ABIGAIL KABANDULA
ONE of the most profound changes I experienced as a married woman in the diaspora was not only geographical, but domestic. It unfolded quietly, inside the home, in the daily negotiations over who does what, and when.
In the diaspora, gender roles begin to loosen—less out of ideology than necessity. Tasks once firmly assigned to women—cooking, cleaning, childcare—are gradually redistributed. It becomes normal, even expected, for men to take on what were once considered feminine roles. Sometimes this is because the woman is at work all day. Sometimes she is away for days at a time. More often, it is because both partners are working, and the home must still function. In such a life, scheduling becomes less a preference than a discipline.
I am aware that this reordering can unsettle the sensibilities of many African men. I have heard the disbelief, sensed the quiet disapproval. But the reality is simpler than the reaction: life in the diaspora does not permit rigidity. It requires adjustment. Without it, the household does not hold. What surprised me most was how unprepared we are for this shift. No one tells you, before you leave, that marriage itself will change shape—that the rules you grew up with will not quite travel with you. For some couples, especially those with young children, the adjustment is abrupt and destabilizing. Sometimes, it is enough to break a marriage.
For my husband and me, the transition was more gradual. I often think of that as luck. I left Zambia in my early twenties, newly married to my college sweetheart, with no children yet. We moved abroad to pursue our Master’s degrees. Back home, our life had been structured in ways I barely questioned. We had a maid and a gardener. The house was always clean. Clothes were washed and ironed. The car was ready each morning. My role, after a full day of teaching, was to buy groceries and prepare dinner. It was manageable, even comfortable—partly because my husband travelled frequently for work.
That structure did not survive the move. Graduate school and student incomes stripped everything down to essentials. Almost immediately, it became clear that I could not carry the domestic load alone—not after a full day of seminars, readings, and assignments. The guidance I had received before marriage—that a woman must manage the home, no matter what—began to feel less like guidance and more like an impractical inheritance.
We had to renegotiate. Dividing chores sounds simple in theory; in practice, it is a delicate calibration. Fairness is not always visible, and effort does not always announce itself. When one partner feels overburdened, the imbalance can quietly strain the marriage. I began to understand why domestic labor appears so often in conversations about failing relationships. When we lived in New Haven, Connecticut, I learned that household chores are among the leading causes of marital conflict in the United States.
The fact startled me. It also unsettled me. I could not imagine explaining to people back home that my marriage had failed over something as ordinary as dishes or laundry. I knew how it would sound. I knew how it would be judged. I did not want to become the example—the woman who “could not keep her marriage” because she could not manage the home.
So we kept trying. Over time, we found a rhythm that worked. We invested in small efficiencies—a washing machine, a dryer, a vacuum cleaner. And I learned, perhaps most importantly, to let go of the expectation that the house needed to be spotless every day, as it had been in Zambia. We adjusted—slowly, imperfectly—into something that felt not just workable, but sustaining.
Still, the system we built was not always understood. Visitors, especially those from home, often arrived with different expectations. I remember one of my husband’s friends visiting us in Cape Town from Lusaka. After a few days, he brought me his laundry and asked me to wash it. I was taken aback—not only by the request, but by the assumption behind it. I said nothing. Instead, I stepped aside and let my husband respond. He did, calmly and without hesitation, showing him where the washer and dryer were. The reaction was immediate: surprise, resistance, and the familiar suggestion that my husband was somehow not in charge of his own home.
Family responses could be even more layered. When my mother came to stay with us, she was deeply unsettled by what she saw—my husband cooking, cleaning, caring for the baby. To her, it looked like a reversal of order, even a kind of injustice. She asked me, gently but firmly, to stop asking him to do these things. I remember asking her, just as gently, If not him, then who?
She could not quite accept the answer. For a time, she tried to restore the balance she understood, doing what she could. Even years later, she remained unconvinced. During our Saturday calls, she would marvel that I was still in bed while my husband was already in the kitchen, making breakfast. What she could not fully appreciate was that this, too, was love—expressed not in grand gestures, but in the steady, generous rhythms of everyday life, and, for him, a source of pride.
Over time, the reactions of others began to matter less. Visitors adjusted, or they did not. What mattered was that our system worked. It was not perfect, but it was functional—and in a life as demanding as diaspora life, functionality is no small achievement.
I have come to believe that when partners share household responsibilities, something shifts in the relationship, drawing them closer in ways that are not always immediately visible. The weight is no longer carried alone; in its place is a deeper register of care—being seen, supported, and loved. In the diaspora, where support is often distant, that space matters. It can make the difference between simply enduring and truly thriving in a lifelong partnership.
And perhaps more than that, it becomes its own language of care and love. Not grand or performative, but steady and sustaining—the kind that, over time, builds not only a durable marriage, but an enduring friendship.
The author holds joint fellowship appointments at the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, University of Denver and University of Edinburgh Law School.
