Pastor Tunde Ayeni, senior pastor of Graceville Christian Centre in Abuja, has told his congregation not to marry the person they love, but instead to love the person they marry, warning that marrying purely out of love can make a person “a slave” to their spouse.
The remarks add to a series of blunt marriage teachings Ayeni has become known for delivering to singles and couples in his church.
A Familiar Message From a Pastor Known for Blunt Marriage Advice
This is not the first time Ayeni has challenged the idea that romantic feeling alone should guide who someone marries. In an earlier teaching, he told singles, “Do not marry the person you love. Choose the person you can live with, then decide to love them,” arguing that character, compatibility, values and maturity matter more than romantic attraction when choosing a life partner.
He has also taught congregants to marry “a pattern,” meaning a person’s proven, consistent character and behaviour, rather than “potential,” or the hope that a partner will improve after marriage.
In a separate widely shared message, Ayeni told his congregation that a man and a woman can never truly be just friends, a claim that similarly divided viewers online between those who agreed and those who felt it was too absolute.
Why This Message Resonates, and Where It Divides Opinion
Ayeni’s core argument is that romantic love, on its own, is an unstable foundation for marriage because feelings can fade, while a decision to commit and choose to love someone daily is something a person can sustain even when emotions fluctuate. His earlier teaching framed this explicitly as choosing compatibility and character first, then allowing love to grow from that foundation.
His use of the word “slave” in this latest teaching sharpens that argument further, suggesting that centring a marriage decision purely on romantic love can leave a person emotionally dependent on and controlled by feelings for their partner, rather than making a grounded, deliberate choice.
Supporters of this view argue it reflects hard-earned wisdom about the realities of long-term commitment, where character and compatibility often matter more day-to-day than the intensity of romantic feeling that existed at the start of a relationship.
Critics, however, note that Ayeni’s own past comments on this subject have already sparked debate, with some listeners agreeing that emotions alone shouldn’t drive marriage decisions, while others insist that genuine love remains an essential part of a healthy marriage and should not be treated as something separate from the choice to marry.
Some critics of this style of teaching more broadly worry that framing love and choice as opposites oversimplifies marriage, and that describing love-based marriage as a form of “slavery” risks discouraging genuine emotional connection between spouses rather than strengthening it.
At a wider level, this kind of teaching reflects an ongoing conversation within Nigerian church communities, and society more broadly, about how much weight romantic love should carry compared to practical compatibility, family expectations and shared values when Nigerians choose who to marry.
A Debate Nigerians Keep Returning To
We think Pastor Ayeni raises a fair point about the risks of building a marriage on emotion alone, since feelings do change, and a marriage that survives only on romantic intensity can struggle once that intensity fades.
At the same time, we do not believe love and choice have to be treated as opposites the way this teaching frames them. A healthy marriage likely needs both: genuine affection for a partner, and a deliberate, ongoing choice to stay committed to them, especially through the harder seasons a marriage will inevitably face.
What matters most, in our view, is not whether someone marries “the person they love” or “chooses to love the person they marry,” but whether both partners enter the relationship with honesty about who they are, realistic expectations of each other, and a genuine willingness to keep choosing one another well beyond the wedding day.
Published by Ejoh Caleb
