I Defied My Father and Married the Tribe He Warned Me Against

Here is my story, in response to the lady who genuinely wanted to hear from Akan women married to Ewe men. My parents had eight children: six girls and two …

Relationship Jan 4, 2026 0 2 Add to Reading List

I Defied My Father and Married the Tribe He Warned Me Against

Here is my story, in response to the lady who genuinely wanted to hear from Akan women married to Ewe men.

My parents had eight children: six girls and two boys. The first four girls all married men from the Ashanti region, Akan men. I think I know why. Maybe they genuinely fell in love, but I believe they were also subconsciously picky, filtering their hearts through an unspoken rule. You see, growing up, my parents made one thing crystal clear: the Ewe tribe was a no-go zone. Do not indulge in “I love you.” Do not dream of “let’s marry; tell your parents mine are coming.” Don’t even try it.

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According to my father, all the trouble he had ever faced in life, especially at work, was caused by someone from that tribe. I don’t know how true it was, but it was his truth. I never let it bother me. When I met someone I liked, I didn’t care about their surname, their hometown, or their tribe. In fact, while my father was going on and on about “don’t marry an Ewe,” my first boyfriend was an Ewe. So were a few other guys I dated.

Then it was time for the fifth girl, my sister, to get married. The person she brought home was Ewe. I remember how all hell broke loose that day. It was not funny. My father sacked the man and warned him never to get close to my sister again, not to even smell the air she breathed or use the same path she used. He was furious. Nothing could stop him. Out of frustration, and probably to spite our parents, my sister got pregnant out of wedlock. She went on to have three more children without ever getting married.

I didn’t just sit in the corner with my hands folded. I tried. I talked to my parents about it. I always fought them on that stereotype. I told them they were the reason my sister never got married. And I warned them. I wasn’t going to allow them to do the same thing to me. If I brought a fine, educated Ewe man home, they were going to sit on that sofa in the living room and talk to him. They were going to see him as a human being, not just his tribe. I wasn’t going to allow it.

My father would later tell one of my sisters that I once said to him, “Even if there is only one good person among that tribe, he is the one I am going to marry.” This was after he told me, “If you take about a hundred of them, you’ll only find one good one.”

Then I met my husband. I always say it was love at first sight for me. He was well educated. He didn’t exhibit any of the stereotypes my parents had cautioned us about. He was smart, fine, resourceful, and very independent. I loved how resourceful he was. And how he treated children! If you saw how much he loved children, you would have his children a hundred times. Maybe I am on a mission to do that. Maybe not.

When I finally introduced him to my father and mentioned his tribe, my father just smiled. He said he wasn’t surprised. He said even from a young age, I had always said I was going to marry from the Ewe tribe.

If there is any one good thing I can shout about my husband, it is that he is hands-on with our children. He changes nappies. He feeds them. He baths them. He is present.

When it comes to being a husband, I don’t know if all that fighting with my parents was worth it. But all I can say for certain is this: marriage is not about tribe.

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It is about the person. I will repeat it until I am breathless. It is about the individual, not the tribe. Come on now, if they say all Ashanti men run from responsibility, do you think it is all of them? Of course not.

My marriage is going well, not because I married an Ewe man, but because I married a good man. And that is the story I wanted to share.