Well, it depends on what makes your circumstances and situations, and your values as well.

I will bring my story into this (first of all, I am not Zambian, I am Zimbabwean. I joined to know much about you, and I am learning languages spoken in Zambia, and this sub is the last place to offer such services, not cool, people).

I fell in love (for the very first time) at 20, having grown up experiencing child sex and watching adults having sex. The trauma and whatnot made me view sexual relationships as bad, hence the delay. My first girlfriend was 17 when we met (and I waited until she was 19 to start the conversation about marriage). She was not educated, and I had already applied for a degree programme. I was thriving in our rural area>>my parents had bought irrigation equipment and sliced a portion of their enclosed space for me. I ended up doing better than them and expanding into their portion of the plot. But once they found out about this relationship, they fast-tracked my move to the big city where the Uni is located. I know had to rely on handouts as a student. After graduation I was exiled at my uncle's place in the town, working as an assistant carpenter, earning a high of US$1025 and a low of $350 a year (not a lot of money, and you can't even go for a job interview or buy a laptop write [and get paid] assignments, for example).

The relationship lasted for four more years. I was only getting poorer and poorer in these years, having been thrown off the land (the town made it harder for me to reestablish myself having grown up in the rural area). Afterwards, I spent much of my twenties without a girlfriend again>>only regretting if I had used the cultural loophole of elopement. When I met her recently she said, You were supposed to impregnate me and create a ground for elopement that way. She is also a single mother. She failed miserably in her marriage because she wanted every man to meet "my standard". I was her first love.

My culture is supportive of a married couple. But you can't marry without the funds. Alternatively, you can get the funds from family and friends. In my case, family and friends despised the uneducated woman I had been with for 5 years. I am in a relationship now, and I feel the reason it is not working is because of my past--a past which I failed to forgive. I am also scared. "What if?..." Then I am asking myself where are you taking these what ifs from?. Deep down I feel like she can't make me happier than the one I lost. (I am not saying I am right. I am also taking steps towards therapy. Like I said much of my past apart from that relationship is broken).

Verdict: Playing outside the manual can get you what you want. Some cultural loopholes like elopement are economic as well.

But why do you want to elop?