Coastal woman marital relationship in old and new ages in coastal literature
By: Dr Mohamad Ibrahim
The coastal literature tells us that the marital relationship in old ages was ruled by right Islamic values more than the new age. The widely famous poem "Mwana Kobona" in East Africa which consists of 102 lines, composed in 1858 by Mwana Kobona.
The poet is recommending her daughter in the poem how to deal with her husband in talk and act. The poem shows how the marital relationship supposed to be in the coastal literature. The mother is recommending her daughter by the following:
• To obey Allah and His prophet (Muhammad peace upon him), her father, mother and her husband.
• To use her tongue in saying the truth because the tongue reflects what the mind thinks, and everyone is valued by his tongue and heart. To be loved by her husband, family and all people she has to have a good tongue. To be committed to what is right.
• To be keen on satisfying her husband all her life, never annoy him and never to love another man except him.
• To be loyal with her husband and not to refuse his requests.
• To provide her husband a calm atmosphere .
• To satisfy her husband sexually, massage his body, brush his hair and briefly to deal with him as a born baby.
• To manage the home's budget and to make balance between the income and the expenditure.
• To care of her body's cleanness, use perfumes and to brush her hair.
• To dress the best clothes and the precious jewellery.
• To clean her home and her furniture.
• To do what he likes and don't do what he dislikes in accordance to Allah's word.
According to the poet, if the daughter did all these advices her husband will obey her the same way. These advices bring happiness to the martial life.
The poem showed the poet's happiness in her life with her husband and the daughter did the same like her mother so she got the same happiness.
On another hand, the new coastal literature representing in "The Age Barrier" for the Tanzanian poet Ibrahim Hussein tackled the martial relationship in different way.
The play begins by disobeying of "Tato" to her mother "Fatma" where the mother asks her daughter to dress long clothes while Tato insists in wearing short dresses. Fatma does not want Tato to know guys but Tato refuses until she fell in love experience with a guy in the European way. Fatma drove out Tato and her boyfriend Sawaay from the home and so they went to their quarter chairman to get married without their families' recognition.
When Tato's father Gomaa knows what Fatma did with Tato, he condemned Fatma's act and showed her that the problem exists in the education. He told her that the European courses in the schools put the children in internal struggle between what they learn in school and what their family teaches them.
Gomaa began to search for Tato in the streets and the relatives' home but without hope which lead him and Fatma to illness because they do not eat or sleep.
There is no doubt that Tato and Sawaay's unblessed marriage faced many problems. Sawaay adores going out, joking, evening parties and dancing even if he is bankrupt. Tato agrees with all these but enough money must be there to cover the food, cloth and house expenditures. Sawaay's income is not enough to cover all these costs, something which pushed them to borrow.
The matter exploded when Tato went to visit one of her friends leaving Sawaa in home and one of Sawaay's friends Bely came claiming that she want to congratulate their marriage. Sawaay and Bely began to remember their old love story on the roof and Sawaay tried to hold her hand and kiss her. Tato came home at the time Sawaay was confessing his love to Bely and saying that his marriage from Tato was out of pity not love. Tato decided to get divorced from Sawaay after this accident where she discovered that he does not love her.
This kind of divorce became a phenomenon threatening the coastal marital life stability for the coastal wife. This phenomenon varied in the coastal cities between 27% and 86%. "Mwana Kobona" poem is the only solution for protecting the marital relationship.
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