Category Archives: Kenyan love

Romantic Love in the Taita Marriage Culture

Posted on by

The Taita are an East African ethnic group that has lived in Kenya for four or five hundred years. They are also known as Wadawida or Wataita. The Taita are mostly farmers who reside in the southern mountainous region of the country. The Taita tribes consist of small communities known as clans and extended families.

In another article, I talked about the three kinds of love the Taita have: infatuation, lust, and romantic love. Each of these has its own feelings and ways of expression.

The third type of love, “romantic love,” is of particular interest to us in the context of this article. The Taita “romantic love” is an intricate emotional experience that combines passion and affection. This type of romantic love, as opposed to infatuation, is a more enduring affectionate bond. For the Taita, “romantic love” unites the characteristics of passionate romantic love and companionate romantic attachment. It seems that Taita does not distinguish between “romantic love” and “companionship love.” According to the Jim Bell’s anthropological field study, love is still present in the Taita marital relationships, even though some of them are arranged marriages, some are polygamous (Bell, 1995).

The Respected Taita Family System

The Taita culture follows a patrilineal pattern of descent that prioritizes the interests of the larger lineage over those of the individual. People accept and respect the passion that makes up folklore love stories. Although they respect the passionate feelings of youth, they encourage men and women to keep these strong emotions apart from the conventional marriage arrangements. They strive to limit individual passion so that these strong emotions do not disturb a normal relationship and the societal order.

Family Responsibilities Are the Priority in the Taita Marriage Culture

The people of the older generation encourage young and unmarried Taita men and women to keep their romantic and passionate relationships within limits to avoid diminishing their commitments to the extended family. So, many Taita men and women do their best to fulfill their responsibilities to the lineage and their family. They comply with their duties in an arranged marriage.

How Romantic Love Fits in the Taita Culture of Marriage

Once the responsibilities of an arranged marriage are fulfilled, romantic love may start to play a major role in choosing a new wife. Those who were in arranged marriages, not being romantically interested in their wives, might be in love with their “outside lover.”

Many Taita men admitted wanting to be in a relationship with another woman. However, they were frequently directed at someone unattainable. Only a few men admitted to being really in such a relationship. Nevertheless, these “affairs of the heart” often happen in Taita society.

One man who Jim Bell interviewed commented that

“it can happen that your heart is lost to one you can never marry, but you love that person for your life.” A middle-aged parent con­curred, saying that “this notion is not a rare one.” Many older men expressed their love for a woman who “belonged to another man.” Some informants assured me that they had lovers elsewhere or that some of the children I had interviewed were the offspring of lovers who “played in the forest together.”

(Bell, 1995, p.159).

How Taita Men and Women Manage Their Extramarital Affairs

The Taita keep their extramarital affairs very private, following elaborate rules. Taita lovers are discreet in their relationships and rarely show their emotions or affectionate relationships in public. They act as if they are strangers whenever they meet.

Usually, Taita strive to balance their family obligations and personal desires. They acknowledge that there are various reasons for keeping men and women in marriage. They are doing everything possible to express their emotions and love without undermining the existing social order.

The first and second marriages are intended to honor family responsibilities. After that, a man can allow himself to make his love the primary interest by taking on a new wife.

Dramatic Love Stories of the Taita Past

An old Taita woman admitted, recalling her younger years, that she was infatuated with three or four men at different times during her early teenage years.

“Her father had, however, arranged a marriage for her with one of hispeers. She had eight children. Several old men remembered their affairs in sharp detail, as though theyhappened yesterday, rather than some forty or fifty years earlier. A woman, also in her seventies, stressed (through an interpreter) that “even when I was a young girl, women were having babies before marriage. And others had lovers in the forest after marriage. “

(Bell, 1995, pp.160-161).

In private conversations with anthropologists, the old Taita people openly expressed their views on infatuation, lust, and love. They compared the stories from when they were young with modern life. They agreed that the Taita’s attitudes toward love had shifted with the passage of time and social conditions. (Bell, 1995).

Three Types of Love in the Taita Culture

Posted on by

The Taita are an ethnic group from East Africa that has lived there for about four or five hundred years. They are often referred to as Wadawida or Wataita. The Taita are mostly farmers who live in a mountainous area in the south of Kenya. The Taita tribes are organized into separate groups called clans, living in their own hilly areas. Clans consist of extended families. The Taita people fully engage not only in sex but also embrace love.

How Love Is Different from Sex in the Taita Culture

The topic of sexuality was prevalent in early missionary and ethnographic accounts of African social life and gender relations. Observers did not mention anything about love in relations between young men and women.

Therefore, European and American anthropologists were ethnocentric in their views and thought that Africans could not love romantically, only sexually. They considered their “native” love and sex as primitive. Christian missionaries taught them about romantic love, “proper” sexual conduct, marital values, and family virtues. They refined and acculturated the Taita people’s understanding of sex, lust, and love. So, African indigenous beliefs and Western values come together in the African culture of gender and family relations (Bell, 1995; Kenyatta, 1938/1953; Jablow & Hammond, 1977).

