Pit latrines at Kumwanda flood displacement camp that has been filled up, risking diseases like diarrhoea and cholera among individuals residing at the camp.[Mercy Kahenda/Standard]
Dad's wisdom and strange economics of the toilet
Opinion
By
XN Iraki
| Jun 18, 2025
My dad shared with me two nuggets of wisdom, but they are related. One was that when looking for a wife, visit her home and pay special attention to the toilet.
That advice would sound hollow to the urbanites. Toilets are indoors and relatively uniform, and called fancy names like washrooms.
In the rural areas, every home has its own design of a toilet. I noted while growing up and visiting many homes that the toilet was given minimal attention, some had no doors, and you shouted when someone approached.
Some had leaves or newspapers as tissue paper. Did I see someone trying to market that organic tissue paper recently?
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They had no lighting, a torch or a lamp worked at night. A piece of lighted firewood worked too.
Scant investment in toilets made sense as you spend very little time there. In modern houses, toilets are still the smallest rooms in the house.
And the elderly still have issues with a toilet in the house. Lots of modern palatial homes have an outside toilet for visitors, and I am told for workers.
Bigger things
My dad argued that if one can’t take care of the small things, he or she can’t be trusted with bigger things. The toilet is a small thing, but it demonstrates your care for bigger things.
If your prospective in-laws took care of the toilet, they can take care of bigger things, including their son or daughter-in-law
Why does the toilet really matter? Beyond taking care of small things, toilets demonstrate whether you can see things or issues in totality.
The toilet is the end of the biological supply chain! And every part of the supply chain matters.
By taking care of the toilet, you demonstrate that you don’t run away from problems, even if they stink; you will address them and get a solution.
If you want to get insights into an institution, company or even a home, visit the toilet. You can gain better insights than their marketing blitz or website.
And why do we have separate men‘s and women‘s toilets except on planes?
Finally, I asked my dad why he was polygamous. His answer was cryptic and still spinning my head, a quarter of a century later.
“You will know when you grow old.” He did not define old age or its cutoff age. And he is not there to clarify.
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