Women are the reason why men have changed because women are hard on men. […] The expectations they come with into a relationship (Dholuo, Expectations ma gibirogo e relationship), and generally how they have been brought up, or the life they live, that is what gives some men stress (Dholuo, ema miyo chuo moko stress).
Wellington Ochieng
Mama Cyrus’ remark that money ‘smoothens’ marriages exemplifies the fact that a stable marital life in Pipeline required money. Few husbands could refer to paid bride-wealth, crops that were harvested on their fields, or a house that they had built for their wife if they wanted to reap the ‘patriarchal dividend’ (Connell 2005 [1995]: 79). Unable to point to past economic transactions, male migrants felt compelled to leave the house to make money. Men could only justifiably expect that their girlfriends and wives would take care of the house, wash their clothes, cook, and raise the children if they continuously proved their willingness and ability to provide money for rent, food, gas, school fees, and other things. If men failed to provide money, their wives accused them of not keeping their material promises. As illustrated in the last chapter, many male migrants painted a picture of themselves as already or soon-to-be financially successful, which further raised their partners’ expectations and fuelled the vicious cycle of high expectations, mounting pressure, and mistrust. As described by David Parkin in reference to Luo migrants living in Nairobi in the late 1960s, ‘wage dependency’ was still a ‘seed of uncertainty’ (1978: 120).
The common understanding of men as providers created and reinforced a situation where male migrants expected themselves to be able to provide and women pegged the quality of their romantic relationship to their partner’s financial capabilities. Stereotypes about men as rotten dogs uninterested in providing economically and women as materialistic and money-minded slay queens shifted the focus away from structural problems such as the dire state of Kenya’s economy, which had been destabilized by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by the start of the war in Ukraine. Rumours and narratives, as well as accusations and unfulfilled expectations, fed into a spiral of mutual mistrust where men feared that their wives would look for men who were more financially capable and women started to suspect that their allegedly successful husbands were spending money on extramarital affairs or sex workers. Consequently, men like Wellington perceived women’s demands for public displays of affection as part of an urban set of economic–romantic practices that only increased their pressure.
The narrative of the male provider, moreover, obscured the importance and often even the existence of female labour. Many migrant men, for instance, discouraged their wives from working or downplayed the importance of female labour to emphasize their own financial contributions. However, the bleak economic situation left most women no choice but to try to use their economic power to help to sustain the household. Most had small businesses, were employed in town, took on minor jobs such as washing clothes, or used their kinship networks to get financial help (Kusimba 2018). Despite their vital contributions to the household, many women felt compelled to engage in something similar to what Hanna Papanek called ‘covert integration’ (1979: 777). They hid their financial contributions in public because they did not want to put shame on their husbands or boyfriends by suggesting that the latter were unable to provide. Rather than presenting themselves as economically capable providers, they whitewashed their marriages or relationships as functioning according to local standards that took for granted that the husband was the main breadwinner.
Comparable to what Mary Moran (1990) observed among migrants in southeastern Liberia, both migrant men and women in Pipeline strove for the same middle-class lifestyle. By respecting their husband as the main provider and taking care of all domestic duties, women such as Mama Cyrus were able to fulfil their middle-class consumerist aspirations without the risk of appearing financially independent or too modern, which could not only be interpreted as disrespectful but also trigger migrant men’s fears about their expendability. The subordination of wives under their husbands, whereby ‘gender-sensitive positions within the hierarchy’ were ‘conceptualized as complementary rather than parallel’ (Moran 1990: 169), was thus not unconditional. Most women were only willing to subordinate themselves in their marriage if their husbands provided financially or did, at least, try to find new money-making opportunities.
As shown by the demise of the marriage between Victor and Elizabeth (see chapter 2), ’the script of male generosity and female dependence’ could quickly become ‘strained in the context of economic crisis’ (Callaci 2017: 140). Women were only willing to be dutiful housewives who understated their financial contributions to the household if their husbands provided the financial means to meet their consumerist desires. Expecting men to be providers helped women participate in the economy of middle-class consumption whilst appearing respectful and submissive, unlike wives who were wealthier than their husbands. If men were unsuccessful, however, women felt confident to look for someone else or to leave the relationship to start providing for themselves. The complexities of male–female relations, and the fact that mistrust had become the norm rather than the exception, were also visible in how couples communicated about and inside their relationships with the help of modern communication technology (see, for instance, Archambault 2017, Nassenstein and Storch 2020).