By Olukorede Yishau
Permit me to call him Ladi. He returns from the United Kingdom. He is about 30 years, with first and second degrees in his belt. The world seems to be his oyster and though he has not gotten his dream job, he feels that a wife will complete him. After all, the Bible says “he who finds a wife finds a good thing”.
He meets a dashing beauty you just have to allow me to call Sarah. They start dating, a Christian dating devoid of sex. They go from one counselling session to the other. Pastors feed them with words of God, verses upon verses about how to make the best of their married life and other tips considered vital to running a good home.
Ladi’s parents feel that the two of them are not ready for marriage, given their son’s financial handicap, but they give in and will use this as a weapon later when issues start arising.
The wedding ceremony comes and goes and they start a home. Weeks turn into months and months into years and they are having a blast enjoying all the sex they avoided while dating. However, the financial status of the two of them is a snag. Ladi earns next to nothing in his place of work and Sarah’s hustle brings cash in trickles.
The turning point is when Sarah becomes pregnant and in his husband’s wisdom, she will be better taken care of by his mother so he ships her to the home where he grew up. She does not like the idea but she reluctantly agrees because she wants her baby badly, especially because of her initial bad experience.
All is going on well until she has her baby and her in-laws’ attitudes assume a frightening mien. One of the key areas of disagreement is that she wants to move out of their house after the baby’s birth, a decision vehemently rejected.
Then there is also Ladi’s reluctance to continue a sexual relationship with his wife. His reason: His financial status does not support having a second child. So, for years, his young wife embraces celibacy because he is unwilling to go beyond occasional kisses and fondling. Sex thus becomes something needed only for procreation.
Let’s leave Ladi and Sarah and get into the story of a couple I have chosen to address as Abraham and Nkechi. They have been married for over a decade. The marriage is blessed with four kids, three girls and a boy, the last girl was conceived during the Coronavirus-induced lockdown. From time to time, Nkechi catches Abraham with one girl or the other, but for the sake of her home, she keeps quiet about it. The best she does is to explain to her sister-in-law and also quarrels with her husband.
These two marriages show different challenges people face in their homes. If the challenge is not about the husband having a girlfriend, it is the in-laws interfering and if it is not that, not having enough sex is the problem.
I know of another couple. Let us just call them Bolanle and Omoniyi. They have been married for close to two decades and they have two kids. They used to have three until they lost one after an illness that saw her being admitted to a government-owned hospital.
For all of the years they have been married, Omoniyi does not feel bad about being irresponsible. Paying school fees, house rent and other bills in the house is not his priority. His ready excuse is that he has no money and most times he disappears from home.
Recently, he cultivates the habit of sneaking home to change his clothes when the wife and the kids are out. When they call him, he gives excuses that do not make sense. Now his kids face the danger of either not completing secondary school or ending their educational pursuit after that.
Their mother ekes a living from selling retail products and barely manages to make ends meet. She owes rent for her shop and anytime her landlord calls; she avoids the call and thereafter lapses into a sad mood. She is on the verge of moving out of Lagos to a town in Ogun State, where she hopes her bills on rent and others will drastically reduce.
Like Ladi and Sarah, Bolanle and Omoniyi have financial constraints. In the case of the former, in-laws’ interference has worsened the challenge and the wife is at the receiving end of their verbal attacks, which has become an every other day affair, while for the latter, the husband carries the crown of leaving the wife in a sad mood.
As expected, their sex life has also suffered. Unlike Sarah and Ladi, Bolanle is the one denying her husband sex because she feels there is no sense in an irresponsible man ‘pummelling’ her. Sarah, like a normal woman, wants and desires sex, but Ladi hangs on his financial handicap to avoid giving her right and, when she complains, she is vilified, not only by Ladi, but also his mother, who relishes telling her that for years too she did not have sex because her husband was outside the country on an assignment.
Let us get one thing straight: Sex is important. Let me say it again: sex is important. And let me add: No woman should be painted bad because she likes sex with her husband. To deny a woman sex deliberately for years is evil, and to now act as though she is a sex freak is immoral.
It is a different ball game if the husband is incapacitated. But to use the excuse of not wanting to raise another child yet to dodge sex with one’s wife for years turns logic on the head. What happens to family planning? If the wife cannot use pills or any other method, the husband can use a condom or the withdrawal method or time the sex to periods when she is safe.
Avoiding sex totally because you do not have money to raise another child is a no-no. To add salt to injury, you will kiss her deeply and do other romantic stuff but refuse to penetrate when her hormones are already on fire. Somebody should please explain this to me. I cannot fathom it. At all.
My final take: The marriage institution is a school. In this school, some learn soothing lessons; some learn bitter lessons; some others learn semi-bitter lessons. Many learn from these and adjust appropriately and live happily ever after and sadly, the lessons are lost on many and their homes crash.
Hardly any marriage is perfect, but from what I have found out, love’s role in sustaining a marriage is infinitesimal because in the face of unmet financial needs, love withers and dies. A man who is incapable of meeting the financial needs of his home quickly finds out that the love between him and his wife is powerless in keeping them together.
In-laws’ interference is another factor that anyone desirous of keeping a home should check, be it from the man’s or the woman’s side. Genesis 2:24 screams: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” That is what it should be. So in-laws should let couples be.
And, finally, sex is food for the soul. And just like you eat rice and beans to stay alive, a sexually active person needs plenty of the food called sex to stay sane. If you do not want sex, why get married?
• Yishau is a newspaper columnist and author of’In The Name of Our Father’ and ‘Vaults of Secrets’.