Arranged marriages cannot survive modernity

Humanity has evolved on a big scale. Modern developments have caused changes that have largely conferred advantages to women more than men in the dating scene. By and large socialisation has been advanced in a way that there is no physical restriction to socialisation. The fact that physical boundaries have been effectively removed by the ability to move from one place to another means that the opportunity to find better men in the dating scene has been enhanced. 

Previously if one was born in the village of Kanyidoto, she was bound to meet suitors from the immediate next village. Other prospects would be hunters crisscrossing the local bushes in search of game meat. The most sophisticated ones would be traders in the local market, considered the crème del a crème because they carry the profile of exposure of travelling from outside. If a teacher showed interest in a girl, it was considered the greatest prospect for her family.

Teachers were very important people back then, they not only dispensed knowledge to the young ones but also provided rare opportunities for families to improve their financial standing if they married their daughters.

Don’t you just love how in the past rich men or women from reputable families were married off to equally rich families or to royalty? Arranged marriages were routine. The business class married in their circle. The political class socialised in their own closed cluster too while the religious rulers ensured that their sons and daughters did not go outside to invite values that would destabilise the religious doctrines they were all accustomed to. In effect, the paupers were left to marry themselves with only two options, work hard and crawl their way out of their destitution or live the peasantry life forever.

Today, with the invention of social media and the freedom of interaction, suddenly poor women can’t stand poor men. 

Girls whose fathers own nothing look down upon their own kind and set unrealistic standards to lock them out of contention. Once these girls rock their bikini shorts at the beach, there is no telling which one is from the ghetto and which one belongs to the aristocratic families in the uptown. You see, the advent of Mitumba nearly rivals education as an equal opportunity giver. Clothing is the other equalizer, second only to schooling in terms of giving everyone an equal social opportunity.

Once the optical appeal has been achieved and the heart has signed up to love, the background of the woman stops to matter anymore. She will be trained on how to hold the fork and improve her mannerisms to fit in the new class of elites. This happens time and again.  We have seen the trend rock even the peace of the monarchy at the very heart of the British political system when a lowly placed black divorcee charmed her way in the actual possibility of inheriting the throne. Such possibilities were unheard of before the era of Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok.

Today, ladies dress well to go and hang out in expensive joints in the hope that a rich man would spot their beauty and engage them. Some take mouthwatering pics in exotic venues to splash in their timelines on Instagram and other virtual spaces to attract the kind of man they are aiming for. These platforms have become a lie to stir up interest from men of superior social status. And, it works. Men of higher pedigree have traversed the globe from Paris to pick up a lowly placed chick from Obunga slums to accompany them back to the first world of opportunities. This is how modernity has succeeded in removing physical boundaries that kept the poor and locked wealth among some people. Technology has opened up the modern world to a fair share of luck and the possibility of siphoning money from the very top to the very bottom of the pyramid.

And because equality is something at the very centre stage today, we would like to take this opportunity to encourage the men to also shower well and dress up well. They can also place themselves strategically to be noticed by girls and women of higher pedigree who might consider them for elevation if they serve their interest well.