By Funke Egbemode
When Debola and Akin got married, Akin was not in a good place financially. He was living from hand to mouth, struggling to pay his rent and generally depending on salary advance to get through the month. He was getting on in years and his parents were permanently on his case to get married. He was reluctant to commit to any serious relationship. How was he expected to feed two mouths when he couldn’t feed himself? How can you tell a new bride not to get pregnant because his tiny room-and-parlour could and would not expand because the occupant was now married? Akin dug in his feet, avoided his parents as long as he could because of the marriage thing.
Then he met Debola, a graduate of Economics who believed more in trading than a nine-to-five job. She encouraged Akin to take a few risks, assisted him financially and in a few months, they got married, moved into a new but bigger apartment in a developing community.
By the time their first child arrived, the couple had bought their first car, a tokunbo Camry Pencil Light. Slowly but steadily, the fortune of Debola and Akin improved. Both of them thrived in their chosen paths; Debola in business, Akin in his career. Debola encouraged Akin to get multiple streams of income. It was like magic or money ritual or both. Every venture Akin delved in prospered. He made profits in tons. As he took bigger risks he made more money.
He built his first house then bought the second one and a third. He started living big, and like many successful men, he added side chic business to his growing business ventures. He became arrogant. Or was Debola imagining it? No, she wasn’t. The new rich Akin was real. He stayed out late, told his wife lies. As his bank balances grew so did his brazen womanizing. Debola complained, threatened, cried, cajoled and cried some more, prayed, fasted and then resigned herself to fate. Her parents told her to concentrate on her business and children.
She was sad, could not believe that her once nice and kind husband could metamorphose into this strange bully who threw his weight around and threatened even his own children in the meanest way. She stomached everything, hoping that one day the man she loved and married would resurface from under the rubbles of intoxicating success. He did. Oh yes, Akin’s life changed in the most painful way.
Debola had gone for her annual medical check when one of the tests showed she had STD. Yes, you read right. Sexually Transmitted Disease. She was livid and confronted Akin. He was livid too. He accused her of sleeping around. She kept insinuating that her husband brought the disease to their matrimonial home. He railed and rain curses on her. He asked her to leave his house before he returned from his business trip. Debola could not believe her ears and Akin’s audacity and insane temerity.
How do you infect a woman with STD and still use ‘bold face’ to eject her from the home you built together?
Debola could have called her husband’s bluff and stayed put but she said she was just tired, exhausted from the sad roller coaster her marriage had become. She did as Akin commanded, moved out for her sanity, peace of mind and good health.
‘I mean if it was HIV or Hepatitis-B that the doctors found, that was the way he would have not just denied it but also kicked me to the curb.’ Debola recalled.
But fate reserved the real tragedy to the last scenes of the story of Akin and Debola.
While Debola was crying her eyes out in her brother’s apartment, Akin’s business proposals turned to ashes right before his eyes.
Cancelled and revoked contracts became the order of the day in Akin’s life. Fire accidents in warehouses, rejected multi-million naira supplies and near-fatal crashes followed one another in quick succession.
Long story short, a once-upon-a-time prosperous Akin is today down on his luck with only one car to his name and not much else. Yet, Debola is doing well, in fact, flourishing.
So, is there really anything like a wife’s ‘head’ and ‘legs’ bringing good luck, blessings and fortunes into her husband’s life? Do some women arrive marriage with wealth and bundles of blessings truly? And can they leave with their joy and bounty if the marriage fails? Are those women like other women or are they spirits? The Yoruba call it ‘Ogo’ (Glory) or Oriire (good head or good luck). Do these things exist seriously or they are mythical stories of coincidences?
I bet you have heard stories like that of Akin and Debola’s grass to grace and back to grass at one point or the other. Have you witnessed a real one, like I have? It is uncanny, unnerving even, but there must be something that links it to the Yoruba’s concept of ‘Ori’ and Igbo’s ‘Chi’.
As a Christian, if it is true as the Bible says that ‘whoever finds a wife finds a good thing’, does that verse not presuppose that ‘whoever loses a good wife loses a good thing?’ Think about it.
If it is possible for a woman to bring ‘two left legs’ into her marriage, there could be women who bring ‘good heads and two right legs’ into their marriage. If a woman can use her husband’s head and turn him to ‘mumu’, doesn’t that mean there are spiritual angles to some of these things we brush aside as coincidences?
My brother, if you notice a change in your fortune, a steady rise in your state just after you got married, do not take it for granted. That wife may have been designated by God to bring you blessings. Look around you and you will notice not a few couples whose marriages brought greatness and abundance, success and enlargement. Be good to her. Don’t be so modern as to miss this good thing you found effortlessly.
If and when you find a good wife, be a keeper. For all you care, there may be a man who has ‘researched her head’ and wants her to leave you so he could have all that good luck you take for granted.
*Egbemode (egbemode3@gmail.com)
