SOME MEN!!

Yesterday while having my lone dinner I switched on my TV and pressed buttons on the remote until I got to what looked like an interesting story. It was the Crime channel, and despite the fact that I was eating and should have kept my mouth shut, I found myself repeatedly having to close said mouth that had fallen open during the hour that the show was on air.

The show was about a husband and wife, both working for the FBI (yes!! FBI in the US of A), and how this man, who promised to love, honor, cherish and take care of his wife, turned into a sadistic monster that twisted their union into a horrible caricature of a marriage. My mouth kept hanging open because of the horrors he put her through. As if it wasn’t enough to abuse her physically and battering her like his personal punching bag he would also torture her mentally by playing loud music at night when she wanted to sleep, placing her – legs bound, hands handcuffed and mouth sealed with tape, in the trunk of a car for hours in the hot sun and when he removed her, pleading with her for sex immediately after; hiring people to put dynamite at her work place, and to do it so that it looked like she was the one who placed it there…. And when he was eventually arrested, pleading mental instability as an excuse.

I don’t want to get into what she did or didn’t do. In fact, I don’t want to get into what SHE’s should do or not do – that’s a whole other article.

Today, I want to get into Men’s Minds...

... Men who batter their wives or girlfriends repeatedly and women who do the same. It’s incomprehensible to me. Really. I simply do not understand, which is why I ask. Why do men whollop their treasured possessions and the mothers of their children? Why make her weep and cry and live in total fear of him and in misery?

Because closer to home, right here in East Africa, cases of GBV have risen – especially in homes where both husband and wife hold at least two (2) University Degrees between them, both drive cars, children go to international or good local schools and in quite a few cases, are religious and considered devout.

If, and I say IF the man is uneducated, he can tote and quote ignorance, but a Degree holder? What is his excuse? Clearly it’s not ignorance.

And as clearly, a man knows when he’s putting his wife through pure misery. Oh you women and wives and ladies who have not been battered -  don’t put your hand to your cheek and gasp and widen your eyes in shock and cruelly believe - when the woman who complains to you about the misdeeds in her house – that those are hallucinations or exaggerations of her mind – no, no, no!! Man takes time to think and proceeds to act and he knows exactly what he’s doing. Is that an insane mind? Kitchen knives put side sharp up in drawers where only the tissue box is kept, items left in a dark room so you trip when entering, TV watched on full blast at midnight when you’re trying to get some sleep? Not a TV story. Reality that happens, and worse, right here in East Africa.

Ok, so men - I have heard - think and act within mental boxes in their heads… apparently they have ‘cabinets’ or ‘drawers’ labeled, ‘WORK’, ‘PLAY’, ‘LOVE’, ‘EAT’, ‘REST’ , etc… and that only ONE can be opened at a time. I prefer to think of men like Cars.  Whether it’s a sleek fast Bugatti or a Shinde, or an old battered VW 1968 Vintage model – men are all the same in thought. Like a car in motion, the gear-speed that he is using at that particular time is the ONLY one that can possibly work. You cannot drive a car and engage two different gears at the same time. Impossible…. And neither can you shift from, say, 5^th gear to 1^st gear – you’ll blow the pistons pap! So if this man’s got his ‘PLAY’ gear on, the only thing that will occupy his mind is ‘PLAY’. Now, he’s at the local or where-ever. In the meantime, if wifey calls to remind him that … let’s see… ‘Dinner is ready' – that’s the ‘EAT’ gear - he will have to gear-down (or up) before he even acknowledges her  - and may appear at home 4 hours later and bitterly complain plus beat her thoroughly for serving cold food.

Now, let us continue assuming that the man described above has no Tertiary learning –we shall pray he will stop being an oaf and learn to shift gears speedily where his wife is concerned.

But, if he has a degree or any form of higher learning, we know that apart from much reading on his specialty, culture is learnt. And in learning culture comes the knowledge that women are not slaves or brute animals to be pushed around, brutalized and tortured, but tender human beings who need a whole batch of loving – and there are thousands of books out there that will instruct a man how to LOVE his wife and partner.

So why then all this violence against educated women by their educated hubbies?

Is it so difficult to talk and communicate to her?

To agree that differences can be lived with?

That women can’t be ‘changed’ or ‘chained’?

That if it’s the relationship that is not working, to allow the wife to bounce? With your children?

That to be tender and loving* is manly?

Where is LOVE?

I laugh hysterically (yes, certifiably insane, that’s me) when men confess their hurt feelings and attribute their ill behavior towards their wives on the singular principle, ‘but she doesn’t love me!!’ 

Why do I laugh?

Because, unfortunately – depending on which side of the coin you’re looking at - * the onus for LOVE is placed squarely on the shoulders of MEN.

There is not one single place in the Bible (which is the Christian Guide book on living) that says that a woman has to love a man. Not one. Rather, it’s the MAN who is told to LOVE his WIFE.

Oops!

Didn’t know that?

Well, now you do.

Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, LOVE your wives..

Education is a good thing.

It is the man’s duty to LOVE. And loving means to cherish, to honour, to adore, to respect his partner. In thought and in deed, in the doing. Despite all and everything.

Doing meaning being affectionate, being a friend, communicating an emotion of tenderness towards her..

I repeat, despite all and everything. In a world full of trouble, men get battered with a million insults when they step out of their homes. And they are mostly powerless to correct those slurs on their characters. Even though, that’s not an excuse for the educated man to direct his particular brand of annoyance and slap, hit, push, batter, dishonor, abuse verbally and hate on your ‘better half’ like an uneducated village buffoon.

If you cannot bring yourself to Love her and treat her well, then let her go, release her, let her live in peace. And in the process, educate your children whether they live with you or leave with her.

And if you say ‘bah! I’m not a Christian, I don’t have obey God’s command to love her’, then consider this. It is a crime to beat your partner. A crime punishable by imprisonment.

And more recently, frowned upon by society. 
Think - honestly, how would the knowledge that you are a wife-basher affect your relationships with business associates and closer to home, your relatives? I’ve said this before, I will repeat it again. Saying you don’t care is a downright lie. Man is not an island and he Affects and Infects those around him.

Therefore, what will your legacy be?

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Note from Nyakio:

This week marks '16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence'.

Click here to read about it in the Daily News.

©NYAKIO MUNYINYI-OKALLO, NOVEMBER 2012,

FOR The XpenSieve Report