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By Nalubega Victoria

Love and marriage are often treated as two parts of the same journey. People fall in love, get married and hope to build a life together. However, is that still how relationships work today?

In Love and Marriage No Longer Consent, Nalubega Victoria questions the relationship between love and marriage. She compares marriage in African Traditional Society with relationships among younger generations. In doing so, she considers the influence of money, family expectations, appearance and peer pressure.

Today, people may marry because they feel they have reached the right age. Others may want to please their parents or follow friends who are already married. At the same time, romantic relationships can also be influenced by appearance, financial security and the desire for companionship.

Therefore, the poem asks a difficult question: Are people still marrying because they are in love, or have love and marriage become two separate transactions?

And when the time comes,
when it is my turn to celebrate,
I will surely celebrate.

Why?

Because I am in love.

Love is a song
that everyone can sing,
despite the keys and rhythm.

Love in high school
is the truest one.

Its taste is sweeter than honey,
and its effect is admired
even by student teachers.

While I was seated on my mat,
I remembered marriage in ATS—

African Traditional Society.

Did they really have love?

My mind raced
as it searched for answers.

Stories tell us that,
long before millennials and Gen Zs,
marriage was often compulsory,
even in the absence of love.

And surely,
they got married.

Somehow,
their marriages worked.

Then my heart, mind and soul
began pacing up and down,

questioning the true relationship
between marriage and love.

However, the signals
from my social life
keep emphasising one thing:

Love and marriage
are no longer
in consensual alignment.

Marriage these days
may be based on:

I have grown up.

I have to make
my parents proud.

I am the only unmarried person
in my small circle.

The guy’s family
is well-off.

Meanwhile, love these days
may be rooted in:

appearance,

financial survival,

social status,

peer pressure,

and the desire
to have company.

Sincerely,

marriage and love
are no longer on good terms.

In other words,

many of us
in love and marriage

are TRADERS.

— Nalubega Victoria

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