Unmasking hen parties

It is a mild evening at a house in one of Lilongwe’s uptown suburbs.

One by one, ladies are coming in, slowly filling a big, exquisite and ostentatious lounge.

It is Mercy’s hen party.

Being a first time for the writer to go to a hen party, everything was new and utterly attractive.

But certain things were more eye-catching one being how the ladies are dressed.

From skimpy costumes, revealing dresses to bum-shorts and top dresses only, they all came in different shapes and sizes.

Hen parties, or bachelorettes, are gatherings for women only organised for a bride to have fun for the last time with her unmarried friends.

Of course, the core idea for the hen party is to advise the bride on how to handle bedroom matters as she starts a new life.

In some countries, it is often referred to as the last night of freedom before marriage.

British women, for instance, are certainly taking advantage of it as over half of women are getting a stripper on board as part of their hen party.

In other countries, men also hold stag parties for the grooms.

And so the night in Lilongwe started with a prayer before the ladies started bamboozling Mercy with pieces of advice.

“Osamamukaniza mamuna,” loosely translated to ‘don’t deny your man conjugal duties’, takes centre stage with the ladies spending time justifying how bad this is.

It gets raunchier by each passing moment with the ladies becoming more explicit.

Perhaps the drinks they were gulping are taking their toll.

And so the advice for the fellow woman centred on how to please her man in bed, they demonstrate different positions, twerking and its techniques as well as passing advice about happiness in a family without mincing words.

The hen party is full of erotic talk.

It was surely an over 18 show. However, at stag parties, men mainly get themselves drunk with no or little advice passed on from man to man.

It is all fun, drinking, dancing and nursing their sexual fantasies.

And there is definite feeling among girls, that “what happens at the hen party stays at the hen party”.

And so it is not surprising that most women who have hosted or have been to a number of hen parties are uncomfortable to speak on record about what goes on there.

Marriage and family counselors, however, have cautioned on the parties, saying one needs to be careful with the kind of advice being passed around.

“The idea of preparing a bride for marriage is splendid. There’s nothing wrong with preparing one for effective and successful marriage. The little knowledge I have for hen parties is that there is a challenge surrounding them as some are good while others are not helpful to somebody well meaning,” said Reverend Patrick Semphere.

He said it is a new concept that has been borrowed from the West and has been localised to suit Malawi.

“There are a number of platforms that prepare one for marriage like it used happen in the past and still now where the church, ankhoswe and parents prepare one. With hen parties, the advices and experience are thrown at random and if one is not careful, might end up getting the wrong things. The value that this recent phenomenon brings might be constructive or destructive,” he explained.

However, a number of ladies that have been to hen parties have defended the concept saying that is the only platform a bride gets intricacies of marriage.

“Most of the reasons that men give as excuses for cheating surround what happens in the bedroom and therefore, as a woman, one needs to be fully prepared for marriage. In fact, the tips, experiences and everything shared does not only benefit the bride, but other women present as well,” said one woman who only identified as Memory.