Devils in Marriage

I have this uncanny feeling that somebody must have told me there is nothing the devil hates, like matrimony in this world. I cannot remember well, but this guy must have been a staunch Christian, and I was a few months early in my marriage. “The devil fights marriages with all his might until he breaks down every thread of bond that exists between a couple,” the individual must have added.

Many a time, I found myself agreeing with this observation, not only because I am Christian but also because of the occurrences around me. How does one explain the actions of a man or woman burning alive his/her family locked inside their home? Or the act of a man or woman continually battering and even mutilating his/her spouse to the point beyond recognition? 

Ignorance of the challenges ahead

The first mistake people make before entering marriage is their failure to know and understand the enormous difficulties a union may present. However, we cannot blame anybody planning to marry for failing to grasp these challenges. It is virtually impossible to understand something that you have not experienced. For example, it is impossible to understand the pain of losing a loved one if you have never lost one. The legendary rap music icon Tupac Shakur once said, “Nobody knows my pain; they only see my struggle,” to stress that it was nearly impossible to understand what one has not experienced. 

Cold feet

 

 They are still determining whether the decision to get married is right.

 The period you plan to get married is when you realize the great sacrifices that come with marriage. It finally dawns on you that admiring, flirting, and even dating other girls or boys will soon end. This reality is the first that you face. Questions like these run through your mind: have I found the best partner? Could there be another person out there better than this man or woman? What about the man and woman I recently met at the coffee shop? 

You even start comparing your potential spouse with former girlfriends or boyfriends: Is he/she better than Steve or Carol? However, since your previous relationships were a failure, the fact that you have reached the point of marriage in your current relationship makes you go ahead with the wedding.

Past relationships

Unfortunately, your recent relationships start haunting you almost immediately after getting married. Former girlfriends or boyfriends call or write canning congratulatory messages with little happiness and sadness for losing you to your partner. If you are not careful, you may be trapped with these calls and messages, which began as simple, honest chats that turn into everyday flirts and, finally, side romantic relationships. 

You have to be careful. It is proper to stop communication with your former partners to strengthen the foundation of one’s newly formed matrimony. Remember, the first year of marriage is usually the most arduous since you and your partner are adjusting to a new style of living entirely different from your previous single and dating lives.

Unsettled

Later you may find yourself comparing your spouse with other people. Every time you meet charming people who are either beautiful or handsome, you tend to imagine your spouse in comparison to these people. When this happens, know that you are not settled in your marriage. It is upon you to decide to settle in your marriage. 

Bad habits

 

 He has forgotten that he must return to his family for dinner.

 As you live with your spouse for some time, you get to learn about some habits that they exhibit that you dislike. Remember, dating is always unreal. People are usually on their best behavior when dating, which makes it impossible to know a person entirely. They act neat, clean, organized, caring, and committed when dating, but all these may not be the reality of their lives or themselves. 

For example, when dating, you always find your partner’s bed well-spread and neat. However, after marriage, you realize that this guy or lady never spreads his/her bed every morning. Then you conclude that they just spread the bed the times you were visiting, when dating, to impress you. You cannot tolerate this habit because you are not used to it. 

Proper communication is the best cure for all the bad habits that you dislike. Call your spouse, sit down together, and have a respectful conversation where you explain everything you hate about them. It would help if you also learned to listen and slow to speak. Learn to accept criticism from your spouse and also make changes to the habits that your spouse does not like about you too. Change happens slowly. Give your spouse time to change as you constantly remind them respectfully.

Gossips

Do not tolerate gossip in your marriage. You might think that the people who always give you information about your spouse’s whereabouts have your interest at heart. They do not. Instead, they are planting a seed of doubt in your marriage. Trust is the foundation of lasting relationships: when you lose it, you lose your relationship. An African proverb says, “There is power in ignorance.” This proverb is, at times, relevant in marriages. Preserving and maintaining a stable relationship sometimes requires ignorance about certain things about your spouse. Always afford your partner the benefit of the doubt.

Social Media

 

 addicted to social media

 Social media is the modern grave threat to marriages today. Its advent, quick adoption, and use have made people vulnerable to many mistakes. For example, people are prone to flirting due to the many beautiful and handsome women and men they meet on social media, who sometimes lure them to flirt. Once you fall prey to social media flirters, you may get addicted to flirting as you find a place where you can exercise your dormant seduction skills (if a man) or where you continuously get admirers (if a woman). Log out or delete such accounts to prevent your flirt addiction from creating problems in your marriage. 

Some social media flirters, especially those who know you and your family, are dangerous. You might arrive home one evening, and to your surprise, you find your spouse in possession of all the flirty messages you send to your companion flirter. Such flirters are sometimes out to destroy you and your family because they might have wanted to have a relationship with you. Still, you disappointed them by marrying another man or woman. Avoid them at all costs.

