A young lady came to me one day for advice. She was weary and tired, working two jobs, one during the day and the other at night. Even though she was making money, she could hardly save or spend it on herself. Her husband, though hardworking and responsible, wasn’t making much, and it fell on her to maintain the house, pay school fees, etc.
After listening to her moan and resolve to keep her money to herself and not be bothered about the state of her household, I quietly asked her if her husband was a lazy man, if he was irresponsible, if he helped out at home with the kids and other things, if he slept at home waiting for her to come home with the dough, and lastly, if he was unfaithful in his affections towards her. She responded with a big No. I then asked her what if her husband died, would she not do all the things she was now doing? She answered Yes. I then told her that if they were a team, why did it so bother her that the traditional roles as she knew it were reversed for the time being and why didn’t she think that God was using her to provide for her family. She cried but saw reason with me and left a bit chastened.
Years later, my young friend has been basically a stay-at-home wife for some time now, her husband is now working two jobs and providing for the household, and when I remind her of the days she used to cry and moan, she thanks me for helping her see beyond herself.
I attend many Christian women conferences, and it is inevitable that during the question-and-answer sessions, there is always that question about what a woman should do when she finds herself the major or only breadwinner of the family. At the last conference I attended, the speaker Funto Ibuoye, who is in her 30s, gave herself as an example and said at the time she married, she was earning five times the salary of her husband. Then she lost her job during an acquisition process, and by the time they had their first child, they were squatting in someone’s house. She said what helped her mindset and changed her perspective was a message she said she heard “that when God sees a marriage, he doesn’t see two entities, he sees one and it doesn’t matter which half of the entity he decides to bring resources through, this helped me understand first that God was really my source, not my job or business or husband and if God is channelling resources through me, then it would be prideful of me to call it my money…” She said further that “understanding that it was God’s money in the first place took off the weight of feeling like I was using my money to sustain the family and also took off the pressure of seeing my husband as my provider…he’s not Jireh”. She also said that although she felt overwhelmed many times and cried to the Lord about it, He helped her understand that what she was doing was a major part of truly being her husband’s help meet. Her statements are in tune with what I had told my young friend, and I must say that I agree totally with what she said, especially when she qualified her statements to say that the condition precedent to having that perspective laid mainly on the man who must show himself worthy in that he was responsible, hardworking, and faithful.
We were raised with fixed traditional and cultural views about the roles men and women play within a relationship, which served the societies that formulated them adequately, but things have changed, and we must change with the times. The world wars, industrialisation, education for the girl child coupled with the rise of feminism have ensured the economic empowerment of women. The fact that many women are able to remove the toga of shame and do things that may seemingly be below their education, training, and status to take care of their families has also helped in advancing their cause more than that of the men. For instance, a woman will be willing to hawk moimoi even though she has a university degree whilst a man may baulk at doing so. So increasingly, many women have become more financially empowered and stable than their spouses though if one really thinks about it women have through the ages played major financial roles in the upbringing of their children and even in keeping their homes. I am aware that in most polygamous families especially in the southwest of Nigeria our grandmothers were responsible for their children. A lot of women that have sworn never to contribute to the household finances did so because of experience, theirs and their mothers or other women that they know who stood behind their husbands and contributed financially towards their success only to discover that they are not the only women in their lives. Unfortunately, our brothers and friends are reaping the effects of the decisions their fathers and uncles took, and society has also not been benevolent towards them. So, you may ask if I am advocating that women should go back in time and gleefully take over the household expenses? Not at all. The truth is that even though they may excel when pushed to it, every woman wants to be taken care of. It is the way we are built, the way we thrive. However, if the man is lazy and irresponsible and unfaithful to boot, no woman has the obligation to take care of his needs let alone his wants.
She has the obligation to her children even if the man is useless and she should move on with that.
The essence of my point is that couples must realise that if they are staying together, they should see themselves as a team. They don’t have to operate a joint account nor do they have to have the same kind of spending habits to be a team, but they must not be individualistic in that they begin to compete against one another and cannot cooperate with one another for a common good. Men are generally proud and for the responsible ones, it is a badge of honour that they are able to take care of their tribe but the present times we are in now, call for the sheathing of swords between the genders. Women need to understand and appreciate the fact that unless a man is very wealthy, he needs help with the family finances. Men need to accept that when the man does domestic chores at home he is not “helping” his wife but himself. The times are such that couples should not add to the pressures being faced from the public and the worldwide economic situation. Both men and women but especially men are pressured beyond their abilities in these times and if we are not careful, we will see a lot of untimely deaths due to the pressures.
Honesty, men should be able to tell their wives what they can afford, women should proffer suggestions as to what can be cut down or is downright unnecessary. I would suggest and I don’t see anything wrong in splitting bills. Let’s decide who will do what, who will be responsible for what. Let’s stop the selfishness reigning in our homes, a lot of us think just about ourselves and not our partners. As Teddy Pendergrass crooned, love should be 50/50. Our home should be our oasis in the midst of the desert of this terrible economic recession.