20/12/2023
Hello MAN, the burdens you carry are humongous and weighing.
*Your duty it is to lead and provide for the spiritual and material needs of your family. This burden of provision extends beyond your nuclear family. You’re tagged worse than an infidel even by the Holy Book, if you fail in this wise.
*Society dubs you a ne’er-do-well if you fail, not necessarily because you don’t work hard enough, but because perhaps the odds don’t just conspire in your favour.
*You’re expected to serve not only as your kids’ first teacher but their mentor. If despite your efforts to raise good children, they go awry, not only do you take the blame almost solo, your name takes the disrepute.
*Whether your family has a car, a house and other post-primary needs depends largely on you.
*You’re inundated with diverse trials and provocations per minute, twenty-five hours a day (apologies, Michael Bush), even more from the domestic front.
*The holy writ leaves you with the exclusive responsibility to love your wife and trust me that’s a far greater task than the respect you’re to get from her.
*You’re sometimes forced into some stiff competition, not only with yourself but the whole world, all in a bid to measure up.
*Often times, you go through a lot to overcome and conquer all these.
*Sometimes, the world is fair enough to give you thumbs-up for your conquests against so many odds but more often, your efforts are taken for granted.
*But you see hitting your wife? Whatever the provocation, avoid it. If you mistakenly commit it, beg the domestic authorities that it does not get to the public space. Truth is, nobody will listen to your story, if it does. No justification for your action will be rational enough to make sense to anybody. You’ll be condemned unheard. Government and it’s agents will feast on you, female lawyers will conspire to offer pro bono services against you in court, civil rights organizations will make mincemeat of you.