Culturally sensitive anthropological investigations discovered that people in East African societies had their own unique beliefs about sex, lust, and love before Europeans arrived. It appears that their traditional love stories and folk narratives have often been romantic, not only sexual (Bell, 1995).

A field study in the early 1990s among the Taita of Kenya showed that cultural ideas of romantic and passionate love were natural for East African culture. The Taita words “ashiki” and “pendo” already distinguished “desire” and “love” in Taita culture prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries. In their folk tales, both love and sexual affairs are common (Bell, 1995).

What Are the Three Kinds of Love in Taita Society?

According to Bell’s study (1995), the Taita people discern the three kinds of love, which differ in their styles of romantic expression. These are (1) infatuation, (2) lust, and (3) romantic love.

The First Type of Taita Love

The first kind of love – “infatuation” – is portrayed as a strong attraction toward someone, an emotional longing, accompanied by irresponsible feelings. At first, it appears like passionate Western love, even though the Taita do not perceive infatuation in this way. The Taita people of the older generation consider this type of passionate feeling “a kind of sickness” or misguided infatuation. This type of love typically characterizes the emotions of youth in their early years of 10–12 or older. These feelings usually last for a few weeks or months before they wane away.

The Second Type of Taita Love

A second kind of love—”lust”—is described as a sexually motivated yearning for someone. It is a sort of love primarily based on sexual desire, not romantic love. The Taita recognize that this love does not persist for a long time.

This type of love among young men and women can be solely in their sensual imaginations. When these relationships happen in real life, cultural norms place strong control and censorship on their possibility. The Taita society limits the partner’s choice.

Many young Taita men of 18–24 years old feel a sexual desire for women in their 30s or 40s. On the other hand, young women of 15–17 years old favor mating with men who are of their age at 18–22 years. However, they are rarely able to marry them. These discrepancies in attraction and cultural limitations make these sexual longings and yearnings unrealistic.

The Third Type of Taita Love

The third kind of love—”romantic love”—is a complex emotional experience combining the feelings of passionate ardor and deep affection. Different from infatuation, this type of romantic love is a more enduring affectionate bond. The Taita notion of romantic love combines the qualities of passionate romantic love and companionate attachment love. Yet, people still refer to this kind of love as “romantic love” rather than “companionship love.”

The younger generation of Taita can witness such romantic love between spouses, between a husband and a “favorite wife.” It is adoration and affection of “love out of the heart” or “love for life.” Young Taita men and women consider it to be “the best type of love” that one could dream of in their life.

Young men believe that the desire for this kind of love motivates men to look for and marry a second, third, or fourth wife. Young women like to speak of the “luck” of those older siblings who married for love. When a man and a woman are in a romantic relationship but unable to marry each other, they may carry on their affair for years. The Taita people witnessed many stories of such romantic affairs.

Love Is in the Air Among Taita Men and Women

Taita love, whether it is infatuation, lust, or romantic love, motivates men and women to engage in either a short-term or long-term relationship. Love is in the air on any weekend night in the hills of the Taita community.

Some Taita marriages occur out of interest in social alliances or economic benefits. In other cases, men and women marry for love of the heart. Any type of love, whether it is momentary infatuation, strong sexual yearning, or romantic longing, can lead to long-lasting committed relationships and marriages in Taita society (Bell, 1995).

African Love of the Taita People in Kenya

Posted on by

The Taita are a group of East African ethnic groups who have lived in Kenya for four or five centuries. They are also known as the Wataita or the Wadawida. The Taita are predominantly highland farmers who live in a mountainous region of southern Kenya. The social life of the Taita tribes is structured by autonomous clans, including families. The clans are separate social groups that inhabit their own hilly territories. Early ethnographic reports of African life and gender relations were full of sexuality. They did not mention anything about love in relationships between women and men. Therefore, anthropologists once believed Africans could only love sexually. This initial ethnocentric misunderstanding of Westerners was the most typical way Europeans and Americans viewed African gender relations (Bell, 1995; Kenyatta, 1938/1953; Jablow & Hammond, 1977).

Acculturation of East African Love

European missionaries judged the “native” and natural sexuality of Africans as primitive. They taught them Western moral notions of Christian virtues and marital values. Missionaries preached “appropriate” sexual behavior and righteous family life. The Taita folk concepts of sex, lust, and love were refined and acculturized to some degree by European cultural influences. In East African culture, Western and African indigenous beliefs, traditions, and values blend somehow.

Unexpected Indigenous Taita Love

However, more attentive and culturally sensitive research revealed that East African cultures had their own native notions not only about sex and lust but also about love, even before Europeans arrived. They told their own love stories for years (Bell, 1995).

Anthropologist Jim Bell (1995) conducted a field study of lust, love, and romantic ideals among the Taita of Kenya, East Africa. Based on his observations, he argues that passionate and romantic love existed in Africa before the advent of Christian missionaries. These ideas and practices have been natural parts of African culture for a very long time, prior to European contact. Also, love for marriage might not be a new idea in the Taita culture.

