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Coming out from a crowded Sunday service, I saw a young woman with a baby strapped to her back. She held a heavy bag in her left hand, while also firmly holding her umbrella and bottles of water tied together with the right hand. As she walked slowly away from the church, she cast glances behind her at the oncoming vehicles. I guessed she needed transportation, which I was ready to offer, considering her situation and particularly because of the baby on her back. When I stopped a few feet ahead of her, she ran to meet me. Some steps away, a man stood and watched us. Then she said the man was her husband. So, I allowed the young man to hop into my vehicle too. “Thank you, Ma.” May God bless you, thank you,” the woman said, genuinely grateful.
Having witnessed what transpired, I asked the man if indeed he was her husband. “Yes,” he answered. I guess the elder sister-in-law spirit in me rumbled and took over my tongue, saying to the man: ‘You came to service with your young family, and as you are returning home, there is nothing showing connectivity between you as husband and wife. She is the one carrying the baby on her back with two hands holding the baby’s bag, umbrella and water bottles. And you are just walking fast ahead of her holding only your bible. Did you realize that she cannot walk as fast as you because of the load she is carrying?’
He kept gazing at me. He did not seem to understand the point I was making, so I pointedly said that he should have taken the load off her, by carrying the baby. With the wife holding the other things, both of them would then walk beside each other, chat and recall key points of the message in church as they head home, creating touch points and other little memories that will set the mood for other beautiful experiences at home, and strengthen the romantic bonds between them.
‘You believe it is her responsibility to carry the baby and all the baby’s outing things while you, as husband, just stand aloof, unconcerned. My dear brother that is wrong.’ He did not utter a word until he got down from my car.
Now, some thinkers would probably say I have empowered the lady with my words. Who knows if that is how they agreed to live. Please, that is wrong. Truth be told, most people did not have cars at the time they got married.
When men complain that their wives deny them sexual pleasure, ask such men if they live up to expectation? Yes, he may be providing for his family, but will never allow his in-laws come near his home. I particularly recall the ugly and embarrassing experience of Philomena who revealed during a small group discussion on marriage in a small church I used to attend some years ago. In her contribution to our discussion, she said: “If my husband hears that I gave out my clothes to my younger sisters, he will drive me in his car to get those clothes back from my sisters.” When I heard that I screamed in my mind, what a wicked brother-in-inlaw. A man who would abuse and insult his wife’s family, how will the wife be glad to lie with him and have heart-to-heart talk in the wee hours of the night, not to talk less of having sexual intercourse with him?
Well, it is not for saying sake that most women have been trampled upon in the name of marriage. In my little thinking, I have realized that God created husbands to show the wife and children who God is, how God forgives, how God looks and dots over us, how God cares and supports us. How we are protected, provided and be made happy. It is the reason why the bible says God is love. Now, is it not inappropriate seeing how some men chose to live in the past by humiliating their wives and feel it is their ego. They forget to know that love is a two-way thing like a dog’s play, rub me, I rub you.
It is not hearsay that some men look down on their wives and refuse to give them wings to fly. Now, listen to the outburst of Ofunne Maduka, a former classmate whose marriage almost ended because of her husband, Dennis’s hard decision. Dennis turned down Ofunne’s request to pursue her PhD program. “Over my dead body would I be alive and see you pursue a PhD program. “So, you would be addressed as ‘Dr’ while I am addressed as ‘Mr’, no. Not under my roof. It was a serious issue until Ofunne’s father offered to pay the school fees for both to go for the PhD program and nascent peace reigned.
When Maureen’s story in the United States was told by her friends and classmates, I came to the conclusion that America is a perfect hiding place. Beautiful Maureen who is from a respected family left the shores of Nigeria as a qualified medical doctor. Her American-based husband, Harry, was over the hills to marry her and bring her to the United States to become a money-spinning machine. With that early love nest, before her husband could return to his base, Maureen became pregnant almost immediately after their traditional marriage. Before her documents could pass through all the processes, she had already given birth to a set of twins. Soon after arriving in the United States, she got pregnsnt again and there was little or no time focus on studies. She managed to write the qualifying exam but could not make it. Hell was let loose. Her husband took her to the gutters and regretted ever marrying and bringing her to the US. He compared Maureen to her contemporaries who had made it and qualified to practice as doctors in the US. With constant abuse, insolence and disregard, inferiority complex gradually found its way into the life of Maureen. She began to see herself as a failure. After many years she drifted from her person to become a bedside nurse in the old people’s home in the US.
So many men in the name of marriage have destroyed their partners knowingly and unknowingly. They have reduced them to nothing, made them lose their self-worth, all that they wished themselves while growing up as girls disappeared from them. Beatrice was one of the girls that we all grew up with. One of her hubbies was travelling. She derived joy from making trips, to attend conferences within and outside her territory, be around her family and friends. When her relatives return from foreign countries, Beatrice would buy a ticket to visit. Going on trips just gave her joy and satisfaction and her husband did not mind at all. Her frequent trips did not give her husband any complex and hurt his ego.
Sincerely speaking, men should please remove ego and accept God’s gift of a wife. If you have a wife that has the capacity, when you allow others to talk you into embarrassing her, then you hold her down. The day you will be in trouble, you will be naked because you will have no cover. The Lord provided wives as covers, but when you refuse to allow them to manifest, even you will have no peace from the heat. If your wife is your blessing, you cannot hold her down because she is your shelter.
Now, let all men know today that God is the one that assigns purpose to men. Some women are in men’s lives to be a blessing to them. Some have come into their lives to become secret weapons, to make you shine, calm the storm, and make a difference. If you fight your wife, you fight yourself. If you understand the word of God, it says that two become one, and God sees only one. Women therefore should apply wisdom too, knowing that if the Lord causes their hand to prosper, the prosperity is not for them alone, it is for their entire household. Because God sees one, not two, and can give anything to the one through any half of the one. The word of God will always be true because the order of your home will be preserved, no matter who is bringing it. But again, women you must have the wisdom to choose right. Choose a responsible man, a man of honour, choose a man that fears God. Do not choose a man because he has good looks and is financially sound.
Dear Nigerian men, when a man is said to be the head of a home, it is not only about providing for them, it is also about spreading the blanket of love from all angles. Instead of trampling on your wife’s capacity, reducing and removing her self-worth, give her the wings to fly. In the days of trouble, she will stand solidly with you.
