Between wives and husbands’ relatives

Oftentimes relationship between wives and husbands’ relatives is not very cordial. Each side is jittery about the other. While together each is afraid of doing a certain action in the presence of the other, lest it becomes an issue in the family. 

 

In some instances the wives are really to blame while in others the husbands’ relatives are the problem. However this sour relationship is often aggravated when the husband fails to uphold his position as the head of the family.

The bone of contention is either that the wife is not allowing her husband to spend on his relatives or that the relatives are exercising too much authority in their brother’s matrimonial home. The result of this sour relationship is a lasting negative impact on both sides. It is either that the children end up taking side with their mothers and thereby having no regards for their paternal relatives or alternatively the husband’s relations could as well, withdraw and have nothing to do with the wife and her children, and this could continue even after his death.

Sometimes each party could be acting on mere assumption and would continue to build on that without recourse to reality. 

 

Recounting an instance where a wife was accused of preventing her husband from assisting his brothers, a resident of Hotoro quarters, Kano, Malam Musa Ibrahim, said the whole family adjudged her as a wicked woman and she could not be vindicated till death. 

 

“When this woman died, her husband’s brothers heaved a sigh of relief, believing that now they could enjoy their brother’s money. 

 

“Alas! To their utmost dismay, there was no change. In fact though very rich, this man could not sponsor a single person among his siblings to obtain higher education,” he said.

He added: “That was when they realized that it was not the wife’s influence but rather their brother’s meanness.”

Acting on assumption is common with husband’s relatives as attested by a civil servant, Hajiya Fati Adamu, who disclosed how they had harangued their brother’s wife thinking that what they were secretly taking from her room was from their brother’s money. 

 

“My brother’s wife was a teacher in a secondary school and our brother was a banker, but whatever we see in her room, we would just take secretly with the belief that it was our brother’s money. She came to me crying saying she bought five bed sheets with her own money but they had all disappeared from her room, as she was telling me amidst sobs, inwardly I was seeing her foolishness because I was among those that took the bed sheets.”

 

She added that she did not see anything wrong in what she did then until when she got married and started to experience the overbearing attitude of husband’s relatives. She advised people to stop assuming that whatever was found in their brother’s house was bought with his money. 

 

“Let them know that wives could as well own property independent of their husbands’ money,” she said.

True to the popular belief that if you see a lady or a guy with a TV remote switching the stations, it is most likely the wife’s relation, as for husbands’ they are mostly found at the boy’s quarters. Some women are bitter about their husbands’ spending on his relatives, sometimes including even his parents.

 

Citing the case of a woman who would quarrel with her husband for assisting his own kith and kin, Malam Dauda  Abdullahi, a resident of Tarauni in Tarauni Local Government Area of the state said, “This woman would come up with unnecessary budget so that the husband would spend all his money on them and would be left with nothing to support his siblings and other relatives.”

 

He added, “She could be heard publicly saying that she would do everything possible to have as many children as possible so that all her husband’s earnings would be spent on them.”

 

Sometimes the problem is not about the husband not spending on his own relations but rather because of the excessive power exerted by one wife over the others. In such case, the husband’s relations would show their sympathy to the other women that are left in want in the house.

 

The wife with such overbearing behaviour suffers greatly after the death of the husband because that is when his relatives would abandon her and sometimes even her children.

 

Sumayya Usman, while commenting on this issue said she had seen a wife who exerted so much authority among her co-wives and the husband’s relatives but after the death of the husband, she became a mocking stock.

 

“Because the husband left behind many children, relatives from far and near came to take some of the children under their custody but whoever came, would say he didn’t want the children of the woman. At the end, she was left with her children while the other children were taken to better places and taken care of,” she said.

 

It is against this backdrop that Sumayya advised women with such behaviour to stop lest they fall into a sorrowful situation.

 

As regards a husband assisting or not assisting his own people, she noted that there was no need for a man to involve his wife in things he would do to his relatives because their positions are different from that of his family.

 

 “Let him have a clear cut resolve, his people should not interfere in what he does in his house, and his wife should as well have nothing to do with what he does to his kith and kin. If he establishes this as a rule, he will get respite in his life,” she said.