Home Away from Home with Abi Adeboyejo
Email: abi.adeboyejo@yahoo.com Twitter: @abihafh
Marriage has been defined as a formal union of a man and a woman, typically recognised by law, by which they become husband and wife. It is a relationship between married people for the period the relationship lasts.
It was with the hope that a marriage between two good friends would last until death did them part that prompted a bridal shower last weekend. The bride was a good friend and a very quiet and unassuming person. However, she was also very naïve and the onus fell on her female friends to enlighten her on how to achieve marital bliss.
The concept of bridal showers is a foreign one but it is one of those brilliant traditions that we have adopted into our culture. It is a perfect opportunity for brides –to-be to ask questions about what to expect from married life. The ideal bridal shower should be hosted by the bride’s friends, because I’ve found that many brides tend to become very reticent when their relatives are present at these dos.
It must be said that there is no one formula for achieving success in a marriage, but when sixteen married and single ladies put ideas together, there has to be some truth and wisdom in their words. The fact that many young Nigerian women are finding themselves getting married abroad makes the ideas I am about to share even more relevant as there aren’t many wise aunties and mums around to lecture brides- to-be on what they need to know.
We started off on a lady’s recommendation that a wife should always try to wear a bra in the house. The logic behind this was that when body parts started heading south, it wasn’t a good look to swing the almost flat mammary unattractively in the face of the tired hubby who had just returned from work and needed some cheering up.
Another lady suggested that the bride should avoid wearing beauty face masks to bed at night, no matter how effective they were in removing blemishes and pimples. She told of us how she woke up one night and found her hubby sitting up in bed, staring at her with a look of fright on his face. She explained that she had gone to bed after him with a nice cucumber and aloe vera face pack on and her hubby woke up from a bad dream, only to find her hideous face beside him.
Then a slightly voluptuous lady advised the bride to avoid gaining or loosing too much weight, especially after the babies came. When I challenged her that she wasn’t exactly slim herself, she confirmed that she was a size sixteen when she got married nine years ago, and was still the same size. Her man liked her cuddly, and they had serious issues when she went on a diet and lost a lot of weight. He complained that being intimate with her was like lying on a thin log of dried wood with branches!
My contribution at this point was on hygiene. Women spend an inordinate time in the kitchen cutting and cooking smelly food, for example onions, garlic and locust beans. There is no need to keep the smell on when you go to bed, is there? I doubt that any man wants to sleep with a bag of onions or fried chicken. When people say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, this wasn’t what they had in mind!
One of my friends picked up on this theme of hygiene and said that all ladies should always keep their armpits shaven. This led to a rather playful task of finding out who had bushy underarms. My friend was emphatic that if a man wanted to be married to a monkey, he would have done so. It was rather unbecoming for a woman to have hair sprouting from everywhere, and Brazilian waxes were suggested. We didn’t check anyone for that!
Other ladies suggested that the bride should avoid intimating her hubby of all her bodily functions. Then came the yucky story of a lady who changed her underwear in front of her hubby even when she was having her period. That put me off my food, but thankfully I had already eaten two helpings of the cakes, soup and even fried rice.
Talk gradually shifted to other matters. We discussed the love/hate relationship a wife might have to encounter with her in-laws. The best advice on the issue was the suggestion that a wife should take time to understand the workings of her husband’s family. That way, she could develop strategies to engage with in-laws that could be cultivated as friends, and run away from those that will make her life a misery.
An older lady in the group talked about the error of making unwise treats. She counselled all ladies to avoid making treats to leave, or do something nasty, except they were actually capable or willing to carry out such threats or accept the consequences. No man likes to be challenged by his wife, and if you challenge your man on a bad day and he calls your bluff, you may regret such hasty and unwise words.
She went on to advise the bride and all the ladies present that a wife shouldn’t allow herself to become uninformed about issues that concern her husband. These included his likes and dislikes, what he did at work and who his colleagues were and his preference in the simplest of things, for example toothpaste. An eye for detail was one way of showing love and a careless wife could find herself replaced or have her role shared with a more attentive mistress.
We closed the evening by telling our future bride that the best way to keep her marriage together was to love her man with all her heart. Love may not conquer all, but in the ranking of warriors, love has won more battles than any other emotion in this world. It was Barbara Johnson who said “never let a problem to be solved be more important than a person to be loved”. That is perhaps, the best advice for any bride, wife and I daresay, any human being.
To all ladies getting married this festive season I wish you: Love, Joy and Kindness
