I hope this Article written by Bisi Adebiyi on Aug. 20, 1971 would be a blessing to those who are married or on the move to get married: The other day I listened to two men at a wedding ceremony passing on their golden advice to the newly married couple. Always be friends-good friends the first man said. Its when you make good friends of each other that youll find your marital problems easy to tackle. Then came the other guest. I disagree with the first speaker, he said. You should never see yourselves as friends but as brother and sister. And that is the trouble with many marriages in our society. A lot of married couples just do not appreciate how much it means to their relationship when they are each others friend. Of course, its a good thing for a married couple to take themselves as brother and sister. That is what makes marriage a unique institution - one that compels you to assume many roles. But it does seem that the uniqueness of husband-wife relationship has blinded some people to underrate the tremendous impact of good friendship. After all, what is a friend ? Is it not one you share common interests with, one whose company makes you relaxed and happy, one who makes life stimulating ? And for a friendship to thrive, the good friend must also be loving, helpful, kind and understanding. Which means that if a married couple find so much In each other, theyre in fact, good friends. And Im also sure that if they are such good friends, theyre bound to be happy. How often have we seen brothers and sisters, who are just not each others cup of tea. They remain brothers and sisters simply because nature has dictated that they belong to one family and theres nothing they can do about it. But they dont necessarily like one another. With friends, of course, its different. If you were not fond of each other you could not have been friends in the first place. You see, its like our men having to go out, when they go out, they dont often go to meet their relations - brothers and sisters. Even when they dont go after women, they do go after their friends, those with whom they can sit and relax and laugh off their problems. Indeed if I found my man boring to the extent that I had to look elsewhere for my happiness, the type of person Id expect to provide it would hardly be my brother. To me, that could be even more boring. My choice would probably be some kind of man I could consider a good friend, one I could chit-chat with and enjoy teasing, one to give me hilarious moments and crack jokes that would make me rock with laughter. The trouble with many marriages is that the parties just wont learn to laugh with each other like friends. Take those instances where the man gets into a teasing mood (the kind of mood that breaks the monotony), but only to be rebuffed by his wife: Have you come again? Look, its a Monday morning and I hope youll leave me alone. I remember once listening rapturously to a friend discussing her uncle and his wives. Theres one favourite among them and though shes not the most beautiful of the wives, she has managed to steal the husbands heart by making herself a real friend. When he is in her room, half of the time he is rocking with laughter. For the remaining half, they are still chuckling from time to time because of the little jokes that come readily from her during their conversation. The woman, my friend says, has a way of treating her husbands problems with proverbial humour. Like he coming in after the days job and saying to her: You wouldnt believe what is happening to me again. And she cutting in: Oh yes, Id believe. Because one Jehovahs Witness did tell me this morning that the world would end next month. And all of us with our loads of problems should carry them conspicuously so that God could see us with our loads immediately and Hed be too moved to chuck us into hell! So, its no use worrying ourselves right now. After that, shes waiting to hear his problems, but hes still rolling away in laughter. The other wives are too wrapped up in themselves, too busy with being just wives, their main concern is to remain docile like his junior sisters! So, you see, if that man had been a monogamist, and married to one of them, you would hardly blame him if he fell prey to another woman who had the qualities of his favourite wife - the qualities that make a good friend at home.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 09:56:54 +0000
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