by X.N. IRAKI

Special to G21

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X.N. Iraki

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI, USA- There is no doubt about it, the famous economics law originating from J.B. Say in the 19th century that supply is equal to demand no longer applies to the marriage market in Kenya. Probably it stopped being applicable in developed countries much earlier. When Wambui Otieno, (sorry Mbugua) the widow of the famous Kenyan criminal lawyer S.M Otieno said last year that she has looked for old men and young men for 18 years and never found one to keep her company after the death of her husband, she might have been very sincere. Her predicament might be the silent plague that stalks professional women, rich women and women of class. Few are brave enough to talk it out openly.

Perhaps they prefer to suffer silently and solve their problems in their own ways away from the prickly eyes of the public. Her candid admission, a view shared by a lot of other women, may be a testimony that despite all our advances in science and technology, from designer babies to exploring the outer fringes of the solar system, we are still prisoners of the instincts we involuntarily inherited from our hunter-gathers predecessors. Despite our sophistication -- portrayed by our sleek cars and ever shrinking mobile phones -- we still long for a hug under the moonlight. Introducing our significant other to our friends and parents is still considered a step in the right direction. Yet finding that person who makes you irrational under all circumstances, that person toward whom you draw no line between him/ her and yourself is becoming an illusion; for some, tragically, for a lifetime.

Why are our women, young and old, finding it increasingly hard to get husbands, a phenomenon that is not uncommon even in the West? Among my classmates at both under graduate and graduate level, few ladies were or are married. When I was working, the pattern was similar. And I am not young -- though I never saw the Union Jack lowered when Kenya gained her independence in 1963. Could the distorted marriage market be a virgin territory for economists, who rarely smile unless they see numbers or diagrams? Is the time ripe for economists to become sentimental? Shall we complicate matters by trying to subject emotional matters to the rational laws of science and economics? Maybe a bad solution is better than none.

For one, the "market" for ladies is a niche market, as Prof. Kibera of University of Nairobi or Maragua Member of Parliament (MP) will say. Such a market is very restrictive. This logically keeps a substantial number of prospective husbands at bay. A girl from Dundori (a mythical place considered to be the epitome of backwardness in Kenya -- they say passengers compete to sit in the driver's cabin to arrive earlier! -- can be married by any man of any age and origin.

A young girl from Nairobi's Lavington (analogous to London's Kensington) is unlikely to meet a man from Dundori, and even if they meet they are unlikely to be compatible.

It is a class issue, men can go down in social class but it is hard for women. One Kenyan daily emphasized, the term "stone mason" for the young man, aged 25, who married the 65 year old widow as if we have another type of mason. Social classes have different ways of doing things, from talking to courting. What makes it worse is the realization that men from Lavington may be fewer -- in Kenya most middle- and upper-class families have tended to have more girls than boys. It might be that people think boys are harder to bring up than girls or it is simply seen as sentimental. But more, such men -- despite coming from well-up families -- may not be eligible for marriage; they may not measure up, economically or intellectually, despite their privileged backgrounds. Though Wambui and Mbugua's difference is chronological, we are yet to find women professors married to illiterate men in Kenya. With such a small pool of eligible men to pick from, the women of class are finding it very hard to get husbands.

We must add a dose of idealism to their notions about the choice of husbands. Most want a "designer husband" and it is not be hard to suspect that worse times may be ahead [for women limiting themselves to such choices].

But are missing husbands just a question of supply and demand? Have we tampered with natural laws? It is more than that? After all, on average the number of girls and boys born nationwide in Kenya is almost equal. It seems that just as we experience drought in Ukambani, the dry part of Kenya, simultaneously maize is going to waste in the Rift Valley, Kenya's grain basket. Likewise, we have some sections of the society missing husbands while we have a surplus of husbands elsewhere. What is needed is matching the supply and demand.

There have been bold attempts to do that. The same problem we are experiencing in Kenya has been in the West for a long time. Attempts have been made to remedy the situation, e.g. formation of singles clubs where single eligible men and women meet. But even these seem not have stopped the rising tide of eligible women missing husbands.

Internet sites, like couplemakers.com, have photos of singles or people after love, romances or just fun. But you have to pay to get them. In Kenya, the dailies have pages where men and women advertise their eligibility. I have often written to some of these people and got some very interesting insights. I did so out of fun not desperation. At times I have pretended I am a lady! These attempts to match singles have not been successful. I am likely to be very skeptical of any lady who advertises herself, no matter how innocently. But what percentage of the population of Kenya read newspapers, let alone are in the position to afford them? Matching should not be of physical bodies but of particular characteristics including economic status and attitudes.

It seems to me that we are addressing the wrong problem. Take the American case. You wake up in the morning, prepare to go to work, hop into your car alone , treat your workmates as informally as you can, lest you be accused of sexual harassment, go for a formal lunch where each person pays for himself (even on invitation!), wait for the day to end, hop into your car and go home. Yes, Americans always ride a car alone, as far as I can see. Ahusband should not touch the wife's car, so I hear. Americans seem to stay indoors, cook indoors, and wash indoors. When people here go for any function it is timed, even supposedly social places like churches are amazingly formal. With development, it seems that the chances of meeting prospective mates has diminished.

Even the famed Kenyan Matatus (commuter taxis) are no better for encouraging social interaction. Notedhow people keep quiet in Matatus.

Others suggest that with the demands of daily life, we have no time to think about who is sitting next to us, until it is too late in life. It may be that missing mates is a logical consequence of development. And we may have to accept it. I don't envisage us encouraging our girls to go to the river to meet their prospectives -- the rivers have even dried.

