Unit 2: Persuasion in Literature: "Marriage is a Private Affair" by Chinua Achebe

Nnaemeka was silent for a while, and then began very slowly as if he groped for his words: “I wish I were sure it would be happiness to him.”

“You have lived in Lagos all your life, and you know very little about people in remote parts of the country.”

This was said so seriously and so bluntly that Nene could not find speech immediately.

In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city it had always seemed to her something of a joke that a person’s tribe could determine whom he married.

He remembered Ugoye quite well, an Amazon of a girl who used to beat up all the boys, himself included, on the way to the stream, a complete dunce at school.

She has a proper Christian upbringing.

I hope we shall begin negotiations when you come home in December.

This was the old man’s retreat where he went to read his Bible when the parching December sun had set and a fresh, reviving wind blew on the leaves.

“What did you say?” he asked slowly and disconcertingly.

“Teacher, did you say? If you consider that a qualification for a good wife I should like to point out to you, Emeka, that no Christian woman should teach. St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians says that women should keep silence.”

This was his pet subject, and he condemned vehemently those church leaders who encouraged women to teach in their schools.

After he had spent his emotion on a long homily he at last came back to his son’s engagement, in a seemingly milder tone.

This was a very rash reply and Nnaemeka expected the storm to burst.

His father’s silence was infinitely more menacing than a flood of threatening speech.

He did not, however, cease hoping that he would realize how serious was the danger he was heading for.

This man had come with others to commiserate with Okeke when news went round about his son’s behaviour.

Nnaemeka’s father was known to be obstinately ahead of his more superstitious neighbours in these matters.

The prejudice against Nnaemeka’s marriage was not confined to his little village.

Rather, they paid her such excessive deference as to make her feel she was not one of them.

Slowly and grudgingly they began to admit that she kept her home much better than most of them.

The strain had nearly killed him but he had persevered, and won.

Then one day he received a letter from Nene, an in spite of himself he began to glance through it perfunctorily until all of a sudden the expression on his face changed and he began to read more carefully.

I implore you to allow Nnaemeka to bring them home for a short time during his leave next month.

The old man at once felt the resolution he had built up over so many years falling in.

The sky was overcast with heavy black clouds and a high wind began to blow filling the air with dust and dry leaves.

That night he hardly slept, from remorse—and a vague fear that he might die without making it up to them.