MATRIMONIAL COMPLEXITIES AND SPOUSAL DILEMMAS IN NIGERIA: EXPLORING SOME PHILOSOPHICAL IDEATIONS OF PROF KOLAWOLE AS TIPS AND PALLIATIVES

By Deji Oso

South Africa

I have resolved to always dedicate some philosophical writings to this great teacher, academic Icon and former Vice-Chancellor.

This resolution was borne out of the crucial mentorship roles of this experienced and disciplinarian father, whose penchant for certain standards and virtues must be publicly celebrated and enunciated on a day like this for three major reasons, as below:

1.) To appreciate the roles he has been playing in the lives of those of us close to him and to encourage him to do more; (2.) To explore some of his philosophical ideations on the problem being interrogated to lend possible tips or curatives; and (3.) To establish his roles and essence as a True Professor who professes solutions to knotty societal issues within and across national borders.

I have said this because not all Professors can profess. Whereas, there are people who profess, who are not Professors.

For me, Professor Dipo Kolawole remains a perfect example of Professors who not only assume the professorial chair or status based on their proven academic capacity and administrative sagacity alone; he has also become an excellent example of Professors who profess daily through their remedying philosophical elocutions, which reverberate not just through speaking but also in practice.

I have observed lately that many marriage establishments are collapsing.

Spousedom is fast becoming a midpoint of Spoucide and other variants of Spousal Conflicts. Worse still, promising spouses are becoming spouseless owing to the complexities and unabated issues involved in contemporary spousing and marriages.

Husbands are fleeing. Wives are divorcing. Husband and Wives are conflicting at the expense of the Children that are agonizing.

Beyond the fundamental roles of trust, communication, character, cultural compatibility, love or sex, I have discovered that quality and responsible mentorship also plays a significant role in the prosperity of any marriage, if given a chance.

You may be wondering if I am a Marriage Counsellor 😃😃😃? I am not.

Yet, my experiences (personal and other related examples) doubled with the anthology of my lesson-extracts from the philosophical teachings of the celebrant of today, within the prism of his 48 years of successful marital experience as a responsible father and romantic husband, validates the appropriateness of this commemorative topic as a medium to profess on marital conflicts & contradictions in our domains.

Ladies and gentlemen, kindly join the debate!

2.0 MATRIMONIAL COMPLEXITIES & SPOUSAL DILEMMAS: A BRIEF NOTIONAL DEBATE

Let’s begin by conceptualizing Matrimony.

Matrimony suffers from definitional pluralism. This is because it implies different notions to different persons. In context, the ontological meaning differs according to cultural boundaries and perspectives. Yet, matrimony can be understood as marriage or a state of being married and consists of two persons, who are often referred to as spouses or husband and wife.

Marriage is an integral part of African culture, supported by Christianity, Islam and other sacred beliefs. Yet, there are cases of marriage in our neighbourhood that have become crisis-hubs, resulting in spoucides, spouselessness, spousal attacks, child displacement and increasing spousal emotional depression.

The attempt to properly dissect the above gives rise to questions surrounding the causes of these identified matrimonial complexities and spousal dilemmas, as shown below:

3.0 CAUSES AND TRENDS OF MATRIMONIAL CRISES ACCORDING TO PROF KOLAWOLE

1. BACKGROUND AND COMPATIBILITY PROBLEMS: According to Prof, spouses in marriages sometimes forget that they are persons from different backgrounds, whose behaviour and perspective to issues can never be the same. To Prof, Twins i.e. Taiwo and Kehinde, who are born by the same parents on the same day cannot behave or think the same way. Spouses sometimes fail to do enough background checks on their partners before marriages. Yet, they always want their partners to conform to a particular way, thinking direction or standpoints. A Yoruba or Hausa husband wants his Igbo wife to respect his siblings and serve his parent in the Yoruba or Hausa way and vice-versa?!

Any partners or spouse, including those who are from the same ethnic grouping thinking this way without respect for the variations underpinning the partner’s background, growth process, personality and beliefs, will suffer a marital emergency.

2. POVERTY AND LACK OF ENDURANCE
Women are the pillars of homes. Yet, for any man to enjoy his home, he must work hard enough to provide financial support to his woman from time to time. The absence of sufficient economic stability in the face of endurance deficiency in homes makes tension and unnecessary arguments inevitable.

3. GREED AND CONTENTMENT PROBLEM
According to Prof, even when there is abundance, some spouses remain incurably dissatisfied – They are perpetual Oliver Twists. They’ll always seek more not just financially but emotionally even beyond the boundaries of their homes. This applies to men & women in marriages.

4. AFRICANIZED POLYGAMIC MENTALITY
An average African man is polygamous in nature. The exploration of this belief through practical and unguided flirtatious escapades by men will always result in brutal resistance from women at home. No good woman wants his husband to be shared with another woman.

5. NEW FEMINISM, GENDER QUESTIONS AND CHARACTER ISSUES

Westernization has its brighter and darker sides considering its mixed impacts on Africa’s identity and cultural institutions.

