A friend and I sat together yesterday reflecting on the past, present and future. We both shared our experiences (her sister and my aunty) which we witnessed.
Her aunty’s husband brought his girlfriend home and her sister had to cook her meals. There was an event when the husband brought another girlfriend home and he told her the girlfriend would be sleeping in the room. She now asked what she would be doing on the bed – rubbing his back while he had sex with the girl? The girl had to sleep in the spare room that night. The family of the man was mad with her for not allowing the girlfriend sleep in the room with her husband. Hummmmm. They however stayed together happily ever after.
I also witnessed the case of my aunty’s husband bring a girlfriend to the house and they went straight upstairs. There are only bedrooms upstairs so it was clear where they went to. My cousin and I decided to start a prayer and fasting session for my aunty. We could not fathom such blantant arrogance. My aunty and her husband? They have stayed together happily ever after.
We concluded that that generation of women were culturised to worship their husband and their marriage. The stigma of not been married was too high that it was better to stay in marriage than outside marriage. So, there was a low rate of separation.
Fast forward to our generation – I am 50 years old. Women are more educated, understand their rights and can be independent. They have also grown up in many of these abusive homes and are not willing to go through the trauma. Sadly, the men had not been trained to be better husbands. They still live the lives of their fathers. The consequence? More cases of divorce with women exercising their rights and being able to be independent. The sting of stigma is less.
Fast forward to the next generation – my daughter’s generation. We mothers have started to teach our sons to be responsible husbands. The churches and mosques are doing the same. Television programmes visually share what responsible men are expected to be. So we see a new generation of women who are starting to be married with the prospect of living together happily ever after. I guess this does not mean a reduction in divorce rates as women who face domestic violence from men who have still not changed from being men of my aunty’s generation tend to be violent with their ‘unsubmissive’ wives. These wives are more willing to work out of abusive relationships than stay and work it out.
Fast forward to the next generation – the generation of my daughter’s children. What would that look like? Less divorce. Hummmm. Time will tell. Only time will tell.
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