Marriage Is a Private Affair Summary
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Chinua Achebe’s story “Marriage Is a Private Affair” opens with a discussion between a young woman named Nene and a young man named Nnaemeka, who live in Lagos, Nigeria; they are in love and plan to marry. Nene wants Nnaemeka to inform his father of their plans as soon as possible, but the young man is nervous. He anticipates that his father, a member of the Ibo tribe who lives in rural Nigeria, will not approve his son’s marriage to a woman of the son’s own choosing, especially when the father discovers that Nene is not an Ibo. Nene cannot believe that anyone would care so much about tribal background; she urges Nnaemeka to write his father a letter informing him of the couple’s plans. Nnaemeka, however, thinks it would be better to tell his father in person, especially since he has recently received a letter from his father informing him that the father has already chosen a bride for him, a woman in whom Nnaemeka has no interest. In his letter, the father informed Nnaemeka that the girl he had found for his son to marry is a good Christian and has received all the training necessary to make her a good wife.
Back home in his native village, Nnaemeka and his father talk. Nnaemeka asks forgiveness and then reveals that he does not love the woman his father has chosen for him—a fact that matters little to his father. Nnaemeka also reveals that he has found a woman (Nene)
