The standards and rules of living seem to be set by men especially in countries like Nigeria. Some men feel the woman is not entitled to know their income or salary. Some men go as far as making their next of kin their brother or an uncle even while the wife is alive. Some hardly involve their wives in the decision making process in the home. Some insist that they are “men” and so they walk away boldly from their wives when they are supposed to apologize for the wrong they have done to their wives. Despite the emotional injury their words and actions have caused, they still insist “That is me, I am a man, men don’t beg, men don’t bulge.” “You don’t have a say woman!” “Your duty is to cook, bear children and take care of them!” These are the philosophies of some men.
Some men go as far as saying that a female child is no child. Somebody has personally approached me to ask me why I have not cared to give birth to another “Chinemerem” insinuating that I have not yet arrived as a family man because I have no male child. This makes me wonder innocently what is left for me to do and also whether I have the power to determine the sex of my children. Hold it! Some “sympathizers” might send some sex monitoring tables to my wife on reading this. Some women spend time monitoring their bodies to know when to “strike” in order to have a male baby, but I still do not understand why they do this because I feel no less a man for having a bunch of beautiful “lady Chinemerems.” This attitude is so worrisome especially when men who claim to be born again and filled with the Holy Spirit champion these inhumane treatments of women. A particular brother of an evangelical fellowship in a church refused to support the wife in the dedication of their fourth baby who happens to also be the fourth girl. The man was so angry with the wife for giving him another girl.
What about men who though married and wedded in the church, spend time sleeping with other women? A married man was so bold to write it on Facebook that sleeping with one woman is boring and destroys a man! What a wicked and insensitive postulation! When a man is caught in adultery, the wife is expected to understand and bear it. In fact she will be judged as inconsiderate and not understanding if she protests or decides to leave the marriage. When a woman however is caught in the act, the heavens will fall and she is sent packing without a hearing. Yeah men! Una dey try o!
What about men who just treat their wives as objects of sex. It is possible that ninety percent of married women do not know what orgasm in marriage is, because of the high handedness and selfishness of the men in matters of bodily union. When the women insist on her right by demanding to have “a feeling,” the man raises an eye brow and query, “Are you a prostitute?” “Who are you seeing apart from me?” Yeah men! Is a man’s world! That is why one woman very ignorantly insisted that her husband is a fool for asking that they continue bodily union even after she had attained menopause. To her what else are they going to do on the bed when they have finished bearing children? Further query revealed that this woman’s understanding of intercourse in marriage is for the purpose of bearing children. She never knew that there is a thing like foreplay until she got to menopause because her husband did not care. This same man has a horde of women of easy virtue whom he “romancingly” plays those kind of “Hollywood hide and seek boy friend and girl friend games.” Yeah men! Is a man’s world!
What about men who are paid salaries by the institution or establishment they serve and yet constantly claim of being owed arrears of salaries? These men provide meager food and house keep allowances that only keep the children perpetually malnourished and low in intelligent quotient. It is surprising to hear of a man who comes home to eat, looking this way and that way while nobody was watching, he brought out a wrap of meat and “Suya” and deposited same into the soup the wife managed to cook. These men know how to enhance or update their wife’s soup but will never ever think of doing same for the allowances they provide. Some men do not know how the children went to school or how the dresses were bought for them. They just do not want to know because their philosophy is this: “it is God that trains children.” Yeah men! Is a man’s world!
What about men who have children outside wedlock and spend a lot in taking care of their “external wife” and illegitimate children –while their own legitimate family lives from hand to mouth? Some men are so wicked that they keep this secret only to expose it after their death -once the will is read by their lawyers. What about men who bring in a strange woman into the home not respecting the sacred matrimonial home and bed? A particular man brought in a strange woman into his matrimonial home while the wife was away on a course. The most annoying thing was that while the wife was away, this woman brazenly lived in the house making use of the woman’s wrappers and other personal effects. What about men who convert their wife’s sister to their spare wife once the wife puts to bed and is confined to the hospital?
What about men who lure female hawkers to their bed after buying off their wares as a means of making them succumb to their antics? What about men who sleep with their wife’s chief bride’s maid on their first wedding night? What about men who elope from the house as soon as salaries are paid only to surface after they have exhausted all? What about men who do the shopping and scrutinize their wife’s shopping list if their wives insist on doing the shopping? How about men who dress well while their wives look like their house-help? What about men who wickedly claim that the voice behind the scene while answering their wives on phone is the voice of the Newscaster and not a “live” woman? The evil that men do! My mother will always say, “Ekwum ole hara ole?” -There are many things to say and I cannot say it all.
