arrival.  

Like cultures which are in a state of perpetual flux, marriage has also undergone denudation processes in the course of history. Indeed, the meaning of marriage, to harvest Biakolo’s title, has been so radically altered and destabilized in the globalised postmodern world order we have now found ourselves. In this disordered dispensation, unions or partnerships, certainly not marriages, between a man and another man; a woman and another woman have become fashionable and even celebrated and idealized. Alternative sexual orientations championed by the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) are now shamelessly promoted and encouraged. These sexual abnormalities are flagrantly against the norm of heterosexual relations. They also contradict and undermine all known natural laws. 

Thus, these illicit liaisons which we thought were only prevalent in societies and cultural systems under the yoke and dictatorship of cultural stasis have now invaded and permeated our society and are becoming increasingly entrenched in unprecedented ways. The very traditional idea of the family is not spared the indignity and brutality of this cultural violence and social assault. In autochthonous societies like Africa, a family comprise a father, mother and child(ren). These are the three stones at the hearth or fireplace in every homestead which function as a site for family nutrition, reflection and recreation. Today, the family, the very nucleus of society and its tiniest cell, which is also adjudged as a veritable domestic church, mosque or shrine, has been completely disfigured and reconfigured. It now comprises a man and a man with a dog, or a woman and a woman with a cat or even a man or woman with a dog or cat. Procreation and children are no longer relevant or part of the equation. The business of procreation is abandoned to other unprogressive and uncivilized couples whose children can be suitably qualified candidates for adoption by the purveyors of these illicit liaisons. Marriage in such societies has come under the anvil and sledgehammer of cultural relativism. This new culture, or subculture, represents an odious perversion of nature and the sacrosanctity of its laws.  

The above prefatory remarks are relevant and important because they form an integral antiphonal, call and response intertextual conversation between the thematic centre of Bridget Aver Achie’s novella, Just Before Sunset. Set mainly in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city and symbol of its corruption, national pathologies and vanishing unity, the 64-page novella narrativises the amalgam of issues and challenges consistent with marriage. These include, but not limited to, spousal love, care, communication, the raising of children, work, family sustenance and other associated responsibilities. The Tiv couple, Shima Adudu, an engineer, and Torkwase, an attorney, live with their four children in relative comfort and serenity until the relentless challenges of marital life begin to threaten the very foundation of their marriage. It is instructive that much of the narrative unfolds against the sordid backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic which imposes its tyranny on life with a regimen of protocols and the health hazards associated with it.

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Modernity inescapably imposes a myriad of spousal responsibilities on persons who seek social mobility in cities today. Expectedly, many get entangled in its sticky web like a hapless and helpless dragonfly. This is the unfortunate destiny of Shima whose joblessness but also willful indolence drives his workaholic wife to bear the cumbersome yoke of fending for the family. This abdication of spousal responsibility by Shima puts a keen knife to the familiar cords of a harmonious family life and nearly drives the marriage to the precipice of disintegration. However, family friends, corporate colleagues and most crucially professional counseling promise therapy. But as Dr Mary Antsah, the marriage counsellor impresses on the couple, “Marriage counseling is only useful to people who are committed to working out their marriage”. (p.62)

Achie’s authorial intention through the deft exploration of marriage as a thematic preoccupation in this narrative is commendable because of its centrality and continued currency in the global discursive marketplace. Indeed, marriage is one of the most topical but also misunderstood, threatened and endangered of social and cultural institutions today because it is the nucleus of society and hope of humanity. Whatever affects a marriage does not affect just the couple but has spiraling consequences on family life and societal health. Indeed, to destroy a marriage is to destroy a huge chunk of society. The author idealises and celebrates marriage. The novella’s sustained narrative foreground privileges marriage and its verities but with the caveat that a marriage works not by sheer luck or mere wishful thinking. It somehow masks but also tasks and mines the sensibilities of the couple and invites them to co-operate and collaborate in spousal love. This is because marriage is duty, trust, generous self-giving, hard work, patience, understanding, communication, mutual respect and resilience. Marriage does not mean the absence of challenges, many of them disruptive and catastrophic, but the willingness to confront, endure and manure the relationship for its efflorescence and fruition.

This is where the title of the novella resonates strongly with a compelling reality on the fate of many marriages in today’s world. A marriage can be understood through the metaphor of the sun which begins its journey in the morning with its brilliant healing rays, reaches its zenith at noon with a sometimes discomfiting heat and returns home when it sets with eventide. These travelling stations of the sun represent marriage just like the three stones at the fireplace symbolise family life in a cultural sense. When the sun sets on a marriage, this signals its end either in separation, divorce or the death of one of the couple. But it is the same sun, son of the royal sky, that hardens clay; and it is the same sun that melts snow and dries away the dew on the spear-grass. So marriage itself is neutral depending on how couples themselves negotiate its tortuous pathway and respond to its gentle power and willing solicitations. The names of the couple in this novella, in a significant sense too, yield a symbolic value and elicit an explanatory character: Shima is the Tiv morpheme for the heart, believed to be the seat or throne of love, and Torkwase means Queen, a trope of nobility and the very object of royal love. Indeed, neo-classical poetry tells us that every lover is a king and every beloved a queen.  

It has been observed rather sardonically and sarcastically that marriage is the only institution that people obtain certificates before the completion of the course. Perhaps, this may be why the marital failure rate has become so astronomical or phenomenal such that couples wed today and separate or divorce the next day. Marriage certificates become shredded and rings are cast before piggery. Celebrity culture has serenaded and even commodified this melo-dramatisation, violent assault and diabolical attack on marriage. In Achie’s novella, it is just before sunset for the marriage between Shima and Torkwase. So reassuring hope still hangs, though spectrally and perilously, in the horizon. 

Achie has executed a noble project in Just Before Sunset. She has courageously mobilized her authorial initiatives and narrative energies in the defence of marriage in a bid to serve and save it from the repeated brutalisations unleashed on it by society. Her voice is gentle and yet so bold, powerful and significant that it makes a strong case that is persuasive and appealing. Her style is suave, her language lyrical and uplifting and vision inspirational. The entire novella is highly evocative and reads like a movie on a big screen with life images that lend the narrative the undisputable quality of a book intended for the cinemas. I am acutely aware that in a novella, a flighty narrative protocol is employed to compress proceedings into manageable capsules. However, Achie’s four children have been completely overshadowed by the parents such that they are hardly heard or seen. They should have been accorded some visibility. This is because children spice marriage with their domestic politics and, quite often, revealing adventures and escapades. On the whole, I think very highly of this out-dooring narrative effort by Bridget Achie. I gladly and enthusiastically recommend it to all readers who are committed to the sanctity of marriage and concerned about the future of society for their enriched nourishment and cognitive satisfaction. This is all in the salutary defence of marriage and for the sake of a more abundant life in our increasingly perverse global neighbourhood.

James Tsaoir is a professor of English, Media and Cultural Studies, Department of English, School of Humanities, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, Republic of South Africa.