Will you marry me?

Brown and petite, the smartly dressed girl was ushered into the young man’s house. As was the norm when she came visiting, she offered to cook a meal fit for two love birds. After the meal, they sat close to each other on the sofa to relax.

For Rachel, September 15, 2007 was like any other weekend out in Kiambu town where her boyfriend grew up and lived. As she lay on the couch, the words that came from her boyfriend startled her.

“I love you, Rachel. I want to marry you. Since I met you, I have always wanted to tell you this,” he said.

The room went silent with the girl digesting the statement, and the man monitoring the effect of his words. Finally, Essendi had proposed to her.

For Simon Mwangi, a father of one, it all started on the dance floor of a Nairobi entertainment spot. He was introduced to his wife- to- be by a male friend he had gone out with.

When the music blared to its peak, he jumped to the floor to dance with the new girl.

“I found her dancing style and physical moves in harmony with mine and I instantly thought I had met a lady with whom I matched in that respect,” says Mwangi.

The friendship was “ordinary” until he injured his leg and needed someone to help him around the house.

“I had several girls who would come but she stood out as the most caring and concerned. She stayed longer than others and always left last,” says Mwangi, who works at a publishing firm in the city.

When he was back on his feet, he organised a lunch date at the Blue Post Hotel in Thika “in appreciation for the care she had taken of me”.

When they had their fill, he said to her, “I want you to be with me, forever. I want to marry you. You have proved to me that you are the person I need in my life,” he said.

With that, Mwangi had proposed.

Such could be the anatomy of a simple marriage proposal. No fanfare. No preparation. No expectation. Just a simple statement to clear the way for the next level of a serious relationship.

For many relationships, it is the lack of this statement that has caused a lot of heartache. It has been used as a benchmark to determine just how committed a man is to a relationship.

In an ideal scenario, it is the man who makes the first move. Recent changes in cultural orientations are, however, giving women some leeway to also propose but it is yet to gain popularity.

“It is the man who should propose. One mistake a woman would make is to show a man that she is desperate to be married by him,” says Mwangi.

“Men marry when they feel they are ready for it while women marry when they believe they have nailed the right man,” opines Mwangi.

Rachel met Essendi during her first year in college and was somehow attracted to him immediately. But she would only give this attraction a second thought after Essendi finished with his studies. He was then in second year.

Throughout university life, they had maintained an ordinary acquaintance. After the proposal, it took only four months for her to officially move in.

“I had been quite choosy when it came to men. But the way he proposed was quite simple, and the location serene and right ,” says Rachel. According to her, it is not the fanfare that would have impressed her, but how the message was delivered.

Talk of simple proposals and the love of celebrity couple David Mathenge (Nameless) and Wahu Kagwi immediately comes to mind. The two met at a beauty pageant performance at the University of Nairobi in 1998 during Nameless’ first public performance.

After spending what Nameless calls “quite a while as an item”, it was time for them to move on to the next level. After dating for more than six years, both had cut a niche for themselves in the music industry and were financially stable.

But their marriage proposal was just an ice cream and tree shade affair at a public park. “We had done all there was to do as lovers and it is like we had spent our honeymoon before getting married,” says Nameless.

One weekend in 2004, Nameless says he felt like he “needed change” in the relationship and the best way to effect this change was to propose to Wahu and marry her.

“However, I did not want to “create a fuss” about it,” he says. He bought a ring and invited her out for a picnic.

“I bought ice cream and picked my chessboard as we liked playing chess then we headed to the Nairobi arboretum,” says Nameless.

When they were through with ice cream and having played several games, Nameless rolled over and Wahu naturally lay on his stomach.

“I think we are meant to be together forever. I want to marry you,” he said.

He then put it on her third finger.

“That was it. We had weathered a lot of love storms in showbiz and since we were still together, I thought there was nothing else to wait for,” says the musician. In September 2005, they were officially married.

Hillary Wasikenda, 40, did not even require to sit down with his girlfriend to state his intention. He did it on a footpath.

“I met her on October 31, 2005 in Kabete where both of us were staying. She was stunningly beautiful and on the first day, I visited her at her house,” he says.

The girl, Maria, was 10 years his junior. He struggled to fight his way into her heart but Maria would not go to his house.

“I was surprised because she did not have a problem with me visiting her,” says Hillary who works as a warehouse manager in Nairobi.

One day, after “seven months of pestering her”, Maria came to his house. She was not living far from his house and after the visit, he walked her back to her place.

Just as she reached her gate and turned to hug him goodbye, Hillary decided it was the time to hit the nail on the head; “Will you marry me?” It was more of a statement than a question.

‘What do you mean?” She retorted in her characteristic no-nonsense tone. “I mean exactly that—I want to marry you,” he replied. “Go and think about it again,” she said.

Six months after this episode, wedding bells were in the air. They got married and now have a child.

Many single women confess that the” real husband material” man is a rare thing to come by these days. That’s why a marriage proposal cannot not be taken for granted like was the case in earlier days.

Susan Owino who got married immediately she finished Form Four in 1971 says it was automatic that “your boyfriend would marry you when the right time came. Usually the friendship was well know by both sides of the family so there was no playing around”.

“I met my man when I was in Form Three and he was in university. As soon as I was through with school, we got married,” says the women rights crusader who adds that men were more responsible then.

“It was hard for a man to pretend that he would marry you and then leave you high and dry, she says and adds, “The problem these days is that you never get to know when the man you are dedicated to disappears.”

Owino further explains why a proposal troubles women today.

“Due to all the uncertainties around relationships, a woman will need the man to propose to her for her to be sure that the relationship is ripe and can go to the next level.”

In whichever manner one does it, proposing to your girlfriend reinforces the prospects of a relationship going places.

However, in the long run, what matters is the determination of the parties to go the whole hog when it comes to the challenges of marital life.

bmuiruri@nation.co.ke