Andrew and Nketchi's defensive exasperation is neatly counterpoised against the self-righteousness of the unctuous pair who intend to 'marry in'. In our hands', they seem to imply, 'our respective cultures will remain intact and our children will be well brought up and sanctimonious prigs just like us. Their dogma is bleakly reminiscent of the purism of Aryan ideology. Marrying in' is seen, at least in part, as an insurance policy against the marital breakdown, against single parenthood and all the chaos thought likely to follow. In Ghana, wise women shake their heads, muttering once out of their hosts earshot.
Blood tells', they say.
In the television studio the stork seems to hover in the skies over central London, ready to plop the next generation of juvenile delinquents in the unsuspecting Nketchi's lap. Punishments for the crime of miscegenation have ranged from the threat of the death penalty for those Jewish men found guilty of having sexual relations with Christian women in the fourth century AD, through to lynching and castrations for black men suspected simply of looking at white women in America in the period during and after slavery. Men in power, have traditionally reserved for themselves the right to free access to the bodies of women of oppressed cultures. With the advent of freedom newly liberated men have demanded the same privilege. It's often a matter of male pride.