A woman, sometime ago, was aggrieved that her husband wasn’t helpful at home. As a result – and coupled with some other issues – she became cold towards her partner and their rosy union got shattered to pieces.
On intervention by their imam, the woman bitterly recounted how her man would chiefly, redundantly sit in the living room while she contemporaneously cooked, tidied up the house and washed clothes.
The imam asked if the man was up and doing in his primary duties (payment of dues, for instance) to which an affirmative response was elicited. “He is really doing his best when it comes to feeding and all that. But my contention is that how will I not feel his presence in house chores whenever he is at home?” she said.
The above is one of the cankerworms that eat up the marriage institution today. Spouses are meant to assist each other. And doing so is a sign that the love they share is genuine.
There is no big deal if the man sweeps the floor, washes the plates, cooks for the family etc., after all, the woman also assists in acquisition of clothes for the kids, filling up the kitchen with foodstuffs, payment of school bills and a host of sacrifices they altruistically make for the family.
Some men notionally believe that giving a helping hand to their women is un-african, but they will not refuse them when those women compassionately carry out their husbandly duties. Shouldn’t they balance up their religionistic ‘Africanocracy’? After all, it said that he who seeks equity must come with clean hands? You want to have but you don’t want to give. That’s not fair.
Friends and members of the extended family should stay out of the couple’s bond. Let the man and the lady enjoy their togetherness with whatever that works for them. It is not your headache so far you aren’t required for any diagnosis. Some men wish they could help out in house chores but they get dissuaded by what friends or family members will say. It is a taboo – highly abominable – in some families for the husband to assist his wife in house chores. Even daughters of the family who get assisted by their own husbands hate seeing women enjoy same from their brothers. This is craze, and I make bold to say that such a family needs a psychonueropathological rehabilitation!
It is barbaric that the man doesn’t give a helping hand at home, and yet he, despite his financial potency, has refused to make provision for tools that will ease the woman’s stress and aid her efficiency at home. Any brain that holds that the woman is a slave isn’t that of human but of animal. Never mind my harshness. It may be because I have a daughter and sisters, and I will not want them end up in the hands of animals clad in human flesh.
I have got no doubt that any woman reading this will be happy, and may even love to share the piece with her husband to score some points. In her mind, I would have received prayers for doing her bidding. She is likely to tell her husband: “Here a man like you talking sense”. It’s okay. Kindly take your own dose of the pill. I just hope the prayers will not turn into curses soon.
The woman should know that doing house chores is her ‘sole’ responsibility and their discharge must be diligently carried out. Any help from the husband is just a ‘privilege’, not a right.
In my humble opinion (I stand challenged), it is abject lack of home training and acute bereavement of good character for any woman to divide house chores into halves and apportion some to her husband. I can’t just fix it. What kind of a sensible woman will do that? The man may voluntarily do so to ease the burden on his woman.
The man goes to work as early as 4am (Lagos time), returns home in the dark, only to be expected to go to the kitchen, wash plates and serve himself for dinner. Why? Because he must help the wife. Do we truly have women who do this when she is not down with sickness?
It is no big deal if the woman politely seeks the man’s assistance: “my dear, could do please help with this?”, for instance. That is the character of a reasonable, rational, responsible wife. And where the husband refuses the plea, it is no cause to fight or bear grudge against him, after all, it’s your duty.
Women sometimes get it wrong. When they are assisted, they tend to turn it into a right of theirs and a duty upon their husbands. For this reason, some men give no room for a good gesture that may eventually turn to a bad omen.
Women can seduce their men into house chores rather than apportion them duties to perform. Men’s natural, irresistible ego will NEVER soften them to take that.
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