Teen dating is 'unAfrican', but early marriage is ok
African parents who care about their teen who has prospects of a bright future from a good education will be careful to not encourage their teen, especially the girl, to be dating. The typical advice from parents to their daughter would be something like - "My daughter, please focus on school and not boys or boyfriends. When you are done with school, then you can have boyfriends." A parent who talks to their teen about dating is a careless parent. It is not African. Period.
Indeed, when I tried to search for content on adolescent or teen dating, just to understand what this is about, I found little content from Africa. A great deal about dating is from outside Africa. One that caught my eye is the article - 6 Truths About Teens and Dating - by Amy Morin. Interesting stuff. The article presents dating as a 'truth'. In other words, a good thing.
What is the big deal with African parents and teen dating?
Let us first understand what teen dating means. Ha! I thought it was going to be easy to define. Nope, it is not. Teen dating can mean a number of things and depends on age and gender or the environment. Terms similar to dating are “talking,” “having a thing,” “hooking up, and “going with.” Ask the young people. They understand the nuances. One definition of dating is - two people in an intimate relationship. An important characteristic of an intimate relationship is exclusivity, that is, restricted to intimate partners. Two people (or more?) develop closeness to the exclusion of others. Dating can have variable degrees of temporality or permanence. One can date several people over a course of time and then settle on one to have a more permanent relationship with, perhaps in marriage. But of course, there are multiple permutations of how things can turn out.
Though dating does not necessarily involve sexual activity, it could in the short or long run involve sex. So, yes, there is a likelihood that intimate teens might dabble in sex or its precursor activities, and then sex. But please, they also may not. Nevertheless, African parents fear that if they tolerate their teens dating, then they are encouraging them to engage in pre-marital sex.
Some parents are atypical, they can tolerate dating. But I have observed something interesting, that when their daughter over time appears to date serially, that is, date and break up with different boys, the parents tend to revert to the typical mode. I guess the reason is they imagine that their daughter must be having sex with multiple boys.
Do not date. If you want sex, get married
One time I was talking to a community leader in a traditional setting, and we were discussing child marriage. You see, there is this drive by civil society organisations to end child marriage. So I asked the leader what sort of things they are doing to prevent child marriages. He told me that when they see a girl hanging out with a boy, they tell the girl to stop 'dating'. Why? Because it leads to pregnancy and then child marriage (sex implied, of course). So I asked further whether a girl can have a boyfriend. He said, no. If she wants sex, then she better get married.
So, in Africa, dating is not allowed, but early marriage is tolerated. This does make a lot of sense. You see, before western education was introduced during colonialism, pubescent girls would be married off soon after menarche. It was as simple as that. There was no adolescence about which parents would worry. But now, in modern times, education has created a problem: the adolescent. How do we keep adolescents free of sex until marriage, when in between they have to spend an extended time in school? Many parents grapple and will grapple with this difficult question. Sometimes their only action is to advise their teen to not date, and hope she or he will live a celibate life until marriage after school.
A note on gender
Regarding dating, parents are more concerned about their daughters than sons. This explains the bias in my post. For boys, premarital sex may even be celebrated. Having sex proves manhood. That is a plus. It is the girl who gets in trouble if she is discovered to be dating. Unfortunately for her, having sex before marriage means she has been defiled.
How are things working out for African parents?
It would appear that teens date anyway. In secret. Some will engage in sexual conduct, and keep it a secret. One parent told me that even if he suspects that their child is probably dating and engaging in sex, he would prefer to remain ignorant about it because if he were to know, his only reaction would be to condemn. Failure to condemn would mean condoning a behaviour which according to our culture is unacceptable.
It does turn out that on the African continent, we have high teenage pregnancy rates and high rates of HIV among young people. There are many child marriages. But, you may never convince an African parent that some of these problems might be resolved by accepting that our teens can date and have sex; and that the more reasonable thing to do is to talk about it openly and honestly with our teens and to provide the necessary guidance on how they could make the best out of their relationships. No way.