By Brother Chika Dike

1. Introduction

Many families and households today are just surviving, living on the brink of collapse. If not for religion and situation would have been peer group influence, our worse than ‘is presently being experienced in developed and free’ countries. People still just hang on so as not to be used as examples by those whose situations are worse than theirs in the real sense of it. There is a great fear however, that this apparent pretense may not last too long as the internal tension being generated in the individuals concerned may reach limits too soon and become uncontrollable with unpalatable social consequences.

The whole drama is being played out just because somebody somewhere has either purposely or ignorantly abandoned her role in the family. It is being squarely put on the shoulders of women especially mothers, to sit back and contemplate on the huge task placed on them by God and man alike. The Holy Book, cultures and life itself, have all done this odd favour to women to take care of the home. Should anything go wrong it should be amended by “mending the woman of the house’s neck”.

2. What Can Go Wrong?

A young man grows up, becomes a star either by academic achievement, sheer strength of physical power or unequalled performance in the work place. All through his teenage and youthful years, he is a beloved and both supervisors and peer mates are proud of him. Every young person becomes jealous and would want to be like him. Young women fall in line trying to make a “kill” by being the most attractive to the “happening” young man. Somewhere along the line, he marries one of the queuing dames! And according to Biblical injunction, he forsakes mother and father and cleaves to his wife for her to “manage” him: for her to mother him: for her to befriend him, for her to be the mother of his children all these “for better or for worse”. These marriage expectations did not in any way, imply that the hitherto generally loved and sought after young man should abandon his parents, siblings, friends and rest of society. No! it only means that he should now be admired and associated with in the company of his new mate. As a human being, not a god or divine being, he has his natural weaknesses and inclinations and his nurture will also take its toll on is behaviour and personal idiosyncrasies.

The first job of his new ‘manager’ is to settle down and understudy him, master him and then develop the best approaches to effectively manage him. Jane Eyre, in an effort to bring home this key point titled her novel: “she stoops to conquer”. The implication here, whether that was the intent of the novel or not is that the new manager must, like the newly bought fowl, stand with one leg, master the ground, the background, and the environment, before settling down to work. This learning period is about the most important in a married woman’s life because once missed, it may never be recalled and may well be the end of the relationship, technically. The rest of that marriage’s life depends on it.

Once mishandled, the rest of the marriage life may be all pretense and the journey may be regularly punctuated with serious disagreements. Once missed, the woman, would have “murdered” marriage happiness. Should any form of pride or external deceit (especially the one that poorly brought up women get easily captivated by) intrude, then that marriage may well sing its “nunc dimittis”. External influences can emerge from the female “friends”. These so-called friends (or friends?) include

1. Her mother or father whichever feels he/she loves her more than her husband,
2. Her girl friends who may