You cannot take a maid. I cannot live with a maid. We will not employ a maid.
If the man you are considering spending the rest of your life with is a man who is allergic to maids and house helps in any form, you need to pause and take a second look at your shopping list. Are you the kind of woman who can do without a maid, run a home without help and still grow a business or career? If yes, then you are good to go. Just think it through because this is 2026. Don’t for a minute think this is a small matter. It may look like something you can gloss over but it really isn’t. In any case, a dozen small stuff will coagulate into a ticking time bomb eventually. It is better to talk about it with him now when he is still seeing you as ‘orente’ than wait till when you are ‘after-two’ and no longer quoted on the ‘stock exchange.’
Having a maid in the house does not mean a wife is lazy. A helping hand will free up time for the couple. Imagine being able to get in the shower with your husband after a long stressful day and ‘feeding him’ right there under the steady stream of hot water before bringing him to the dining table to further feed him. Just imagine the kind of restful early night he’d have after a bowl of seafood okra and semo. That nice arrangement would have been made possible by the housekeeper who had quickly made the semo and microwaved the soup madam made over the weekend. Who sweaty, exhausted wife help?
A wife who has to rush into the kitchen to start dinner with one hand while doing laundry of the children’s school uniforms with the other is not the one you can expect full cooperation with in bed. The house-help is an important part of marriage, any modern marriage. The help could be a daily help who resumes at 7am and closes at 6pm but a man needs to support his wife with that help so his woman can perform everywhere at full installed capacity. A man who wants his wife to do everything in the house is a suspect.
A man who says you cannot work under any other but him is a man you cannot or should not trust. Don’t be taken in by his colourful proposal and the rock on his engagement ring, he is a criminal in love. Yes you will and must work under him but you must go out and earn your own money. There is nothing like a woman having her own money.
Imagine getting a call that your mother had just been admitted in hospital and the hospital is insisting on N150, 000 deposit and you, a mother of two, have only 15k. And you have to wait until he returns home, showers, eats and belches loudly before you can even broach the subject! You cannot attend your school reunion because he has approved only 50k for you, which barely fuels the car to the venue. You can’t help your brother with his rent or your sister with pocket money because everything is coming from Oga’s pocket. A man who does not want you to have a job most times is a man who wants to play God. He wants to isolate you so that he can strip you of your dignity and more.
I earn enough to take care of my family.
I don’t want my wife to be bossed around by another man.
Just stay home and take care of me and the children.
My sister, run o. You are about to board a one-chance bus. Tell him you love him but he will have to take his insecurities elsewhere. But there are exceptions. Some men are really that rich, so blessed they do not want their wives in small nine-to five gigs. They set them up in big businesses, allow them to travel, import and export. Those are the ones who are comfortable in their own skin. They want their women to flourish. Make sure you know what you are getting into and with whom. If he is a 30 days-make-a-pay man who does not want you to work, my friend, you need to slow down and ask yourself, where will this arrangement take me to five years from now. I know you want the soft life but soft life is really unnatural. If your marriage runs into a storm, that is when you will know that you have been swimming in a shallow pond in wet season. Once the dry season sets in, a love song can turn into a dirge. I must also add that there is a second exception to the rule, especially where the man is generous. The onus is on a smart wife to know how to work from home, invest and get even stupendously rich making her money work for her.
Samuel and Toyin have had a difficult year. Indeed, as you read this, they are temporarily living apart. What happened? They have two daughters and have been married for eight years. Their two girls were delivered via caesarean section and each birth came with complications. Samuel wants more children, at least a son. Toyin is scared to death to try again. Their second daughter is four years old and Samuel started wondering why his wife had not conceived again. Toyin is one of those women who can get pregnant if her husband smiles at her long enough. It is that easy for her. It is just delivery that is rocket science.
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“My husband believed that we would get a son the third time. I tried to explain to him the dangers of going under the knife a third time but he cited examples of women who have had three C.S. When I noticed he had started calculating my cycle and noting my ovulation in his private diary, I knew I had to act fast. I went see a friend who is a gynaecologist and that was how I started taking the injection twice a year. After many fights over my resistance to see the family doctor, I finally confessed that I was on contraceptive. Of course the shit hit the fan. He accused me of every sin in the book including adultery. He moved into a hotel. He will return when he has cooled off or one day we will join him in that hotel.”
Don’t you just like her confidence, her strength? She is determined both to stay alive and win her husband back, the bushman who wanted a son even at the risk of becoming a widower.
These are just three of the points couples must talk about specifically and in details. Money angles, number of children and if gender will determine number. Parents must include this in their children’s upbringing and counselling as they approach marriage. Abuse goes beyond slapping your spouse around. It is unfair to isolate a woman so you can play God in her life. It is evil to encourage another man’s daughter to keep going under the knife just so you can have a son.
*Egbemode (egbemode3@gmail.com)
