Getting Married
The pressure to marry is something many people know only too well.
“It’s coming from family, friends, people you work with, people you go to church with – and It can be quite intrusive,” says 27-year-old lawyer Ebunoluwa Tengbe.
Colleagues in her office in Freetown often tell her she spends too much time working and should be out meeting people instead.
“I am happy – I don’t feel incomplete, until those questions start coming up so often that you start to doubt yourself,” says the young Sierra Leonean.
It’s a similar story in Tanzania, says journalist and media entrepreneur Tulanana Bohela.
On one occasion after a workshop, a client questioned why Ms Bohela wasn’t married and suggested she become “softer” and “more humble” to bag a husband. She’s also had an aunt publicly pray for her to find a husband at a family reunion.
“I’m one of very few cousins or family members to have not moved from my father’s house to another man’s house,” she tells The Comb.
Instead the 33-year-old lives alone, which she says raises eyebrows in her “conservative” country. She’ll often tell people she lives with her brother to put them at ease.