Poor information source analysis

It is also essential that you do not fall victim to your spouse’s social media flirt. Ironically, your spouse’s flirt sends you the messages and chats they have been having with your spouse and asks you to stop your spouse from approaching them. Social media and telecommunications technologies have set up all the necessary procedures that one can use to avoid another person. One can block a person so that one does not have any form of communication with the blocked person. Therefore, when somebody sends you information and details of their flirt or chat with your husband and wife, such a person’s intentions should be treated as hostile. 

Instead of sending you chats and messages to cause ripples in your marriage, the person should have blocked your spouse if they wanted nothing to do with them. People who send such messages have ill intentions by wanting to look better than you by showing you that your spouse is after them. Good people block and stop chatting with married people instead of luring them to send flirt messages and use them against them.

Conclusion

Marriage is sacred. Additionally, it is the only appropriate institution for continuing the existence of humankind. We must make all the proper decisions to preserve its life, no matter how foolish our efforts may appear.

Monogamy versus Polygamy

Polygamy refers to the cultural practice of a man or a woman having several wives or husbands. It is common among African people and Muslims. On the other hand, monogamy refers to the cultural practice of marriage between a husband and a wife. It is common among Europeans, North Americans, South Americans, and Christians.

Globalization has led to the clash of different cultures sparking several debates. One significant debate concerns monogamy and polygamy and tries to identify which is better. I want to discuss faithfulness as a point rather than delve into the debate.
Colonization spread western culture in new continents such as the Americas, Africa, and Asia. These colonizers introduced new laws, religions, and practices into the new regions that they occupied. Adopting Christianity in several parts of Africa challenged the long-held practice of Polygamy in Africa. Many Christian denominations vouch for monogamy. However, many Africans, although Christians, still consider polygamy an acceptable cultural practice.
The West, like always, criticizes polygamy as one of the "backward" cultures of Africans. They have used feminism and gender studies to criticize polygamy as a form of sexual and economic exploitation and degradation of both women and men. I will focus on the sexual exploitation part and discuss it from a different point of view.
The West has promoted monogamy for a long time. However, my primary concern is the high divorce rates in monogamous marriages. Divorce rates in the US and Europe are very high, which may indicate that monogamous marriages do not form strong bonds between couples. Infidelity or unfaithfulness is a primary cause for the breakup of these marriages.

Many a time, we see Westerners touring our beaches here in Africa. They Indulge in promiscuous behavior with our young men and women that patrol our beaches as sex workers. A majority of these promiscuous westerners are married. This occurrence makes me wonder why Westerners engage in promiscuity far away from their homes, where their spouses are nowhere to supervise them. It could be that monogamous marriages do not satisfy their sexual desires.
Besides, feminists and gender activists should know that promiscuous men and women in monogamous marriages are the greatest abusers of both womanhood and manhood. Engaging in a sexual relationship with somebody and failing to fulfill your responsibility as a partner is the highest form of sexual exploitation. Married men who "sleep" with other women besides their wives exploit these other women sexually because they do not exercise social, emotional, and economic responsibilities towards these women. Similarly, married women who "sleep" with other men besides their husbands exploit these men sexually because they do not exercise social, economic, and emotional responsibilities towards these men. Extramarital affairs are illegal and thus prevent those who engage in them from supporting their sexual partners. The result is the sexual exploitation of extramarital affairs partners by married people. Therefore, monogamous setups insult both manhood and womanhood through infidelity.

Unlike monogamy, polygamy discourages the irresponsibility common in monogamous setups where men and women are exploited sexually by married people. Polygamous setups allow both men and women to marry the people they get attracted to after their previous marriage of unions. These marriages formalize and normalize relationships and enable males and females to fulfill all their responsibilities towards their newly acquired life partners. Therefore, women or men dating married people in polygamous setups are less likely to be sexually exploited because there are formal and recognized channels where they can get married to married people and have their already married partners fulfill all the duties that they have towards them.

This must be the main reason why Africans practice polygamy. Their societies discourage irresponsibility caused by infidelity, such as the sexual exploitation of men and women, which is common in monogamous setups.

Parents or Children, Who Owe the Other?

Children live their lives believing they owe their parents a lot of favor. This belief develops because parents spend their whole life taking care of them. Parents invest millions of shillings in taking care of their children. Therefore, many people claim that children cannot repay the care they receive from their parents during their growth and development. People spend their lives trying to repay their parents’ efforts in bringing them up, which is honorable. However, is it true that our parents did us a favor by bringing us up? Is it a favor that we ought to repay? These two questions ring in my mind all the time.