While some people consider feminism as a western-oriented philosophy invented to deconstruct patrimonialism in Africa, others see feminism as a democratic philosophy that seeks to protect the female gender from male dominance and abuses

Meanwhile, the increasing accounts of domestic abuses in homes nowadays have animated a new trend of feminist advocacy underpinning the collapse of marriages.

Neo-Feminism, according to Prof, has become a medium to campaign against male-dominated marital slavery and terrorism. Ironically, women also abuse men in marriages. This dilemma is being heightened by misconceptions around gender questions such as equality and equity vis-a-vis the place or roles of husbands and wives in marriages.

Beyond this, the place of good character has also been fingered. Every man needs to have a good character to stabilize his home but a woman needs more quantum of character because any woman deficient in good character is like a well without water. She is dumbed, ignored and becomes a trench for debris-dumping.

6. INTERRUPTING ROLES OF SOME PARENTS AND EXTENDED FAMILY
The overbearing and negative interrupting roles of some parents and family members have also accounted for marital crises.

7. CONTESTED SEXUAL ORIENTATION
The inherent dichotomy in spouses’ sexual capacity & orientation has also accounted for the crisis in marriages. This also suggests compatibility problems that can only be addressed through compatibility solutions.

8. PEER AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Spouses’ notional subjugation to friends’ advice or attempt to copy friends’ ways of life has done grievous damages to homes. To Prof, “Some friends deliberately give wrong advice to destroy your homes, while doing all humanly possible to protect theirs. This is because people don’t like love or couples in love” (December, 2021).

4.0 RECOMMENDED TIPS AND ADVICE ON MATRIMONIAL UNREST USING THE PHILOSOPHICAL LENS OF DK

Marriage is a practical phase in relationships, unlike the illusions that characterize the era of courtship.

It is a time to know the true character of your partner. This is because some of the things we know about our partners before marriage are mirages, rooted in pretence or exaggeration, most time. Marriage is a moment of reality which is accompanied by many hurdles that one must be prepared to unpack.

There is no marriage with a consensus formula for success. What works for Mr A’s marriage may not work for Mrs B’s marriage. In every marriage, there will be success stories and joyful moments; yet, there will be moments of trials, tribulations and tests of courage.

To every woman in marriage, please note that an African man is naturally arrogant and sometimes bossy. He loves his wife though, but he is sometimes repulsive to those western notions on feminism and gender equality; which he conceives as totally antithetical to his conventional African culture. Hence, show him love in humility and total submission.

Dear wife, you must never assume any sense of equality in social status with your husband. An African man loves to be worshipped first, after which he shall be willing to submit to the dictates of his wife. When a wife massages her husband’s ego, the husband submits to his wife in totality and could do anything humanly possible to defend and satisfy his wife.

To you husband, please note that the place of women is no longer situated in the kitchen or the other rooms but your sides at all times for love, support and gainful advice. Whenever she is wrong, correct your wife in love and pamper her too. Don’t ever think she is perfect because as husbands, we are not also perfect.

As a couple, there will always be moments of occasional disagreements. Yet, attempts must be made to make up and patch broken walls. Marriages don’t grow by turning one’s spouses into punching bags or laboratory mice for brutal experiments. However, when crisis subsists in a marriage and a marriage seemed irredeemable. Please, leave lawfully.

5.0 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Every responsible man must have a wife and vice-versa. One of the social indices of measuring the success of man in this clime is marriage and its success. No leader in the world is without a marriage.

Speaking to me a few years back, Prof opined that, “your favourite President Barack Obama has a resourceful Michelle, who stabilized his home, to succeed as the President of the US for 8 years; that your IBB that you and your friends went to meet at the Hill Top Mansion in Minna has a wife; Governor Fayose despite his dogged character romanticises his God-fearing wife Feyisetan and your current Governor, Dr Fayemi will aways showcase his beautiful and brilliant wife Bisi Fayemi in his magnificent African apparels…showing that they all ascribe huge importance to their homes and marriages. Indeed, marriage is one of the parameters of measuring the success of every man and woman in our society”.

Marriage is not a bed of roses.

Every marriage has its own challenges and trying periods due to its complex formation and dynamics. Yet, we must deliberately choose to make our marriage system work by showing the needed affection not only to our partners but children who are the direct beneficiaries or victims of marital outcomes.

Dear Prof Dipo Kolawole,

Profuse thanks to God for sparing your life as our father, teacher and mentor; who has impacted our lives in many positive ways.

We are delighted to celebrate your 74th birthday while praying to God to preserve you for us so that we can also celebrate your century anniversary, while we continue to grow in knowledge and wisdom under your love and robust mentorship.

(An exclusive thought of the Author, constructed through the philosophical lens of the Celebrant on marriage or marital issues).

 

Oso Adedeji is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science in Ekiti State University. He is also a Doctoral Student at the University of the Free State, Bloem, South Africa.

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