Addis Ababa, September 22, 2011 (Ezega.com) - Some hold an opinion that love and relationships are something that follow the same rule across generations. ‘The players may change but the game remains the same’ is a stand taken by these people. However, every so often we hear many complain saying relationships, marriage and love are losing their value in the eyes of the present generation of Ethiopia. Especially older people exemplify this through the rising rate of divorce, the ‘take it easy’ attitude of the young and the seemingly missing appetite to compromise and sacrify interests in relationships and marriages.

The two different generations are sometimes telling two different stories on the perception and reality of marriage in the present modern society. Solomon is now a 58 years old proud man with 32 years of marriage. He met his wife Yenenesh some 33 year back here in Addis Ababa. He remembers the time as an era when people were trustworthy; the women were not so selfish and they were caring for anyone like mother and, most importantly, knew what was important in life. “Women in my time understood the most important thing in life is relationship, family and marriage. They truly knew how precious it is and did everything they could to preserve it. It was not always easy because the man in my generation were harsh on their women,” he said. According to Solomon, deciding to get married was not easy decision between the couples back then. “Families were involved. Elders who knew and understood marriage better were consulted and, I think, that is one of the reasons marriage worked really well back then,” he said.

Solomon saw his wife for the first time while she was going to school and knew at that moment that she was the one for him. However, he did not rush to decision. “I asked around about her and talked her friends and people who knew her. I did not just follow the things I felt at the time. The problem with this generation is that they go for anything they feel like. However, from experience, I can tell you that attraction is very tricky. It never means that the person is right for you,” he said. Their courtship lasted six months only. “I asked her to be my girlfriend. She did not say yes. I had to wait several months to get her answer. Women back then were very smart and took the time to see if the man was for real or just a player”. After she agreed to be his girlfriend, dating was not an easy task for the young couples. “Though she was 20 years old, her family never allowed her to go anywhere without their permission. Asking a permission to date at that time was beyond imagination. She had to sneak out from the house and we used to hide so that no one will see us. It was a hard time,” he said.

32 years of marriage was never easy. Solomon admits he and his wife had rough times that threatend their marriage several times. The secret for their survival, according to him was the mind set of his generations about commitment. “My generation was told a man should better lose his child than his word. That is the extent of our understanding of a promise and a commitment,” he said. “Me and my wife kept our word and stood by each other no matter what. I will be honest with you, in the last 32 years, I met more than dozen women to whom I was attracted. Nevertheless, I always knew what I had with my wife is more important than any relation I had or I will have in my life time,” he said.

Solomon has another secret, which he believes made marriage in his generation more sustainable. “The women back then were not materialistic. They never counted what you have or what you do not have and all they cared was if you were a good person that could treat them right. They knew prosperity comes with love and working together towards it.” Solomon remembers all he had when he got married was one bed with one room flat he rented from the government.

While Solomon was telling his story and the concept of marriage in his generation, three young men, Hanna 28, Yonas 27, and Nebeyu 27, were listening. To my surprise, they never interrupted or argued with Solomon while he was comparing the two generations and blaming the present one for its lack of commitment.

However, once he finished, they engaged themselves and discussed whether relationship and marriage lost their value in the present generation. “I think relationships were more stable back then because the women were less assertive,” Hanna argued. “They accepted every abuse and did nothing about it. They were willing to compromise their passion and career, if they had one, to their partners. They did not have a voice and never challenged anything at all. Therefore, there is no way the relationship could have failed,” she said. According to her, today more relationships are failing and divorce rate is increasing because women are aware they are entitled to have their own life. “Today more women refuse to be accessories for their husbands or partners. They are able to define themselves as a human beings with equal entitlements as the opposite sex. This, of course, is annoying to men who are struggling to keep the patrimony system as long us they could. There is an obvious conflict in this struggle, so we shouldn’t be surprised if more relationships are failing”.

