The Sunday News
ON my way to work, on Thursday morning, a heavily pregnant woman was hit by a kombi. It was nothing major, apparently the driver was reversing slowly and did not notice her trying to cross the road. She didn’t seem to be too hurt, she was limping slightly but she looked terribly shaken. I asked her if she was ok, and she said, “I don’t think so, I was hit on the leg and it is painful.”
She seemed unsure so I suggested that she ask the kombi driver to take her to the nearest clinic to get checked out, “just in case.”
A man who was standing next to her the whole time said to her, “no, that’s not necessary, go home, I will call you later.” She looked at him as if she wanted to say something, but before she did, he repeated his order for her to go home.
I later discovered that the man was her husband and she had been escorting him to the bus stop when the accident occurred.
To my horror, she started limping away and the husband got into the kombi and we continued with our journey. The husband joked with the driver that he had almost left him wifeless, they laughed about it and in a few minutes the incident was forgotten.
This has been eating me up ever since then because I do not understand what exactly was going on there? Why did that husband insist that the wife go home? Was it because he did not realise the gravity of the situation? Was it ignorance about the dangers, especially to a pregnant woman, of being hit by a car, no matter how slightly? Was it greed, did he want to solicit some kind of payment, bribe or compensation from the driver, away from the eyes of people? Did he not care about his wife?
What would possess him to let his wife limp back home alone, after being hit by a car? Was he rushing to work? I believe though, any normal boss would give someone a day off after such an unnerving experience!
What is most worrisome to me though, is why the wife agreed to go home. I could tell she wanted to go to the clinic when the idea was brought up. It was clear she did not want to go home from the moment the husband suggested it. Why did she not speak up? Why did she not insist that the kombi people take her to the clinic or at least drive her home? How come she did not plead her case to her husband?
The only explanation I can come up with, is that maybe she was being a “good wife.” Quiet, obedient and submissive. The kind of wife who knows her husband’s word is law and could not dream of contradicting him, especially not in public.
This led me to ask myself, what is a good wife? To what extent should we submit? At what cost should women be obedient?
Submission is defined as the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.
In marriage, submission therefore, to wives, means accepting or yielding to the will or authority of their husbands.
I believe that when we first fall in love, submission comes naturally. During that initial stage of most relationships, your man is perfect in your eyes and can seemingly do no wrong. This is also the period when men put their women on pedestals, think the world of them and treat them like queens.
At this point in time, both parties are on their best behaviour; most issues or causes of friction are ignored, swept under the carpet or forgiven wholeheartedly.
It is at this point, when we are overly excited by each other; that most couples unfortunately decide to get married. I say unfortunately because experience has taught me that, in as much as we must not make big decisions when we are angry, one must never make life altering decisions in the height of excitement, or in this case, love.
Because we marry each other before we know each other well enough, husbands get into marriage expecting submission from their partners who have so far been yielding to their will and authority; and wives, get into marriage, expecting to continue to be handled with kid gloves, loved, protected, provided for . . . treated as queens basically.
At some point, the euphoria wears off and true colours start to show. For the lucky ones this is the time they realise their husbands or wives are everything they ever wished for and their love and respect for each other grows.
Sadly, for most, this is the point when, with each new discovery about each other, respect slowly flies out the window. This is when it is no longer “cute” that he is always drunk and she no longer thinks that everything that comes out of his mouth is intelligent. This is when expectations come crashing down!
My question then is this, do we submit because we are passive or because we truly believe in the ability of our husbands to have our best interests at heart? Is submission a gift we give to good husbands or it is a right granted to all husbands, good and bad? Is total submission, even in wonderful marriages, a realistic possibility?
Both our African culture and Christianity state that women must submit to their husbands but it is unclear to what extent we should submit and under what circumstances. Our societies are filled with emotionally, financially and physically abusive husbands; are women who stay in such marriages also supposed to submit to these criminals?
If I love my husband but he always makes bad financial decisions, am I supposed to continue yielding to his will, even when his will is to spend the children’s school fees on beer? If, like the woman who was hit by the kombi, my husband says go home, but I feel I need to go to the clinic so that I make sure the baby and I are not at risk, should I quietly limp back home and hope for the best or should I defy him and make the kombi driver take me to a doctor? Where do we draw the line between submission and pragmatism? Is it fair to realistic “good wives” to be submissive at the expense of their health, financial freedom, peace of mind and happiness in general? Is it even fair?
I cannot deny that the man is, and rightfully should be the head of the family. But I also do not think that anyone can ever be happy with someone having absolute power over them. Abusive men have twisted this submission gospel and used it to trample the views, hopes, dreams and voices of their wives and that, to me, is criminal and should not be allowed to thrive.
In today’s world of equal opportunities for both men and women, people need to learn that submission or respect for authority is not something dictated, it is a response/ appreciation that people give to good treatment. When we teach our boys and girls that authority and respect, is earned, we breed happy homes and accountability at family, community and national levels.
