Bunmi Sofola
Recently, I had begun to wonder if we shouldn’t go back to the old but tedious method of screening the pedigree of prospective partners before parents give the nod to any marriage proposal. What brought this on is the outcome of a so-called, no-holds-barred society wedding that took place not so long ago. The groom’s mum, Labake, almost turned into brazilla herself – wearing her nerves to a frazzle making sure everything went according to the way she’d planned it. She’d attended a few of the weddings of her friends’ children and vowed her sons would be just as good, if not better.
“And my efforts paid off, and come the day of the wedding, and we had a packed hall”, she told me. “The caterers behaved themselves and all sorts of drinks – refreshments flowed. The new couple danced as if they’d won the first prize in a lottery. I was so happy I didn’t regret splashing out that much on the wedding. It was a happily contented me that finally took herself to bed, hoping to see the new couple before they left for their honeymoon a few days later. I was sound asleep when I realised someone was nudging me, trying to wake me up. When I eventually focused on the intruder, I was shocked to find Tope, my new daughter-in-law looking down at me.
“I was instantly awake. Why was she here? Had my son had an accident? “Where is Fola?”, I asked her. She sighed. `He didn’t come home to sleep’, she told me sadly. `What?’, I yelled, my heart in my throat. `Did he have an accident? Have you check with his friend’, Tope shook her head sadly. `I know where he is’, she assured me. “I hurried there on a boubou and rushed to the boys-quarters to fetch the driver. The poor man had just gotten up and was busy chewing a stick when I barked he should get the car ready in minutes. ~Following Tope’s direction we drove to a house and lo and behold, Fola’s car was parked in front of it. The car barely stopped before I rushed out, banging on the door like a woman possessed. I stormed in ignoring the woman who opened the door. `Where is Fola?’, I shrieked.
“Almost immediately, my son came out of the bedroom. He was shocked to see me. I tore into him, scrunching up his silly-looking pyjamas round his throat and asking what he thought he was playing at. He tried to pacify me but wouldn’t look his new wife in the eye. I pointed at the woman who opened the door and asked: “Is this the reason why you spent the first night of your married life in another woman’s bed?”
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Turning to her I asked: ‘What sort of a woman are you? Do you have any conscience at all? Would you like to be treated like this if and when you eventually found a husband? ‘On and on I went as I marched my son into his car and got in with him. I asked the driver to take Tope to her new home and told Fola to take me home.
“It was when I’d had time to calm down that he told me how he’d been involved with both women for years. When he eventually decided on Tope, Agatha (this other woman) couldn’t take the rejection. She resorted to emotional blackmail and on the night of his wedding, she called him she couldn’t sleep and was feeling suicidal. So, the mumu that he was, he couldn’t see through Agatha’s schemes. Instead, feeling responsible for the state she was in, he left his wife and went to pacify his reject. `And I bet she made you sleep with her’, I sneered. He said nothing. I felt sickened.
“I’ve tried to bring up my children to have respect for the sanctity of marriage. I lost their dad some ten years ago, but we were all provided for in his will. My late husband was a decent father. Where did Fola get this irresponsible behaviour from? What type of future would this marriage have if he’d behaved so badly right from the first day? And what calibre of women do we have out there who have no qualms about luring newly married men into their bed? Do they have any sense of shame at all?
“I recalled the case of another friend whose pregnant daughter went to stay with them in Abuja to have her baby. She refused to go back to her matrimonial home afterwards. She said she’d discovered she was no longer in love with her new husband. The poor man came from a family who believe a wife has to take pride in her home. My friend’s daughter couldn’t cook, let alone keep the house spick and span – and he had no money to employ the type of domestics his spoilt wife was used to. Going home to have her baby opened her eyes to the type of wealth she was used to, so she stayed put – and has never gone back since”.
“So what values are we giving our offsprings when it comes to marriage. What examples are we setting? More than ever before, matrimony has become a sort of take-away institutions. Any sign of trouble, couples go their separate ways to try other items on the menu, seldom giving a thought to any children they must have had or to the vows they made in front of God and man to `love and cherish, in sickness in health’.
Wrong end of the stick (Humour)
A French couple are on their honeymoon at a posh hotel. Every morning, the wife comes into the dining room and beams: “What a beautiful morning. What `happiness!’?” At the end of the week, when they check out, the manager says to the husband “It’s been a pleasure having you stay with us. Everyone loves the way your wife smiles every morning and says what happiness!’
“No”, the husband says smugly, “She’s not been saying `what happiness’ – she’s been saying, `what a penis!”
Best to listen to mum! (Humour)
Three daughters all got married on the same day and spent their honeymoon night in their parents’ palatial mansion. The couples retired to bed early and sometime later, the parents turned off the lights and went upstairs as well. Now the parents’ bedroom was in the west wing and to get there, they had to pass their daughters’ rooms. As they walked past the first door, they heard their daughter laughing. Behind the second door, they heard their daughter crying, but behind the third door, there was no sound at all.
The following morning, the parents took their daughters aside and questioned them about the night before. The first daughter said: “Well, you always told me it was polite to laugh if someone told a joke”. And the second daughter said, `You always told me to cry if I was hurt”. Finally, the third daughter said, “And you told me never to speak with my mouth full”.
VANGUARD