What surprises me is that the society is finding it difficult matching the opposite sex when it appears from the media that we have limitless access to each other. That is what the media shows but the truth on the ground is different. It is this fact that students realize after the University, when after graduation or just before graduation, usually in their third year of study, they realize that never in their life will they get such a pool of eligible men or women to chose from. But by then it is too late. Women have already begun to call the young men "clip board boys" -- if the term has not changed since my own youth.

It also seems to me that the cause of the problem [of the husband shortage in Kenya] is our attachment to the past. Women still want a man who is rich, has a house, has wheels (a car) and can take you for a several-course dinner in a several star restaurant.

The reality is that such men are rare or too few -- and most are married by the time they have all these.

It will remain a matter of conjecture why ladies don't want to marry poor men so that they might work together to grow rich together. Maybe the reality is that women should also take men out and money should no longer be the main determinant of who should be your husband or wife.

But this shift has been stopped by fear, again a hangover from our olden days. Men fear that if they married an older woman or a richer woman, they will be dominated, yet young girls can be domineering too. Rich, mature women are likely to be more realistic -- and less after your property -- because they already have theirs and know too-well that material things alone never satisfy. They have realized that human beings have an insatiable thirst for companionship and those who say they don't need it are just pretending; deep inside themselves they know the reality is different.

Some cranks suggest that there is real evidence on the extent we can go to get company -- from rape to same-sex companionship. Could same-sex marriage be another step towards balancing the marriage market?

In Kenya, women have made matters worse through publicity for their crusades on women's rights, whatever those rights are. Curiously I have not heard of women's rights crusaders in the US and if they are here, they have escaped my attention. Such publicity has left men scared and few men in Africa no matter how educated or liberal are likely to flirt with any lady who shows any symptoms of dominance, no matter how mild. One Kenyan lady once told me she will negotiate her own dowry. My suspicion is that she will never!

This women's rights publicity has also left a fertile ground for idealism concerning what a man can and cannot do, what a woman can do or cannot do. This has made many men fear marrying well-educated and rich women. It has made many innocent and humble, educated and rich women suffer from sentimental neglect. Ever wondered why secretaries and primary/elementary school teachers in Kenya go so fast?

Contrary to what unmarried women think, men do not fear educated , rich and independent women, what they fear is "another man" in their house. Lately a number of well-educated and moneyed women have realized that men fear them, some have devised elaborate methods of "encaging" men. Some methods work, like leading him to the altar as fast as possible "before he sees the light.

Other methods, like making sure you get pregnant, breed more misery.

The pattern of well-educated, rich and independent women missing out in the marriage market may be repeated here in the USA, where it complicated further by the issue of alimony and child support. Yet in Africa, it is such western socail models that the modern women admire and aspire toward.

Where do we go from here? Do we accept that marriage is a tradition that needs to be done away with like traditional African round huts?

The solution may be accepting that, while many things have changed from technology to social institutions, it may pay to treat some institutions with the care they deserve. Have we taken liberalization too far? Was there something good in the traditional families that are becoming a historical curiosity?

Wambui may be very realistic -- and I bet she has a lot of silent admirers and sufferers-in-arms. Some of ladies, who shout loudest that men are not oxygen, may be perfect cases of sour grapes. It seems to me that the chicken has finally come home to roost. The way forward may be to accept that we have often gone beyond the limits, in terms of our prejudices, attitudes and illusions. We seem to be a generation that is at a crossroads, unsure of how much change to accept and how much to keep.

The Asians made their decisions a long time go. They will change in other ways but not family-wise.

They have less problems and have done better than other societies, economically and otherwis, not only in the US but also worldwide. While illegitimacy among some communities in the US is almost 70 %, it less is than 1% among the Asians. Divorce is even less common. On a yet brighter side, Asians constitute 17% of Ivy League University admissions despite comprising only 3% of the US population. It seems "Asian values" may not be a cliché after all.

Despite all of our scientific advances, it seems the family will remain the bedrock on which any strong nation is built. Many of us know this but we don't know how to make that happen, probably a result of being blinded by the unfettered pursuit of money and wealth. Until the day nature gets her way, we make our way reluctantly to our lonely spot under the sod, leaving our friends and foes feasting on what we toiled and died to acquire.

But before we sort out the labyrinth of change -- with some change arriving prematurely -- we may have more interesting marriages. I hope I shall not be among the headline makers. Such marriages are a sign of a society in transition, and just like adolescents in transition, a lot of trials and errors will follow. We do not know what will emerge. We can only speculate and hope it will be something better. But by looking at the Western society, the emergent society is likely to be more tolerant to extremes, more liberal, with lots of people who find their life empty despite material possessions, full of people with a short-term perspective on matters of the heart and most likely will have more than its share of silently dissatisfied and angry people -- most of whom shall be unable to tell why they find no meaning in their social lives.

After Kenya's discussion of Wambui's marriage in high places and lowly places, the dust has finally settled. It may be the time to lay down all our pretensions and admit that love, or lack of it, still remains one of the most enduring instincts in human history. Despite all the advances we have made -- from mapping the human genome to reaching the outer fringes of the Universe -- we still have one more mystery with us down here under the sun, on this terrestrial ball: love, whatever it is.

Love defies our intellect, our reason and logic.

If you don't believe what I have said, you are yet to fall in love. And best wishes.

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X.N. IRAKI is a Kenyan writer currently studying in the United States. This is his third article for The World's Magazine.