Firstly, nobody ever requested anyone for birth. Nobody ever applied anywhere for birth. The decision for our birth was made by one, if not both, of our parents. Regardless of the circumstances (love, rape, etc.), the decision to have a child solely lies with the parent, family, or society. A couple can decide to have a child; a family can pressurize a couple to have a child, or a society can prevent a parent from having an abortion through laws that prohibit abortions. Sometimes, health can also play a part in the decision of birth. For example, a parent may not opt for abortion because it risks her health. This challenge needs further exploration. However, this article focuses on parents, family, and society as decision-makers for birth. The decision to give birth lies with the parents, the family, society, and nature (health concerns).

Since children do not decide to be born, they are the products or consequences of their parents’, families’, and societies’ decisions. It is parents, families, and society that bring children into existence. Therefore, they are responsible for living with the products or consequences of their decisions. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the parent to take good care of the children.

Responsibilities are not favors. Parents, families, and societies have to do what they ought to do for their children because they decided to have them. Although it may sound harsh, children owe parents nothing. You do not become indebted to a person who fulfills their responsibility towards you.

Parents owe children a lot. They owe children because they brought them into this world to live unhealthy life from birth to death. According to the WHO, health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. Rarely do people meet this criterion of health. This implies that nearly all of us are unhealthy every second of our lives. So why should children feel indebted to their parents, yet they spend every second of their lives unhealthy? Our parents owe us our entire lives.

Being a Mom

I vividly remember having problems with my mom during my teenage years. I was outgoing and loved all the fun that came with it. Unfortunately, my mom, very bold in character and a staunch believer, was always creating impediments to my crazy lifestyle back then. 

 She ensured that I attended our old Baptist church every Sunday and sat in its front row beside my siblings. I was not too fond of her domineering character over me. Moreover, she ensured that I was acquainted with many members of our congregation, who often helped her check on me and my character. That is why she always knew where and what I was doing. She only slept once I was back from the late-night parties. We quarreled a lot. Today, I consider all these cherished memories, which I greatly thank her for creating with me.

Ability to worry

An African proverb says, “the one who loves you is the one that fights you.” I came across it while reading African literature some years ago. I never understood it back then, but I fully comprehend it today. In my teenage case, the proverb would be translated as, “the mother who fights you is the mother who loves you.” 

 Today, I understand that my mother fought me because she worried about me on important issues like teenage pregnancy, alcohol addiction, and sexually transmitted infections that could change my life significantly. She had to fight me to protect me. It does not matter how she did it. The only important thing is that she was worried about me because there is nothing better than a mother worrying about her children. 

Ability to Create Good Destinies

Later in life, I came across an Indian proverb that claimed, “God gave parents the power to write the destinies of their children.” This claim is valid, at least for us believers. Children’s destinies are shaped by the contribution of their parents in their lives. Looking back at my life, I believe my mom and dad wrote perfect destinies for my siblings and me. They took excellent care of us. 

 Mom always made us coffee, poured us a bowl of cereal, made sure we ate, and washed our dishes. She spared her time to play with us in the backyard and attended all my essential school functions. When she took a part-time job to help dad meet the household expenses, she would arrive late in the evening and quickly prepare us a hot plate. In my teenage years, my mom did not shy away from fighting me to protect me from the increasing perils of life I was exposed to. She did not care about the rift between us and the mean things I told her, provided I was safe and sound at home. Later, she slowly taught me some household chores that have helped make me a better mom today. 

 In short, mom made sure that we were well-fed and comfortable. Through her commendable actions, she was using her God-given power to write us good destinies. We were healthy, enabling us to perform to our potential, and we developed essential family values, such as honesty and integrity, which guide us today. I learned from her that the ability to positively influence a child’s life is necessary for me to be considered a mom.

Unfortunately, like many young girls today, I was always skeptical about being a mother, primarily because of my career. This is because I never understood the concept of motherhood. However, my first pregnancy changed all that. The pregnancy created an unexplainable good feeling in me, making me move around the house and walk the streets happily.

 During this period, I realized that I was not alone in my body. Somebody also needed me to worry, care and start creating a destiny for her. This was the reason for my unexplainable good feeling and excitement. When I had my baby, I completely understood why motherhood is all about worrying and showing concern for your kids as my mother did, which, back then, felt like she was always fixing me. 

Nowadays, I am always worried about my baby. I can recall how I could not wait for her to sit, walk, and talk, especially when she was 18 months old and not talking to anyone. This made me question my care. Later, when she began talking in her 20th month, I realized I was worried about nothing. Then, I concluded that being a mom is all about worrying about your children and creating good destinies for them.