GOD Cheated Husbands; Submission Would Have Been Most Preferred

Sitting in the company car going home, the driver engaged my colleague news anchor in a conversation about wives who have domineered their husbands because of their wealth. This colleague a young woman hoping to get married to her fiancée in the not so far future seemed to have been drawn into the conversation with a similar position. We had passed a junction where she had pointed out a parcel of land which she divulged belonged to her.

''Building a house in Kumasi has become so expensive ooo!!. You really have to earn a fortune to purchase building materials and pay off workers to continue any project'' she stated.

The driver who had not gotten the drift of her expose begun jokingly talking about how it was that every responsibility of providing for shelter and fending for the family rested on the shoulders of men. He went on to lash further, ''...as for women, they don't really have no worries at all.''

She didn't take kindly to it and outlined how she had two landed properties secured in the capital Accra and the Ashanti regional capital Kumasi which she had a short while ago spoken off.

My editor who was at the front of the Toyota Hilux pickup retorted that men could also find themselves going into good marriages. To mean, men could also marry wealthy women who were well to do with their own houses and property.

Mr Driver continued to narrate the story of a man who virtually owned nothing but got married to a very wealthy woman. 'it was common place to see this woman jack up at his husband and rain insults and cast aspersions on this poor man anytime and everywhere she found convenient. She will drag this man off and lock him up in a room in the house and cow him into submission. After all she owns the house and who pays the bills'' he questioned.

He ranted on till my editor dropped off in his house. My colleague alighted from the back where I was seated and joined Mr. Driver at the front. The conversation continued and I wondered where this was going. Will it be a sizing up of the driver or will the driver win in his arguments.

This driver, a devout Seventh Day Adventist then sought solace in the Bible to tell Miss Rich Colleague the bible has commanded that the wives should be submissive to their husbands. To break the camel's back, the preacher driver pointed out that the bible has stated that the husband should be the head of the home.

This rough tongue drew blood from this young woman who got irked at that last bit of the word.

''Those things are past now ok. Now everybody is equal. We all work and we all earn an income and we all have goals and aspirations. So you can't still hold on to those antiquities,'' she dealt out quite eloquently.

Baffled a bit at the turn of events, I then asked, ''so will you recognise your fiancée when you get married, as the head of your house.''

She answered yes but with the same defences as if he would just be a letterhead or yet still a mere figurehead. Well I told her a little bit of sense that came into my mind. I explained that the bible sure says so but didn't give husbands the leeway to lord it over their wives. Whether she understood it in her defensively debating mind or not, I couldn't really tell. She dropped off at a roundabout close to her fiancée's house and left off.

I seemed to have forgotten about it till someone close to me begun narrating a very unfriendly and frosty relationship between herself and her newly wedded husband. Always finding fault and not willing to speak about it. Only communicating through gestures and creating tension in the house. This man will only lighten up for a joke when he feels happy by his own time table.

This has left her in almost a constant situation of managing tempers and explaining situations to douse tensions. This however is never reciprocated. Insensitivity to her own needs and emotions is what she gets in return. To cap it all, the man's work has taken a ditch and she finds it loving and submissive enough to bear with all the moments of austerity without making their plight known to anyone. ''Keeping the respect and dignity of her husband in the light of the public'' is what she calls it.

I am sure stupidity is what my dear colleague will call this. I can only imagine how she will gear and sneer the hell out of this pompous man who is fortunate enough to have married a humble wife who left her job and moved miles apart to come and marry him. But how will this seat with my driver and his biblical teachings? Should she rebel and she will be in contravention with the biblical teachings and a best friend of Miss My Colleague. Well it will be a bit comforting to her as well. She can go back to the comfort of her work and be earning a good sum of money and return to the comfort of her home where she will get all the financial support when she needs it.

Unfortunately for her, the family back at home is Christian and making this announcement will not be easily accepted. It also looks as if she did a direct inheritance from her mother. Her husband is a replica of her father and they all come from the same tribe. What's going on here? Her mother had stayed religiously stuck to the submission preaching and had gone through worse. A little revelation: this mother couldn't take it again after twenty five gruelling years. The constant heat of marital servitude of mood swings under Commander Daddy compelled this tender heart to grow wings and clutching defensive talons. She still lives with him but technically separated. She can now speak her mind and question his deeds.

Now my close dear tells me the only one she is able to share her troubles with is her mother who has now grown wings against the tyranny of a replica husband. Fright gets to me that her mum could evangelise her to stand for her rights. Another side tells me that this very Christian woman will tell her to hold to her submission lessons and hope it doesn't degenerate into her situation.

