By Alkasim Harisu Alkasim
It is beyond exaggeration to say that marriage for money is a norm today. Repeating this amounts to a cliché. A great score of us want to marry money, and we hate to bring to mind poverty, never mind the difficulties accompanying it. That is why, today, many a family frown upon poverty-ridden dudes. Such families try to avoid poverty by marrying into monied families. They hold that, given the fact their homes are poor, they should, as a matter of fact, change their fates. Hence, by marrying rich men, they will be able to compensate for the difficulties biting them.
Unknowingly, there are difficulties that rehappen to destroy newly-built families. The first thing that throws a spanner in marriages is the recognition of the male spouse that his wife weds him thanks to his wealth. She also attracts for herself the despise of her in-laws who accord her and her family no respect. They disgrace and see them as a bunch of people that worship money. Also, the groom, who earnestly believes that the woman marries him because of his riches, ponders the fact that whenever he becomes poor, she will turn her back on him.
There are decisions we oftentimes take that we tend to regret after the passing of time. Because of our thirst for money, we take to cheapening and even slaving ourselves to attain the consideration of the haves. After throwing ourselves to the dogs, we then begin to think of a way to regain our good names. But the game is already over. This is a true definition of turning back the clock. Alas! Time never comes back once it is gone. What I imply here is that girls do themselves a disservice when they choose to be in love with undeserving fellows. What should you do when this happens, that is, when a girl sees nothing in you? I personally advise that whenever a girl hates building up a relationship with you, you should call it quits. Otherwise, you will be carrying a torch for somebody and nothing will expiate for you the time, energy and money you have expended.
Another thing that ruins relationships is poor moral standing. It is true that girls that idolise money quickly grow immoral. And boys with money seduce such girls for a quickie one-night stand. Yes, their sole desire is to hit it and quit it. Achieving this, they vanish into the thin air. As the girl conceives and becomes heavy with pregnancy, the world concentrates attention on her. Bad words from the public begin to weigh on her mind as well as her negligent family’s. People will antagonize her to the point of tears. Then, she will begin to regret her mistakes. Sadly, she has already got deflowered. And no amount of crying can return her virginity. The boy is gone. She and her family will try to get back at the missing boy, but they will just be carrying coals to Newcastle. At that very moment, the family starts to an afterthought. They will ruminate on ways to punish the boy or force him to marry the girl.
The problem of marrying money is mother to many immoralities that are currently occurring. It causes infidelity which is becoming the father of our ailing society and falling apart as a people. I was told about a wife that cheated on her husband. Albeit she was husbanded well, she did what only the baseborn do. The spouse catered for all her needs but she was notoriously infidel enough to practice adultery as though she did not subscribe to Islam. Whenever he left for market, this adulterous wife would take her children to her mother-in-law’s. She would then call her paramour. A faithful neighbour has often seen this thus he got devastated. Given the gravity of the issue, he was compelled to shut it. For he didn’t know how to let the husband know. Later, as the misdeed persisted, he locked the house on the two wrongdoers. He quickly called the husband who was already at market. The husband rushed it home and saw the nightmare of his lifetime. No sooner had he witnessed what his neighbour had been feeling indifferent to let him learn than he divorced her. Parting the way of unfaithful wives is the best decision no matter how one loves them. Because, if you don’t summon the courage to divorce them, they can mother you bastard children and pretend you are the one that fathers them. Was this woman fathered well? This is a question many people pose.
Another story is of a smart guy who triples as a husband, teacher and relative. He doctors for a living. Despite his running busy all time, he keeps house while his wife idles her hours away at the same home. She does not know how to even cook or do the house chores. It connotes a tragedy when you marry a woman that does not know how to prepare water that drinks well or food that eats well. This is one of the humiliating errors a wife can ever commit in her home. More telling is that the husband had excellently patched up many problems that came up. But, one horrible argument persisted. He tried his best possible to patch up things with his wife but she refused to forget the differences thanks to her stubbornness. He pressured her into buying the idea, but he could not make her let bygones be bygones.
To control how his children marry, I was told about a father who sons ten children. He also selects wives for his children. He is very responsible and commands obedience. The norm in this family is that the father wives all his children. He also schools his sons in respecting one another. That is why, they brother themselves extremely well. They reek charm and none of their actions sisters on disrespect, despise or fakery.
