Of Women, Marriage, and Money

I'm on marriage proposal #4.  1-3 were from complete strangers, on the street, some shopkeeper I was buying stuff from, and some guy on the bus.  For all these men, apparently the natural followup question to a negative response is "why?"  That it is not immediately obvious why a woman would refuse marriage to a stranger who doesn't even know her name says something less than complimentary about this culture.  Some volunteers have made a game out of demanding cows or other livestock goods from their would-be bridegrooms, since paying livestock or the cash equivalent thereof to a lady's father is the usual price for marrying a lady here.   A Peace Corps woman on the Masai steppe has received an offer of 100 cows, and one in Manyara (I think) was told indignantly that while her suitor was not a Masai and didn't offer cows, he could give her 14 cats.  Just to illustrate how much a racist colonial system has turned white people into marriable representations of wealth and power, a male volunteer was offered a car, a shop on Zanzibar, and a flock of goats if he would marry someone's daughter.  Supportive and sensitive to gender issues as the Peace Corps always is, we told him he should have married that lady, because marriage offers don't get better than that, and for men don't typically happen at all.   Who needs love when you've got a car on Zanzibar?  Not to mention goats.

Proposal #4 was a little more awkward, first, because it came from one of my coworkers at the college, second, it was delivered entirely by email*, and third, it kept escalating.  I ignored the initial email and started getting more and more, which became more and more passionate and lovelorn.   I finally responded with a refusal to which I did not attach a reason, because I owe such men no explanations.   The flurry of emails I got from my refusal were reminding me that I was causing him to suffer by loving me until he died and demanding that I pick from a range of reasons for refusal including and limited to:

1. I do not like his kind of man.
2. I already have some man.
3. My plan is to be lonely.   

I'm moving to Mbeya next week.  Since marriage proposal no. 3 came during my week long visit there less than a month ago, we'll see if Mbeya can offer me more annoying suitors than Morogoro.  For the record, I have decided that I will not marry for less than 60 cows and a small flock of chickens.   What my father would do with cows I am having trouble imagining, but I know what I'm worth.

*There are less romantic forms of communication.