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See what happens when you marry outside your class

By Chinyere Fred-Adegbulugbe

Love, they say, is blind. However, many people have argued that, though love could be blind, marriage, a product of so many love relationships, is an eye opener. Most times, when people want to marry “outside,” they are surprised that people around dissuade them from taking the decision. Love, they say, should be above class, culture and religion. And if the two people getting married are already sharing the same religion, what else could possibly be an obstacle? Certainly, not class, they usually reason.

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But really class does matter. More often than not, an individual‘s class is usually defined by a number of factors. Normally, this refers to someone‘s economic or social level. It could also be both. It is therefore given that people within different classes must have some major differences that may not be easily wished away.

That was what happened to Nnamdi. According to him, during his youth service, he met this very lovely girl at the place of his primary assignment. “She was so beautiful that almost every man in the corps’ members’ lodge were after her. In the end, the lady, who just finished a five years’ course in a commercial school in the town, agreed to date him. And because he was very sincere, before his service came to an end, he proposed marriage to her. Of course, her parents, who were petty traders in the village, couldn‘t believe their good luck; they promptly gave their consent.

However, Nnamdi‘s parents‘ reaction was something else. “My mother cried and cried, while my father told me, with very cold eyes, that he was greatly disappointed in me.

“Though the marriage did take place and Linda managed to get into a university and had a degree in English afterwards, the marriage, he confessed, wasn‘t what he had dreamt. Even after his parents had come to terms with the fact that he was married and that there was nothing anyone could do about it, Linda couldn‘t just fit in.

“Anytime my friends come around, she would withdraw to her shell and many of them thought she was being unfriendly. However, she was battling with timidity. Even after passing through the university, her childhood and where she came from refused to leave her. I could hardly go with her for parties and other social events because she would sure spoil my day. Not that I didn‘t see these things before, but I thought that, with love and patience from me, she would change,” he says.

But he was wrong. She didn‘t. And that was when the crack started in their union. He started keeping late nights and hardly invited his friends home anymore. Then the devil came in person of a female colleague that came from another branch.

”Angela and I had to work together and before long we became friends. Of course, the relationship was quite platonic at the beginning, but as we interacted, we discovered we had a lot in common and many things I couldn‘t discuss with my wife, I discussed freely with Linda,” he recollects.

Of course, he not only had an affair with her, after two years, he had bad news for his wife. He wanted another wife. His family, once again was devastated. He was bringing shame to the family by having a second wife. But his mind was made up. He married Angela, but he couldn‘t divorce Linda because he was sorry for her.

Today, he is a husband of two wives, something he never imagined could happen to him.

Certainly, there are marriages like this, where things went differently, but it usually takes a lot of hard work. Marriage experts would tell you that if have to marry below your class, you must be prepared to sacrifice a lot of things. And if you dare marry above your class you should also be ready to work hard towards fitting in. Invariably, people who go into such marriages should also be ready to work really hard at making the union successful.