Nebeyu did not agree with this contention. “I agree with Solomon completely. Today, promise and commitment are not valued as before. People are afraid of it. Even those who take it are no serious enough about it. Relationships and marriage fail not because women are becoming more aware of their rights, but because people are running away more from their responsibilities,” he said. Nebeyu also agreed with Solomon's assertion that women today are more materialistic than before. “You all know that I have been in relationships several times. One thing all the women I dated have in common is they were more concerned about my financial status than anything else.” However, Hanna was offended by this allegation. “It is unfair to conclude that all women are materialists. From both sides there are people who value money more, but that cannot lead us to generalization on everyone else.”

Yonas, after listening both sides, came up with another possibility why relationships are often failing in the Ethiopian modern society. “May be the perception for marriage and relationships have changed with time. The expectations have grown. Today both sides imagine the other to be more content, educated and successful if possible. I assume this is a positive change for our society,” he said. “Men are not looking for a wife that can just cook and give birth to children any more. They are looking for a partner, a friend and someone they can talk to about anything. Women are also looking for some one who stands by their passion in life, their education and their success as an individual. This high expectations lead to disappointments which results in breakups or even divorce,” he said.

Woinshet Arega, Gender Expert in Addis Ababa, said women are becoming more assertive and sensitive about their fundamental human rights and play the greater role for the current notable crises of marriage and relationships. “I have women coming to me and telling me that they want a divorce after 20 or more years of marriage. They say they have been abused and mistreated and they have had enough now. From what I see, both young and older women understood economic dependency created the inequality they suffered from greatly. They have decided to take charge and become independent. After that they see that there is no reason to put up with violence and disrespect.” Woinshet says the problem with the youth today is unrelated to fear of commitment, rather it is wanting to make conscious decision in their life. “I admire the youth today for understanding that it is important to marry someone compatible with their needs and passion in life. They are choosy and, if they do not like something, they will change it. They do have interest to be committed and get married. I do not think the number of couples getting married is any less than in previous times.”

Woinshet also argues that we have to accept that failed relationships could be a sign that people are more aware of what they want in life. “Society told us that especially if you are woman and meet someone and start a relationship we have to end up marrying that person. I think that is one of the greatest misinformation we were given to. It is always good to find the right person in a first try, but that does not always happen. My advice to women is to end relationships before it is late. They come to me and tell me that their boyfriends abuse and disrespect them in several ways. However, I can see in their eyes that they are hoping this will change someday. I have seen women marrying the same person they complain about in a hope that marriage will change everything. Those are the marriages that end up in divorce,” she says.

Kinfe Haile, a divorce lawyer who studied Ethiopian family law for several years, says couples are now more concerned about what they feel about each other than what the society thinks of the marriage. “In previous times, it is my opinion that people put up with a dead marriage worrying what their families and the society in general would think of them if they let it go. Especially for a women, divorce had a serious effect in their social acceptance. I believe that is in a process of changing currently. Starting from a relationship, both sides are learning there is always a choice.”

The general concern seems that more young couple go into relationships for wrong reasons. This might increase the number of marriages with wrong foundations, which as a result, pushes divorce rate to its highest. “Today relationships are based on material things than real love and devotion to one another,” said Priest G/tsadik. “I have observed many and I have learned that they are together for the money, the company or in some cases sex. Relationships based on these never end well,” he says.

Meskerem Fanta, assistant judge at Hawassa High Court says the especially high number of failed marriages have a lot of consequence than we think. “I deal with divorce cases everyday and it scares me to think that it is growing at an alarming rate. As a judge, I understand that people have every right to exercise their right to divorce. However, I do know that failed relationships and families fail the country as well.”

We cannot address this issue in a short article like this one. The views cited here reflect the view of a few individuals. However, the matter is worth discussing and I would like to involve my readers on a dialogue whether the elders’ view on the lost value of relationship and marriage is in fact happening in the current modern Ethiopian society.

Seble Teweldebirhan @ezega news