Question

Read the passage from "Marriage Is a Private Affair” by Chinua Achebe. It is a conversation between a woman named Nene and her fiancé, Nnaemeka. In this excerpt, Nnaemeka is the first to speak.

"You have lived in Lagos all your life, and you know very little about people in remote parts of the country.”

"That’s what you always say. But I don’t believe anybody will be so unlike other people that they will be unhappy when their sons are engaged to marry.”

"Yes. They are most unhappy if the engagement is not arranged by them. In our case it’s worse—you are not even an Ibo.”

This was said so seriously and so bluntly that Nene could not find speech immediately. In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city it had always seemed to her something of a joke that a person’s tribe could determine whom he married.

At last she said, "You don’t really mean that he will object to your marrying me simply on that account? I had always thought you Ibos were kindly disposed to other people.”

"So we are. But when it comes to marriage, well, it’s not quite so simple. And this,” he added, "is not peculiar to the Ibos. If your father were alive and lived in the heart of Ibibio-land he would be exactly like my father.”

How does this passage define the role of the patriarchy in Nigerian rural society?

The idea of arranged marriage has become "something of a joke."
Fathers are used to having total authority over choosing their children's spouses.
Intermarriage is allowed because the Ibos are "kindly disposed to other people."
Ibo fathers have traditionally married off their children to non-Ibos.

Answer 1

Fathers are used to having total authority over choosing their children's spouses. This is the correct option.

This is what the male character,Nnaemeka, tells his fiancee, Nene, when he says that in matters of marraige fathers choose their children's spouses. In fact, he makes a supposition: if her father had lived in a rural area, he would have done the same with her.

These options are not right:

-The idea of arranged marriage has become "something of a joke." ( This is possible in a city but not in rural areas).

-Intermarriage is allowed because the Ibos are "kindly disposed to other people. ( The Ibos are willing to be with other people but in matters of marriage they are rigid. They will not allow an Ibo to marry a person from another etnia).

-Ibo fathers have traditionally married off their children to non-Ibos. ( In fact, it is just the opposite; they want their children to marry Ibos).

Answer 2

The right answer is this: Fathers are used to having total authority over choosing their children's spouses. Nene's fiancé is arguing that getting married, of their own free will, will make his family, who live in a rural area, unhappy, since they haven't arranged the marriage, and that's what Ibo fathers traditionally do. To make matters worse, the bride and the groom belong to different tribes. Although Nene is surprised, since, on the one hand, she is used to live in a populous, cosmopolitan, and multicultural city, and, on the other hand, she finds it difficult and mocking to believe that a person’s tribe may determine whom he or she marries, and she has always thought that Igbos are amicable and agreeable, her fiancé reminds her that if her father, an Ibibio, was still alive and lived not in the city but "in the heart of Ibibio-land," he would have exactly the same expectations to arrange her marriage. The passage, therefore, confirms that fathers in Nigerian rural society have total authority over choosing their children's spouses.