This same dilemma stares into my face. Left to me alone, she would abandon this man who she is now carrying a baby in her womb for. At least she could distance herself till he learns a lesson. But will his stone heart mellow under this tender meant move? My Bible also steals glimpses at me and tries to whip my mind into the submission teachings. Hmmmm.

I just saw her mother's husband display gross disrespect before his wife. He walked into the hall where she was seated watching TV and switched off the lights and walked out without a single explanation. The now very brave wife walked straight to him and questioned his act. He explained he felt she had no use for the lights being on that morning. She questioned on, ''the light in the corridor is on and that of the bathroom too. Why didn't you put those off?'' He answered, ''here looks quite dark when those ones go off.'' The interrogation went on ''so how did the hall look when you put it off?'' then his manly bumbling attitude jumped up, ''I put it off and that's it.'' He slammed and stumped out and there he went.

I wish my friend wasn't there. But shhh s-h-e w-a-s!!. She was visiting. Only God knows what she was thinking in her mind. Especially as just a while ago her husband had called her from home angrily asking her why she hadn't done something he the ogboro had ordered her to do. Two interesting scenarios she had been treated to within a short space of time. I am sure she skipped a heartbeat and asked herself will her husband's situation end up this messy knowing that he had begun exhibiting similar traits.

The revelation and the lights turned on in me as I replayed all the scenarios in my mind. The bible asked us to love our neighbours as we would ourselves. Jesus in fulfilling the law also asked us to even love our neighbour as god loves the church. Who could be more of a neighbour than your own wife? If we thought of this critically it will mean god giving us the authority to do whatever we wanted, to the very image we see of ourselves in a mirror. Not only that but feeling whatever we did to that image we saw of ourselves in the mirror. This image paints a more compelling picture of what the bible states as ''the two will be one flesh.''

Several people claim to have gotten married under the bible but they have just done the ceremonies. The marriages were not completely given as sacrifices on that alter they so much relished standing before. That alter is not only for the admirations. To me, it is also an alter for killing of ''self'' of both the man and woman. An exercise before God, to emerge into this one flesh that the bible talks about.

The self-centredness which is `supposed to have been sacrificed on the altar of marriage remains alive. The two are still two and not one. Married people hurt each other and feel nothing pricking. Sensitive and compassion hearted partners who understand and are quick to kill their ''self'' unfortunately get sacrificed on the altar of marriage. Their suffering remains unabated till they arise one day and fight back for that ''self'' which they killed when they married.

The scenario always reads:
We went to the alter to kill ourselves. Unknown to me, I was the only person who killed myself. You didn't. So I became the weaker and dead person who you always saw as dead. Never having a say and a feeling and emotion of my own. Trampled me under your feet and disregarded me as if I lay in a grave yard and a grave yard I was. You have kept living. So I kill you and we both live as dead to self and caring for the oneness of the new life. The oneness we were supposed to have been fused into. Failure to comply with this buttered dead one, I resurrect my ''self'' and leave.

This becomes the dooms ground of marriages that slip down into divorces and separations.

What husbands have forgotten and seldom quote to their wives is that God commands them in the same stride to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Owhow!! I will exclaim in Twi. What a burden. I would have gone for submission as a man if this was what God would be giving me instead. The little glimpse of what Corinthians preaches about love will not allow any persons to do half of what most husbands are doing to their partners. Love does not boast, is not haughty, does not hold the wrong of others, is kind, is patient and it reads on and on..... To add more salt to injury, we all know what love Christ demonstrated toward the church. If submission was zero degrees, loving as Christ loved the church is minus hundred degrees. Grizzly freezing. Who can do this? It only comes by grace. Husbands and yet to bes, for our notice, ''we are the least in the family.''

Do you know how I confirm this? There was a contention among Jesus' disciples over who is the greatest among them. Jesus told the disgruntled followers. Anyone who needs be the greatest among you should be the least among you all. And guess what the Bible tells men. Yee are the heads of the home. Confirming the Jesus Leadership Principle that the one made to do all the work deemed humiliatingly least is the one appointed to the position of greatest and in this contest, head of the family.

I believe God really appointed one a head to maintain institutional structure in the home but made the husband and wife mutual partners with overwhelming duties of the husband to be the most loving and most sacrificing and most buttered in the family. This really defeats to me that notion that women are always at the receiving end. It is rather the husbands who should be at the receiving end. If husbands are a cover for their wives as the bible states, then who receives the external punches. Well food for thought. I rest my case but sad for these two women and what trouble their husbands are taking them through. Please wives do your introspections very well before you choose one for a husband. I pray God transforms men and gives them a better and true revelation about their position in the institution of marriage.

Light to the world!!!!