Messy marriages and shattered homes (l)

At the marriages of the rich and the glamorous, including wealthy Muslims, assorted drinks flow endlessly. Uncountable bottles of champagne are popped. Aso ebi comes in different shades, shapes and colours. Dishes range from the exotic to the continental, the Chinese and the traditional. The bridal train is stupefying and long. The photo session is […]

At the marriages of the rich and the glamorous, including wealthy Muslims, assorted drinks flow endlessly. Uncountable bottles of champagne are popped. Aso ebi comes in different shades, shapes and colours. Dishes range from the exotic to the continental, the Chinese and the traditional. The bridal train is stupefying and long. The photo session is sizzling but tiring. Deafening music bands are in competition. There is not just ‘naira rain’, there is also ‘dollar deluge’, and ‘pounds and euro shower’ in the lavishly decorated expensive 4000 seater all or stadium sized open field.

The honeymoon is metaphorically in the moon, in expensive cities of the world like Qatar, Abu Dhabi or Riyadh in the Middle East, Vienna in Austria, Geneva in Switzerland or in Sao Paulo in Brazil. The bride must have imported her fabulous flowing gown from the best fashion house in Dubai, France or Finland. The groom’s dapper suit is customized from Italy or UK.  The latest sleek limousines or exotic cars of the royalty and the state are on parade. Saving for the wedding is inestimable. Dubbed fairy tale, it is so expensive that matches are rare.

But too soon after the world literally stops for such once a century celebration of love, we are regaled with tales of marital indiscretions. The marriage becomes a Facebook affair. Soft sells make huge sales. Gossip columnists have field days running stories of storm in a marriage just celebrated like royal coronation. Romance publishers get good stuffs for their print. Like a pack of cards, the marriage soon crashes. And we are faced with a stark reality that the matrimonies of the glamorous are the most insecure, most threatened.

I was a secondary school student in the 1980s when the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana was beamed from London to the rest of the world. I savoured every moment of the wedding on the tube. I was an assistant editor on the foreign desk of the defunct National Concord when Lady Di crashed with her lover boy Fayed in a tunnel in Paris, while trying to avoid paparazzi trail of her stormy love life. Her end is the classic tragedy of the matrimonies of the glamorous.

In the music and movie industry, it is a rarity for the glamorous to keep a home, to sustain a marriage. In the sporting world, the family life of many stars is something else. The so-called yuppies and yummies are nothing more than show boys and party girls without stable mates. Many upwardly mobile career men and women are hardly successful at keeping partners. For each party or outing, there is a different partner.

I realize it is almost a futility for the glamorous to settle down to happy matrimony. A relationship that is profanely celebrated on the newspaper glamour pages is usually a fake show, not built on deep love. The failure of marriages of the glamorous, or the turmoil that characterizes their union is not surprising. First, matters of the heart that is ordinarily private is not so in their case. Each of their glances, their body languages and everything concerning their lives is a public affair.

Often their odious past and relationships are headline items. But they also undo themselves in many instances to break their own homes consciously or unknowingly. They still want to live in their past. The glamorous are almost always engaged for one public show or the other. As much as they want to keep a home, they never really have the time. So they abandon their kitchens for their maids. They may also abandon their beds for the comfort of First Class cabin on air as they are regular travelers. Living Five Star lives in exotic hotels around the world as show stoppers, they forget that such a life is not natural. It does not last.

The relationship of the glamorous is not helped by the society or the environment, not helped by parents or friends and well-wishers, advisers and surrogates. There are those whose love lives are woeful that would not want a success in that of the fellow glamorous. They have tale bearers as friends. The bridesmaid may be a silent competitor. Some of the groomsmen may have eyed her too, or might have kept intimacy with her before. So, large room for suspicion is usually available in the affairs of the glamorous.

But many of the glamorous too are not natural home makers. As they are bred on the Mr. Biggs, the Tetrazzinis and the Tantalizers, they are fast food nurtured. They are good only on the Red Carpet. They may also be experts of the dance floor or beds laid with velvets. They may also have very good dress sense, just as they are excellent on fashion magazine covers as models. But very few of them have the patience to keep the family together or the necessary culinary skills to prepare sumptuous natural meals satisfying to a husband, except wasting money on hurried toasts or On the Run buka prepared food.

Today, the fears of nagging spouses and the treachery of unfaithful partners are not uncommon as radio and TV shows devote generous airtime to addressing marriage failures. Apart from the pedestrian political discourses and uninformed economic analyses that dominate radio and television programmes, or the social media, matrimonial wounds and pains are opened widely, exposing the marital frustrations that couples barely cope with, the matrimonial heat under many roofs, and the passionate hate many spouses nurture against their own mates.

As I reflect, I realise that such frustrating matters of the heart can be located in certain errors that many couples make, especially before marriage, but which they ignore or paper over to address as years roll by. In these circumstances when couples begin getting to know each other’s weaknesses or deficiencies more, peace of mind and love is lost, breach of trust comes to the open and the products of the union are held hostage in a loveless home. The purpose of marriage and family – peace and stability of the society – is also lost. The home is shun of true love, common purpose and shared happiness.

This might be due to either of the partner’s engagement in extramarital affairs. Or, it might be due to irresponsibility on either party: not providing for the family needs or being available for the family in times of need, not giving priority to the family and preferring outsiders, not emotionally attached to home or partner, not considering each other in decision making, lack of sexual satisfaction from each other, interference of outsiders in matters that could be settled on the dining table with just a peck, a kiss or little jokes or fun.  (To be concluded)

Abdul –Warees, Assistant Director, Voice of Nigeria, Ikoyi Lagos [email protected]