African proverbs provide insight into cultural views on love and marriage. Several proverbs emphasize that love is shown through actions rather than words, requires acceptance of another's flaws, and helps overcome difficulties in a relationship. Additionally, proverbs note that marriage takes work, as reflected by comparisons to cultivating crops or cracking open nuts to see what is inside.

1. African Proverbs about Love and Marriage
Wood already touched by fire isn't hard to set alight. - Africa
Dogs don't love people, they love the place where they are fed. - Burundi
Where there is love there is no darkness. - Burundi
It is better to be loved than feared. - Sierra Leone
The way to the beloved isn't thorny. - Cameroon (Duala)
One doesn't love another, if one doesn't accept anything from her. - Chad, Niger,
Nigeria (Kanuri/Bornu)
Love doesn't listen to rumors. - Ghana (Akan)
Love is like a baby: it needs to be treated tenderly. - Congo
If a woman doesn't love you, she calls you brother. - Ivory Coast (Baule)
Love put the eaglet out of its nest. - Kenya (Gikuyu)
People who love one another do not dwell on each other's mistakes. - Kenya
(Gikuyu)
To be smiled at isn't to be loved. - Kenya (Gikuyu)
The house of a person we love is never far. - Kenya (Kikuyu)
A letter from the heart can be read on the face. - Kiswahili
Love has to be shown by deeds not words. - Kiswahili
Love doesn't rely on physical features. - Lesotho

2. He who loves you, loves you with your dirt. - Uganda (Ganda)
The one who loves an unsightly person is the one who makes him beautiful. Uganda (Ganda)
To love someone who does not love you, is like shaking a tree to make the dew
drops fall. - Congo
He who doesn't like chattering women must stay a bachelor. - Congo
A young wife tends to cook too much at first. - Ethiopia
Bread without sauce and a home without a wife are meaningless. - Ethiopia
The way you got married isn't the way you'll get divorced. - Haiti
A bird can be guarded, a wife can't. - Kiswahili
A man without a wife is like a vase without flowers. - Africa
It is the habit that a child forms at home, that follows them to their marriage. Nigeria
If you marry a monkey for his wealth, the money goes and the monkey remains as
is. - Egypt
Having beauty doesn't mean understanding the perseverance of marriage.- Africa
If you do not travel, you will marry your own sister. - Mozambique
A man that does not lie shall never marry. - Zimbabwe
One who plants grapes by the road side, and one who marries a pretty woman,
share the same problem. - Ethiopia
Marriage is like a groundnut: you have to crack them to see what is inside. – Ghana
(Akan)

3. The buttocks are like a married couple though there is constant friction between
them; they will still love and live together. - Africa
If there were no cold Friday evenings and boring Saturdays, no one would get
married any more. - Morocco
How gently glides the married life away, when she who rules still seems but to
obey. - Kenya
He who marries a beauty marries trouble. - Nigeria
A woman who has not been twice married cannot know what a perfect marriage is.
- Nigeria
A good wife is easy to find, but suitable in-laws are rare. - Malagasy
It is better to be married to an old lady than to remain unmarried. - Uganda
A woman who is not successful in her own marriage has no advice to give to her
younger generations. - Nigeria
A married couple is neither enemies nor friends. - Somalia
If money where to be found up in the trees, most people would be married to
monkeys. - Africa
The man may be the head of the home but the wife is the heart. – Kenya (Gikuyu)
If there is cause to hate someone, the cause to love has just begun. - Wolof
The man that won't marry a woman with other admirers won't marry a woman at
all. - Nigeria
The robin and the wren are God's cock and hen; the martin and the swallow are
God's mate and marrow. - Tanzania
He was entrapped by the evening, it has cost him his marriage. - Bantu
Talking with one another is loving one another. - Kenya
One who loves you, warns you. – Uganda (Baganda)

4. Leave her now and then if you would really love your wife. - Malawi
The most dangerous thing a man needs is a woman. - Somalia
When one is in love, a cliff becomes a meadow. - Ethiopia
Marriage is not a tight knot, but a slip knot. - Malagasy
Marriage is a snake to slip into your handbag. - Africa
Marriage is a snake to slip into your handbag – Africa