Courtship and Marriage: The Somali Experience (Part 1)

A bit of background: In ancient times, 11 women came together in Arabia and agreed to discuss their husbands. They vowed not to withhold anything. The Umu Zarci Tradition, as it is popularly known, was a frank assessment by these wives of all the different kinds of men and their character: the generous, the kind and caring, the stingy, the selfish, the altruistic, the ravenous eater, the wife beater, the romantic, the unromantic, the gentle, and the gruff.                

This article is the first of a 10-part series of true stories of Somali women and men and their very blunt assessment of their relationships. The first six parts deal with Somali marriages in America and the last four with issues of courtship. The names and locations of these individuals have been changed to ensure their privacy.

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The Accidental Husband

 I am a 38-year-old woman and have been married more than 14 years.

I first met my husband Shire in Mogadishu. I was 24 and working as a teacher. Shire and I are related. Okay, he is my first cousin. We grew up in two different regions; he grew up in Mudug, and I in Benadir. I often heard my relatives talking about Shire’s life in the United States. He was the first in our family to emigrate to America, which he did in the mid-1980s.

Shire came back to Mogadishu in 1989 to look for a wife. On the one hand, I was proud he wanted to marry a fellow Somali. On the other hand, I was curious to see who this bride would be. I never imagined it would be me, his cousin. In my family, cousins do not marry each other. Shire’s first choice was a young lady who was attending Gahayr University. Unfortunately, she was not into Shire. Her mother was the one pushing for the marriage so she could go to America and live a better life. One woman’s misfortune, of course, is often another woman’s opportunity.

After that fiasco, Shire stopped by our house to visit. That was the first time I laid eyes on him. He was of medium height, handsome, lean, and humble. He also seemed to be religious but not in a way that would turn you off.  We all sat in the living room, drank tea, and talked a lot. He was a great conversationalist and made us laugh, especially when he talked about the experiences of Somalis and their culture shock in the United States.

Yes, I liked him a lot. The next week, I was not surprised when he came back and asked for my hand. My mother was strongly opposed to the idea of our marriage. She had a hard time envisioning her daughter married to a cousin.  However, that issue did not deter me one bit.

Shire and I married and my mother finally but reluctantly endorsed our union. He returned to the States, and several months later I joined him.

I was nervous when I came to America because I did not know English, and was not familiar with American culture. My husband helped my transition go smoothly. I would sometimes hear titters and murmurs from other Somali women about Shire not being a “typical Somali husband.” What was a typical Somali husband? Shire took care of the children, changed their diapers, fed them, cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, and occasionally cooked and bought groceries. He would also sometimes hear snide comments from his friends that I “controlled” him.

Shire never speaks badly to me. He is a patient man, listens attentively, and vocalizes his appreciation of me. He showers me with gifts and even sends money to my family back home. When I turn down my family’s requests for financial assistance because I have to focus on our own immediate needs, they go behind my back and call my husband directly for help. He rarely disappoints them.

The Aimless Man

I am married to a loser, an aimless, clueless man who lacks ambition. He is 23 but acts like a child. I go to work for the family while he stays home all day, watching television and playing games. On weekends, he hangs out with his fellow Somalis in a restaurant, talking about politics and blathering on stale, boring topics.

Did I tell you he is also selfish?

He wants me to be his maid. He does not lift a finger to help in our household. I am tired of this man. I am 22 now, a college graduate, both ambitious and family oriented. I guess my biggest mistake was falling in love with this husband of mine.

When I first met him, he seemed smart, loving, ambitious, and attentive. I guess he gave me an Oscar-quality performance. I wish I had met the real him, the person lurking beneath the surface. My father warned me about him before I got married. Call that a father’s wise intuition. My husband was attending junior college at the time, and even then was a bit flamboyant. He always seemed preoccupied with his appearance. Now I realize that the only reason he attended college was to get financial aid.

I used to hear other young Somali ladies say they would never marry a Somali man because they all lacked ambition. I have seen young men my age leaving college and becoming cab drivers or security guards. No one in our community is raising hell about this phenomenon of our youth losing their ambition. I see members of other nationalities who are striving to become successful—Nigerians, Ethiopians, and Asians.

I have held out hope—foolishly, my parents say—that this man will change. I am out of sync with my husband. I am angry at myself for committing the egregious mistake of marrying him, and I am angry at him for letting me down and disgracing himself as a sloth. However, he doesn’t believe he is disgracing himself. Soon he will be my ex-husband. Mark my words. I am out of here.

The Player

My husband has a predilection for women who are not married to him. I am his only wife, and yet I share this womanizer with other women. Some of them I know are in my community; others I may never meet. He never met a woman he didn’t like. Why am I with him? I have been married to him more than 25 years. We have five children—three adults and two teenagers. 

When I met my husband, he was charming and charismatic, a very smooth talker. He made me laugh. He seemed a good catch: he was a dashing, educated, witty, and ambitious young man with a great career. We fell in love and were married. One thing we never worried about was money. I had a good job as a junior official in a government ministry, and he was a rising manager for a publicly owned company.

After several years of marriage, my husband suddenly stopped being attentive. He would come home, eat, and then sit in the living room and read. He stopped asking about me, my work, the children, and any of the household needs. I would ask him questions, and his answers were always perfunctory: One-word grunts of “fine,” “good,” and “okay,” were typical. I became a piece of furniture in a nicely decorated house, totally unappreciated and ignored.

My husband had a dark intimate secret:  He was leading a secret life of philandering. Of course, I had heard rumors of his penchant for infidelity, but I did not believe them. I defended him vigorously and lashed out at his critics. I thought these naysayers were just jealous of our happy marriage. Or, so I believed then.

Then, one day my husband came home bruised. His face was swollen as if he had been badly beaten, and his right hand was in a cast. I panicked and ran to him, inquiring what had happened. “I had an altercation with a guy at work,” he said. “It is not a big deal.”

That same night, my family was awakened by the sound of a police car. The police came and banged on our front door. They had come for my husband, and he was arrested. A police officer told me he had seriously wounded the husband of his mistress.  That man was in critical condition, suffering from knife wounds. Fortunately, he survived.

I learned that all the rumors I had heard for so long were, in fact, true. I felt the sting of betrayal. I had been bamboozled.

My husband was released after a week of incarceration. His well-placed relatives got involved, and he was hit with a slap on the wrist. All the charges against him were dropped. He returned home and promised never to cheat on me again. I naively believed he was capable of reform. For a year, he was his old self again—very attentive, loving, and appreciative.

Then, in 1991, the civil war broke out in Mogadishu, and we fled to neighboring Kenya. After two years in a refugee camp, we settled in Iowa in the United States.

People will say, “Once a cheater, always a cheater.”  Sadly, I am afraid they speak the truth.

My husband started hanging around with Somali single mothers in Iowa. He was “helping” them, he said. He started coming home late. Then, his all-night forays increased. He started driving to Minneapolis, which has the largest concentration of Somalis in the United States, a place with a seemingly endless supply of women.

I am still married to him, but please do not ask me why. He is a good father, and my children listen to him. If we got divorced, my teenage children would go astray. They would leave school and might get involved in gangs and drugs. I have to weigh my personal options very carefully. For the moment, I have decided to put my children’s well-being above my own happiness.