Scenario 1

You are 40, well built with muscles that make women swallow hard when you wear a sleeveless shirt. You are good looking and you know it. You do not see what is wrong in flaunting it too. You have a good job that pays well. You work long hours and you play commensurate long hours. Hanging out with the boys tops your list and on such expedition, girls are never in short supply. So when you are not working, you are out with the boys. Sometimes you leave Abuja for Jos just to check out a new place. You and your friends even have a slaughter house somewhere in Ikeja GRA.

Not a few times have you told your wife that you are traveling when all you did was hole up in the slaughter house with a girl for a weekend of illicit whatever. Yes, you are married. To a long suffering wife, I think. She runs the home and makes sure that whenever you make yourself available, you are comfortable. She is beautiful too, this mother of your set of twins. But you go everywhere without her and spend your leisure time without her.

So, when she is not working, she is playing with the kids. And when you are off on official trip to New York, you go with your latest girl. In fairness, you are a good provider. Madam dives the latest Range Rover and there is Honda Spacebus as support vehicle. Her housekeeping allowance arrives promptly on the 26th of every month. You shower her with gifts, buy her expensive jewelry. But you are never there. She is one lonely woman. She even sits outside and talks with the maiguard. She plays ludo with the house girl and watches Tom and Jerry with the twins. Somehow, you have fallen into the temptation of thinking that she will always be there.

“Where will she go?”
“She is my wife and understands.”
You, my brother, should sue anybody who is dumber than you because I think you hold the monopoly of foolishness. Where will she go indeed? I bet you found her in a convent. You were the first man in her life. And all the blokes have relocated out of town? You are about to find out that a fallow ground can be tilled by those who know its value. You are about to discover that it is not in banks alone that weaker banks are taken over by the stronger ones. Think, have you been taking advantage of your wife?

Scenario 2

You love away games and all your investments are off shore. You are an international player. All your savings are in foreign reserves. You prefer to minister to the needs of the girls outside. Your conjugal duties you have left undone for so long your wife is beginning to think you are either impotent or she is no longer attractive or both. What does a 50-year-old woman need sex for, you reasoned? You obviously do not have as much sense as God gave a goose. You have forgotten that song: ‘Woman needs love, just like you do…’ If you are still pursing small small girls, what makes you think her hormones have gone into retirement? Don’t let small small boys start staking claims on your landed property. I have said my own.

Scenario 3
You wear strictly designer labels. You always look like you are just stepping out of GQ. You look like a man any woman will want to die for but deep down in you, you are possessed by Mike Tyson spirit. You are convinced you are a heavy weight champion. The only problem is the only person you want as boxing patner is your wife. And she’s got all kinds of bruises and broken bones to show for your prowess. You are a heavy weight champion when it comes to wife battery. If you are not giving her black eye, you are cracking her ribs and she’s sticking it all because she does not want her children to be raised in a broken home, a sacrifice you have mistaken for weakness.

Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news first, you just may get away with it. The bad news is that she may just decide to fight back and since you are so set in your ways, you should prepare yourself for the worst. I’ll tell you a story. There was this wife who got tired of being her husband’s punching bag. So she hired thugs to break his legs. The fake Mike Tyson spent two months in the orthopaedic ward. Before you accuse me of instigating wives to evil, you could just simply stop beating her and we will all live happily ever after. Yes, I detest wife beaters but I do not want them to lose their legs or even end up in early graves. I’m considerate and that is why I’m sounding this note of warning. If you do not repent of your sins, you just may find out that there is a beast in all human beings and that includes women, wives.

Scenario 4

Are you one of those men who starve their wives of money every time they err? If she talks back at you, you cut off her allowances. You stop talking to her if she fails to attend an extended family function. And for allowing herself to get stuck in the traffic and serving your dinner late, you stop making love to her. There are men like that, you know. They like to play God. They expect their wives to worship them, which is legitimate but they turn to Lucifer when they feel wronged. They do not listen to explanations and cut off their wives from everything they are entitled to. Boy, are you like that? You feel cool when your wife is suffering. You get high on her tears. You feel like a king when she calls your friends or brothers to beg you to eat her food. You are a bully but we know that all bulls are cowards. So don’t let your wife fight back because the disgrace will kill you. Right now you are having a terrorist’s fun but, dear brother, there is no brand of terror without an expiry date.

The day you come home late and she does not ask you where you are coming from is the day your terror starts expiring. When she stops crying over every little punishment you mete out, you’ll start belittling yourself. When she stops asking for that house-keeping allowance you are hoarding, you’ll find out that the world will not grind to a halt because you are a husband. When she stops reporting you to your brother because you have stopped eating at home, you will find out that you are not the best thing that happened to the woman race since bread and butter. I do not want our husbands to learn hard lessons. I do not want bullies to be forced to face reality. I want them to get born again nicely.

This piece is just an appeal. I’m not attempting to start a riot but we all know that the reason they call old wives witches is because they have learnt to deal with heavy duty trucks of marital hassles and over the years they become toughened. We can expatiate on that some other time. For now, I can only hope that this little sermon is sufficient for the wise.