When you get broken-hearted, it feels as if your whole body was giving you pains. You will be long in healing before you bounce back to excellent health. You will be suffering terrible romantic ill-health too. You will keep wondering if you would ever be able to battle the condition. To you, such a situation is a small armageddon because nothing can purge you of harrowing thoughts. Living in solitude cannot not expiate the shock you will be going through nor will it cleanse the psychological trauma you are going through. Of course, mourning the loss of one’s one-time better-half is extremely painful.
Indeed, many of us do not see the value of those we marry ourselves with either in social, friendship, work or marriage commerce until they are no more or when the relationship goes south. We mourn and weep profusely for our relatives only when they close their eyes for the last time. When alive, we don’t see the world of them. Some people take betrayal lightly. But I would rather die a thousand deaths than betray a person who reposes trust and confidence in me.
When a love relationship dies a death, responsible people, more especially those that are not the guilty party look like death warmed over. A times, the social intercourse that reigns among diverse social networks sours thanks to betrayal. As this happens, everybody swears distancing his fellow for an unimaginable period of time. People get wedded to a devilish thought. This dilemma abounds with the absence of peace and bad blood. I said earlier that we affix importance to material gains by devaluing virtue and celebrating infamy. All this plays out in marriage transactions.
I have a friend since secondary school who was schooled at BUK. He learnt medicine. Of late, he broke up with his long-time girlfriend who also doubles as his female cousin. His home neighbours the girl’s. At the morning of the misunderstanding, he sought the intermediation of his close friend. The friend tried to correct the situation, but he failed. The relationship, to sum it, has latterly met its waterloo. Another person, a close buddy of the boyf tried to talk her out of her intentions. Still, she turned a deaf ear. He too, failed to appease the tumult abounding in the relationship. Toward the end of the relationship, that was when turbulence overwhelmed everything, the girl grew the habit of talking back her boyfriend. Not only that, she most a times talked him down. Worst of all, she made him appear as if he were talking to the hand. “Am I talking to myself?” This is a question he oftentimes asked himself. She avoided his sight only to strike him dumb. Dharma has been crushed. We never feel duty-bound to things our parents did feel. But karma will have its toil on people that betray the confidence of those that trust them.
In situations such as this, if you try your best possible to mend a long-standing feud through intervention and things refuse to put to rights, what you should do is to take a backseat. Just put everything to bed and move on. It was amazing that when the relationship was booming, it put in the shade every other love commerce. But as the relationship spoilt, things failed to repair. The girl also helped in putting a spoke in the boyfriend’s wheel. Because she made all his attempts to get them back to talking terms impossible. Her father did his best to put a gun on her head, but she summoned courage and put a brave face on.
Recently, I have been neighbouring this guy. We break bread and move around. He discusses the girl a lot with me. What I gathered from the girl’s moves can be said to neighbour on deception and a total change of mind. She is not in two minds about the relationship. Because she has already taken her own verdict. Thus, I tell him to be a man since the girl considers mending relationship with him a non-issue. Everybody that receives the news of the break up pities the girl. People say she is a hundred years too early to change mind on such a highly educated, literatured and smart person everybody wishes loved his sister or daughter. That guy is the be-all and end-all when it comes to moral standing and knowledge. When he was at a tender age, grown-up females had wished he were marriageable to tie the knot with him. By turning her back to him and switching attention to another boyf, this girl is just riding for a fall. I am no stranger to break ups, but this one makes a novel exception. In truth, the girl will at the end become her own worst enemy.
More so, to me, what appears to be more worrying is that her mother chose to shut her mouth. She took the side of the girl because she often said she had never told her daughter to unlove the guy. But she is blamable because she did not try soft-soaping her daughter. This is what caused the girl to be her own man. The problem is no longer what I considered it to be. From beginning, I thought the problem would be as soft as a baby’s bottom. But it turned out to be as hard as a rock. Many a time and oft, many a boyfriend goes to a girl’s. But you can count on your fingers those of them that mean marriage. Girls such as this, don’t listen to admonishing. The best thing is to allow life to school them. “Experience is the best teacher”, says Socrates. It is true that every occurrence has a first. However, this is not the first time she had milked quarrels to muddy the waters. She capitalized on the singular wish of her boyf to throw the gauntlet to make him come the offender with her.
