'I DO' OR NOT TO BE

‘I DO’ OR NOT TO BE

Marriage is the highest level of status a man can attain in the home. It comes with little or no fee at all, yet is no menial task to accomplish. As the topmost rank in family life, it can afford no further promotion. All trophies brought home must be laid at the feet of the bride. This is done with all pride at first, when love speaks a fresh language.

However, with time sentiments wear thin as responsibility grows. Some partners indulge less while others completely forget to say ‘I love you’. Love is a tender spirit that feeds on flowers. One sweet word missed, one act left undone bear fatal consequences.

A spate of divorces mars society today as unhappy ends to pleasurable bliss. The kids are the unfortunate victims that bear the brunt of such misadventures. A string of single parenthood is the inevitable consequence that breeds many-a-problem child.

I put it to you: love is a faulty foundation to base marriage on.

It is first unafrican to wear one’s emotions on one’s sleeves. Love openly expressed in pre-colonial times was show of weakness on the part of the male. This is not to solicit a return to cave time practices, but is an attempt to retrace undue influences of Western style civilization upon our psyche and to show where to throw in the towel.

Christian marriage as is understood today is a deliberate rejection of the African native cultural practice and goal of life, which accords more with the Islamic faith. To the African the goal of life is ‘procreation’ and marriage is a means towards that end. Unfortunate is the ‘Dyna’ who finds herself incapacitated. From unhappy matrimonial life to accusations of witchcraft her betrays to total rejection of the strict liability to fruitfulness.

So indeed in the subconscious what Nigerians actually practice is an outward manifestation of Western style of wedlock and an inward profession to recognize African belief patterns and usages in marriage.

The ‘White-garment’ ‘I do’ wedding practiced as ‘Christian Marriage’ in church is a subterfuge of a crafty intrusion of English culture into the civilized customary norm.

Christianity was founded by Jesus, the Christ known to the world and given to the Jews who was rejected in wait of their own messiah even unto this day. All through His lifetime His ministry sought to win the awareness of His race; they lacked an understanding of His mission right from His birth. After His death, He instructed His disciples to spread the gospel in a partial Diaspora. His disciples did just that taking it in the stages: from Judea, Samaria …to the rest of the world.

Soon enough the Christian faith came to become an ‘ownerless’ religion not being recognized in the place of its nativity. The welcome contributions of King James in support of the German reformer who boldly questioned the current practices that characterized the faith under the Middle-Age Papacy, was quite timely. Though the demise of the royalty saw an end to security for the reformer, the King had etched his name in the worthy work of interpretation of the Bible that bears the seal today as the most authentic study Bible irrespective of human error.

With time came more worthwhile contributions of the English while criticisms heaped on Roman state religion which in the first place had had a crude adoption as a political gambit to appeal to popular adherence to the rule of law in the empire. This healthy environment created for spiritual transformation in England, away from the reach of the tribulations of Rome; saw a resurgence of faith with the formidable strides of the likes of the Wesley brothers, St. Thomas, the Waldenses, the Jesuits etc.

Close association of Christianity with the English was stretched to the extent that it was believed the first man ‘Adam’, must have been English, as the original translation ‘Ish’ is found in no other language but ‘English’.

England became the new springboard for resurgence of study and worship after a thousand years of the Dark Ages. From there the Pilgrim Fathers set sail to found America ‘In God We Trust’, while missionaries came to establish education and agriculture as good substitutes for Slave Trade in Nigeria.

Since missionary activity was limited to Southern Nigeria, the Christian goal of life in the South soon became ‘union of man and wife to the exclusion of all others’. This exclusive culture of the English has also been stretched far to exclude all Nigerians from state welfare by the malpractices of indulgent leadership.

Exclusive tendencies are foreign to native Nigerians who partake of shared meals, beds and fate.

Polygamy is now interpreted as a profound evil from the pulpit though Scriptures records bear no such evidence. God’s promise to David was:

‘And I gave thee thy masters house, and thy masters wives into thy bosom; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things..’2Sam:12;8

Some pastors argue that times have changed with structures; well how come the practice of tithing has not gone down with the Aaronic Priesthood and Temple worship.

The New Testament simply says that a leader in church should not be a husband of more than one wife: depicting polygamy as an unadvisable practice.

Alternatively, the vow ‘I do’, found nowhere in the Bible is so often broken with damn consequences. It is better not to make a vow to God than to do so and break it on the flimsy grounds such as one’s need for an offspring irrespective of the wife’s barrenness. Unlike Abraham, it would amount to covetousness to desire a child without sufficient faith to obtain healing for a fertile wife. Abraham who though was under no vow but was singly married to his wife out of love, when she permitted him to marry her maidservant found nothing wrong in a second wife; though God had then bowed to his desire for a son, he took his slave maid at his wife’s consent.