Bell asserts that romantic love has always been a part of Taita culture. Love affairs, along with native sexual relationships, have been common in Taita daily life. In their interviews, Taita men and women explained that the words “ashiki” for desire and “pendo” for love existed before early European contact.

East African Love of Kenya

Anthropologist Jim Bell found that the Taita young people of Kenya chose their mates based on affection, physical attraction, and love. For example, younger Taita women liked to become involved with a “chosen lover,” who was usually someone their own age. Most of the time, physical appearance, sexual attractiveness, and passionate affection are certainly involved in these kinds of relationships. Some of these relationships endure for a lifetime (Bell, 1995).

Here is another Kenyan example of indigenous love. The Kikuyu people, a large Bantu ethnic group of Central Kenya, have always been allowed to choose a partner without parental influence on either side. (Kenyatta, 1938/1953, p. 165). Kenyatta, a native Kikuyu who was Oxford-educated, contended that in traditional Kikuyu society, young people relied on “love” in their mate selection. It was, however, in their traditional cultural ways. When a “boy falls in love with a girl, he cannot tell her directly that he loves her or display his devotion to her in public, as this would be regarded by Gikuyu [or Kikuyu] as impolite and uncultured” (1959, p. 165).

In the early accounts of missionaries and anthropologists about how the “natives” behaved sexually, this kind of relationship was either ignored or not mentioned at all.

East African Love for Marriage

The Taita young men preferred to mate with beautiful young women. It was a factor in choosing a potential spouse. The young Taita woman, on the other hand, preferred to mate with a young man who was a smart person, a good farmer, and a provider for a family. Evidently, a man’s physical appearance was less important in mate selection than compared to his personality.

Men placed more emphasis on physical characteristics than women did on personality and social position. However, the view of what is beautiful and desirable in a partner differed in the perception of men and women. And these differences affected the partners they chose.

Both men and women in Taita desire partners who display culturally appropriate graces (Bell, 1995). Men and women in the Taita culture distinguish three types of love.

What We Did Not Know About Taita Sex, Love, and Marriage

Posted on by

The Taita people are several East African ethnic groups who have been living in Kenya for four or five hundred years. They are sometimes also referred to as the Wataita or Wadawida. The Taita are largely highland farmers who inhabit a mountainous area of southern Kenya. The Taita tribes consisted of lineages or clans. The lineages were autonomous social groups that occupied their own territories in the hills. 

Sex and Lust in African Tribal Life

Early ethnographic accounts of African life and gender relationships were filled with numerous tales of lust and sexuality. Travelers and missionaries in Africa did not mention anything about love. In the past, many anthropologists thought that Africans were not able to love in ways other than sex.

European missionaries reported on this kind of “native” sexual behavior, condemning these relationship practices. Therefore, they educated men and women in African tribes on how to live according to the Western moral ideals of family and religious virtues. Christian missionaries were obsessed with teaching “proper” family relations and sexual behavior.

This ethnocentric misunderstanding of Westerners, which the first missionaries narrated in their accounts, has been the most common way that Europeans and Americans thought about African gender relations (Jablow & Hammond, 1977, p. 16).

European influences culturally refined and framed the Taita’s folk notions of sex, lust, and love, which glossed over indigenous African emotions and feelings. This new language of relationships introduced by Westerners reflected internal feelings and private experiences that have always been present in Taita culture. East African folklore tell a few love stories that were known before Europeans arrived (Bell, 1995).

The Traditional Arranged Marriage of the Taita

The widespread practice of polygynous relationships and marriages was another concern of missionaries. They believed that women and men involved with one another outside of their monogamous relations were the primary sins of African society.

The real cultural practices of Taita marriage were, however, more complex and more pragmatic in their way of social life. The Taita people have long practiced arranged marriages. In the selection of a mate and getting married, the needs of the extended family and the tribal community were more important than the preferences of a young woman or a man. The parents and other relatives of the senior generation looked for a prospective mate for their children. Such a mate should be healthy and have an agreeable personality. Everyone in the family, including the prospective bride and groom, understood that the primary goal of arranged marriages was the welfare of the family, not the individual. Therefore, individual preferences, wishes, and feelings were deemed irrelevant in this case.

The Taita Polygyny

Polygyny, along with free sexuality, has been a common and acceptable cultural practice among the Taita tribes. Marital polygyny assumed that a man could marry several women for family relations.

Western missionaries regarded this widespread practice of women and men being involved with one another outside of marriage, which was presumably supposed to be monogamous. Westerners preferred monogamous marriage to polygamous marriage as a cultural norm. Therefore, they persuaded the Taita people about the cultural and religious superiority of monogamy. They transformed the tribal indigenous ideals of marriage and encouraged men and women to convert to the virtue of monogamy.

European missionaries introduced Western cultural features and the rituals that glorified monogamous marriage and love expressions into African daily life. Despite these new Western cultural marriage practices, polygyny remained a popular practice in their families’ relationships (Bell, 1995).