Marriage, motherhood and fatherhood

I have always known my wife to be a strong and determined woman. Sometimes, I call her the "Amazon"  or "Iron Lady"  but each time she was in the labour ward, the iron in her always melted. I could not believe it. So the pain could be that dreadful bad? I hope science discovers something […]

I have always known my wife to be a strong and determined woman.
Sometimes, I call her the "Amazon"  or "Iron Lady"  but each time she was in the labour ward, the iron in her always melted. I could not believe it.
So the pain could be that dreadful bad? I hope science discovers something soonest that would help reduce it. Our formation – into intricate and very delicate interwoven cells, veins, arteries, arterioles, muscles, flesh and bones, is all but a profound miracle. Any man who is worthy of the name man has no right to kill a child or even any human being. Left to some of us, infanticide should be visited with instant death penalty. For a woman to carry a child for nine months and then turn around to kill that baby is unbelievable, yet it does happens. Most medics see such women as suffering from "Post Natal Depression." More dreadful, as is the in-thing in Lagos
State, is to brand a child a witch.
In Nigeria, if there is no term or nobody to explain the term "post natal depression", the people concluded that the woman is also a witch. However, even though post natal depression is more prevalent in the advanced countries where there is complete lack of community spirit and sincere social interaction, that fact is that our "extended family" principles and practice has effectively nipped in the bud the early manifestation of such dangerous State of mind. In Africa, post natal depression are easily taken care of by the abundant presence of a couple’s extended family member. Their daily presence is a succour and a curative measure for the onset of its symptoms. In Europe, everything (including social relationships), is a commodity with an affixed price tag.
In African tradition, a child is God’s gift to a family and must be accepted whether it was born out of wedlock or in it. I find it strange to use very funny but derogatory sounding terminologies like "bastard" or "illegitimate child". To me, their coinage and usage ought to be limited to the English culture where authoritative assertiveness, bequeathed on all
British citizens, is the order of the day. Every child has bona fide father and mother.  Though, in the way we had lived, and even in modern time too, it is traditionally wrong for a lady to have children when her "bride wealth" has not been paid for by a man; but,  that does not mean if the woman per chance becomes pregnant and gives birth, the child should not be absorbed into a family.
Again, it is not every man that has paternal instinct just as it is not every woman that has maternal instinct. Some people just want to give birth but run away from responsibility. I call them simplicity-seekers. A man who flees because his wife or partner has given birth to a baby cannot claim to have paternal instinct. This is notwithstanding the man’s social economic status or maternal condition. He has got to support his wife, his partner, and most important of all, his child. Financial support is not the all in social relationships. Moral support and the fact that one is always there from cradle to adulthood is equally of beneficial importance.
Following from this and in the African tradition, the fact that you are a "biological father" does not automatically confer on you the status of "a social father". If your demeanour and character as a "biological father" has a question mark, the "other others" and "significant others" will take control immediately. In other words, by the principle of the unity of the extended family practice, a neonate is never left in the cold. The child must be taken care of by either the mother’s or father’s siblings or by any member of that extended family unit. Part of the work of the UK "SOCIAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT" has been effectively shortened and taken care of by the intricate working of our extended family system. Though modernization has impeded and somehow truncated it’s peaceful but gradual process of evolution, most of its practices are still intact in our countryside and villages.
Notwithstanding the aforesaid, the joy of motherhood is therefore the joy of fatherhood. Women, especially African women, have this erroneous believe that the inability of children to start coming in a marriage is more of their headache. This is very, very wrong. 101% of men who Sincerely go into marriage, especially African marriages, go into it not only for the sake of love and companionship but for the sake of procreation.
Every man will like to reproduce himself for his sake and for the continual evolution and existence of society. Women should always have it at the back of their mind that for a man to genuinely and sincerely choose you out of a whole lot, kneel before you to propose and then later vowed to live the rest of his life with you, is a surmounting obligation which goes with enormous responsibility. That is why I would always advised men not to easily open their mouth and propose to a woman. Men have got to be psychologically ready and mature to utter such words.
No lady, even though she may decline a particular proposal, takes such utterances lightly. Watch and look directly into a lady’s eyes when a proposal is being made and you will understand what I mean. They do not take it lightly. And when a man later goes back on his words, the woman, who had earlier accepted the proposal, is deeply hurt. It becomes even worse when the man has traditionally "knocked" (isu’bu lule, in Yoruba usage) at the homestead of the girl’s family as a prelude towards the eventual consummation of the marriage. May God almighty be with us.

Orunbon, a political analyst, wrote in from Lagos State [email protected]