By Kayode Fasua
For me, today broke with a heartchilling tinge of unusual alliteration, in the hallowed realm of zodiac configuration. This day 11 years ago, Yetunde and I were at the Agege Registry in Lagos, where we tied the nuptial knot, thus becoming wife and husband, respectively.
On the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011, my wedding is 11 years old. One would perhaps need a para-psychologist in the mould of the late Professor Gabriel Okunzua to explain off the dimension to which zodiac beings comprising key planets, the sun and the moon have wondrously charted the day. But in the experiencing of the years lies some didactic sublimity, obtainable through battles with this pantheon set forth as marriage.
As life is not a bed of roses, so is marriage. Not a few marriages have hit the rocks while others endure jerkily with the partners papering over the cracks, so as to keep afloat in the social setting; or, to sustain certain economic or political values. Yet, some marriages have blossomed in the naturalness of some animating impact. This is talking of the mutually good volition of the two partners contracting the lifetime deal.
We thus summarise this endearing dimension to mean love . But shall we not love or scamper for the fruit of love to sustain the health of the society? Family researchers and marriage counsellors alike are agreed that broken marriages account mostly for the debasement of otherwise promising children to the inglorious column of urchins, of gradating felons and ever irascible, modern Goths. It is their belief that a child under the combined tutelage of the father and mother grows up to become a responsible citizen, one who is the pride of both parents.
But granted that marriage should remain to sustain useful protégés needed to build a comely Nigerian society, have we also given much thought to factors required to keep the home in its rightful grandeur? A home ravaged by hunger wherein the parents are out of job resulting from economic recession is not likely to produce a child of the societys desire. Wrenched by hunger, the male child, even as a teenager mingles with peers who assure he can be linked up with those who can bail him out of the painfully familiar raid of hunger. To that extent, he would either resort to stealing or to outright robbery or fraud of the genre called 419.
As for the female child, beginning from adolescence, she is easily made to realise by her equally hungry mates that she has an abiding industry in her soft underb elly, which has a precursor in the seductive flaunting of the upper torso, flapping her budding breasts rather voluptuously, to attract men. Assuredly, lack of money or outright poverty is a gale of ill-wind that can upturn a marriage or dirtily shake it to its foundations.
A certain friend met at a pub somewhere in Ajuwon, an Ogun State community on the Lagos border, had recalled how his wife and mother of his four children, at a time he was sacked, gave vent to extra-marital affairs, dating a policeman operating at a highly rewarding check-point. His tragedy was signposted in that, his wife called him and said, look Mr. Man, you cant feed yourself, me and our four children; a mission which this God-sent policeman has been fulfilling. So, allow olopa (the policeman) to enjoy his life.
But I can assure you that I wont have a child for him. While the jobless, Ajuwon-based fellow was expected by his associates to call it quits with his faithfully unfaithful wife, our friend endured the humiliation. He patently swallowed his pride, claiming that it is for the sake of my children; after all, they (policeman and wife) have not been performing the acts in my presence.
Today, that jobless man has got a job and has stoically resolved to allow his wife retain her matrimonial seat. Curiously, however, the loverboy policeman is somewhere in a native medical home, struck by a strange illness for which his family has spent fortunes. While chastity in marriage, therefore, is a virtue needed to promote love, sustain a family and groom up offspring to become responsible citizens, responsible government policies are also required, to make marriages work and sustainable. Happy married life to all.
Courtesy: National Mirror