Are you a house-husband or real husband?

The Sun News / Tokunbo David / 37 minut

Today, a growing number of men have chosen to be like the garbage dump-bound husband in the cartoon. Such a husband is what I call a house-husband.

Agatha Emeadi

A cartoonist published a well-drawn artwork of a wife who carried her husband shoulder high to give to a cart pusher to throw him away along with the refuse that he collected that morning. In the explanatory note, the cartoonist stated that the woman’s reason was because the man was completely disgusting just as he was dishonest and did not live up to his responsibilities.

It is commonly said that art mimics life. So many women today can relate to the situation of the woman depicted in the cartoon, but they chose to keep quiet and move on without challenging the Africanism in our system which for a long time had expected women to endure. However, the woman depicted in the cartoon chose to be different.

Today, a growing number of men have chosen to be like the garbage dump-bound husband in the cartoon. Such a husband is what I call a house-husband.

House-husbands come in different categories, spheres, directions, shades, profiles and designation. They vary according to the interpretations of their lifestyle, attitude, perception and relationship with others. This type of men deceive themselves first while deceiving others. House-husbands are smooth tongued laced with laziness, fraudulence, idleness, resentment, green-eyed and lying patois which have taken a toll on their lives. They also exhibit unnecessary pride and arrogance, irresponsibility and negative mind.

One other curious thing about the typical house-husbands is that they always want their cars to carry the stickers of the army, navy or airforce, to enable them intimate junior policemen at checkpoints and avoid security checks. They do not wake up with bright ideas and direction, but are full of excuses and high dubious expectations.

House-husbands are envious of their wives’ success and progress. They are not competitors and would not take business risks, good or bad. They do not live happily. Most of those men who think that their village people are after them are lazy house-husbands. If one is supposed to resume work at 6:00a.m, and starts at 8:00, is it village people’s fault?

How would you describe a man who keeps various wives unknown to each other? His construction company job takes him round and he decides to settle himself with a wife in every city he arrives for the period the job would last. He takes them to registries and gets a legal union permit. It was during his funeral that the last three discovered themselves and began to curse the stone-cold dead body of a husband.

How did he manage this situation for years if not that he was a house-husband?

There are marriage challenges but some cases are worse than others. Churches have become a haven for house-husbands.

Let no one be deceived, there are pastors, evangelists and tongue-speaking house-husbands in our midst who parade themselves as men of God. I am convinced that these ones read their Bible from the back.

A close sister confessed that she does not trust her handsome house-husband pastor. He has no trade but always very buoyant, and hides under the pretense of a minister. Members troop to him for blessings and miracles.

What do you call a man who would put his wife under house arrest and she would be struggling to urinate. House arrest is her punishment for their altercation. How about a man who lives in self-denial and is selfish in the presence of his wife and children? What will you call a married man who is ‘very single’ in spirit and readily available to the younger girls? What will you call a man who enjoys the pains he inflicts on a family when he sleeps with his wife’s younger sisters and relatives? What about the one whose wife means nothing to him rather better for the gutters? Where would you place a dishonest husband who does not carry his family along? Always telling lies about his financial status. These are the generation of house-husbands.

I heard a story of a woman who danced out her heart on her wedding day because she had married a handsome dude, a hunk. When the crowd left, the marriage settled into patching years. She discovered she had been deceived into a union that should last till death. Her man claimed that he sold cars at a popular auto sales centre, but for the number of years they lived together, he never came back with a loaf of bread, not to talk of paying any bill.

House-husbands do not care about their wives’ happiness, peace, emotional balance and that common required injunction ‘love your wife’. But being a house-husband is by choice.

Imagine this scenario: a certain person once told me how she was hospitalised and her husband kept mocking and reminding her of how she will die on the hospital bed and another woman would take over her home. When other visitors came in, the same man would shed tears and was being consoled. This man was a classic house-husband.

Would you classify such men with a colleague who lost his job and refused to be a house-husband? The moment his medium closed up, he did not sit at home and wallow in self-pity. He promised to still be the arrowhead which he was and lived up to it. He stood up immediately and began to work as if he had just gotten a new job. He would do his write-ups, canvass and place adverts, was just doing every newspaper business he knew. Some yielded money, while some did not. His children resume in schools like other children. He would not pay complete school fees at once, but whatever he got from his publications and public relations practice (PR), he would go to the school every week pay in as little as N800.00 only until he cleared the term’s bill. Seeing his zeal and commitment, the headmistress said to him, ‘I will not send your children away from school, because you are a responsible man’. Who wouldn’t be proud of such a husband? Same way he paid his other bills until heaven smiled at him, and they bounced back. Did he sit down at home and start praying for miracle? No, he rather took the bull by the horn, kept himself busy and happy, his hard work earned him a happy home after ever.

It is a pity that some responsible well brought up ladies fall into the hands of these unrepentant conmen. I get angry when challenges dangle in our presence, and the first outburst would be ‘it needs prayer’. Prayer is the key, but not the only requirement we need to solve most of our problems. It is not every problem that is solved by prayer because God has given us life, equipped us with brain, a pair of eyes, hands, leg and other things we need to salvage some of our various situations.

So many problems need the communicative truth. Tell the truth, so you could be salvaged. If you have deceived yourself in the university for years without graduating, but on the other side, you parade yourself as a graduate, do not pray, tell the truth and go back to school. If you have been involved in cultism, rituals, sacrifices and your hands are not free from blood, the stigma is following you like a shadow, tell the truth. If you have kept a relationship that produced a child outside your marital home, say the truth and ask for forgiveness, don’t be hiding.

Some others need to address their ego, arrogance and pride. Jealousy, closed mind, negativity and carelessness could cause a man to become a house-husband. Where apology is needed, don’t pray, go ahead and render a sincere apology and be free.

If you have mismanaged money in your custody, tell the truth and work on how to return it. If you have lustful desire for your wife’s relatives or neighbour’s wife, God is watching your moves. If your lying tongue does not repent, you will end up in trouble.

Let there be room for personal development and repentance, not the deliverance type that a pastor conducts for a church member, no. That a house-husband should genuinely decide to repent like a man who survived a plane crash and chose not to do evil again because he saw his death. He should begin to do things that will show truly that he has repented. If you have lost your job, don’t sit down at home and be a house-husband, get up immediately like my colleague and do something else. All those menial jobs we reject here but accept in foreign countries could salvage the situation here too.

Then, who are the real husbands? Every woman’s dream! That man who knows what it means to be the head. Who knows that when he falls without rising, his dynasty would collapse? A man that shares the same bright ideas, feelings, hope, love with his wife is an ideal husband.

A man who satisfies his wife’s sexual needs; ready to till the ground and provide for his family is ideal. That man who has I-can-do-spirit is a real husband. Instead of being a house husband who sits and monitors every event at home, think twice and be an ideal worthy husband.