YOUR WOMAN: A HALF-PART, NOT A SPARE-PART

By

Sanni Kay Yusuf

While in a taxi returning home after the day's work, the driver tuned the radio to a station where issues about husbands assisting their wives were discussed. Thinking aloud, an elderly woman said she would disown a son found giving a helping hand to his wife in house chores. A heat debate, therefore, ensued among the passengers. All but the driver faulted the woman's submission.

I honestly never believed that such could be uttered by a woman. I could not but wade in to have my opinion launched. I tried making her reason rationally, but she was rather hell bent. I couldn't believe my ears.

I have got no doubt that many a man today has a similar ideology with the woman whose example was afore-cited. Wives are partners in progress, not slaves. They are half parts of their partner-husbands, not spare parts. It is no big deal to assist women in their domestic duties. This increases the bond between spouses. It makes the wife love the husband the more. It is equally a way of bringing down oneself to the level of one's soul-mate. It is a way of proving to the woman that one is compassionate; that one is humane; that one is humanistic; that one is caring; that one is loving etc. 

It is about time men did away with the African/Yoruba mythology that says it is abominable to assist women in house chores. That is barbaric!

What's the big deal if the wife cooks in the kitchen and the husband tidies up the house? What's the big deal if the husband compels his wife to sit down on a weekend and he is watched do the sweeping, the cooking, the cleaning etc.? What's the big deal if the husband backs the baby like a nursing mother to relinquish his or her crying? Afterall, this will only be known to him and the wife. Even if it is known to strangers, what is the big deal? 

We've really got to do a paradigm shift from our idiosyncratic defects. Isn't it inhuman that the woman is contemporaneously washing the plates, doing the cooking, cleaning the house, bathing the kids, breast-feeding the youngest, and the husband is in the living room seated with his legs crossed on the centre table seeing a movie? For me, that's the peak of wickedness.

You want your wife to assist you pay some percentage in the children's tuition fees, yet you aren't ready to do a reciprocity of that via assitance in house chores. You want her to expend her hard-earned money to stock the kitchen with foods, yet you don't want her own duties carried out by you. Haba! Don't be callous! You had better change your ways before it is too late. Spouses are servants to each other, not slaves. They are meant to serve each other in different capacities - no slave, no master.

No doubt, women can be very naughty. This is natural of them. If they are granted "allow", they will demand "allowance." The woman may want to turn the husband's show of magnanimity into a permanent routine. They are known for that. That is where manliness has to come in. The husband should have his way of making the woman realize her excesses. Shikena!!!

Make your woman feel like a partner, a friend, a crony, an ally, a Queen, a confidant; not like a slave!