WHY PASTORS ARE HAVING ISSUES WITH THEIR WIVES AND DIVORCING. When he married his wife 20 years ago, Mr. Tasie managed a thriving business. The wedding was the talk of the town as there was plenty wining and dining. The couple’s desire was to live happily together forever. Subsequently, their lovely marriage was blessed with two children – a boy and a girl. One of their children is already a 300 level student in a public university. All seemed right until many years after when calamity struck... Tasie’s business could no longer take care of the family’s needs. To make the matter worse, he came down with a serious illness and had to spend the little that the family could garner financially on his medical bills. The situation became unbearable for his family members, his relationship with his wife gradually turned sour. It got so bad that the 55-year-old and his wife recently asked the court to dissolve their marriage. The court, after much arbitration, granted their prayer based on irreconcilable differences. On the day that the judgement was delivered, Tasie could barely stand in court because of ill health. He had to sit, just as the floor where he put his legs was mopped at intervals because the sore on his feet kept discharging pores. Even in that state, he told the court how he had cared for his family and the incident that altered the course of his destiny. He said that his wife had made his life miserable by not caring for him when it mattered most. He even alleged that his wife infected him with the disease. He rolled on the floor begging the court to let his wife and children go as they desired. He pleaded, “Please let them go or they will kill me before my time.” His wife on the other hand, told the court that her husband never trusted her enough to listen to anything she told him. She said that he usually sniffed her underpants whenever she came back from the market where she traded. She added that all the profit from her business had gone into taking care of her husband and the family. She said, “Despite all these, he beat me and stripped me naked in public.” She cried to the court to dissolve their union based on this reason and denied infecting him with any disease. But her husband insisted she had been seeing another man, who purportedly was present in court to witness the divorce and take his once loving wife away from him. Their 20-year-old marriage was subsequently dissolved and both parties parted ways. The wife was given custody of the children but Tasie could see them once in a month in the court premises. The Tasies had their marriage dissolved after 20 years, but the case of a 28-year-old woman, Mrs. Ekeh, was a sharp contrast. After all the fanfare that characterised her marriage barely one year ago, she had asked for the dissolution of her marriage. Standing before an Ojo Customary Court in Lagos recently, she said that she wanted a divorce because she had, had frequent disagreements with her husband since they got married. She asked for the dissolution of her one-year-old marriage, citing incompatibility with her husband as reason for the divorce. Ekeh told the court that the marriage had virtually collapsed as they had been technically separated for several months after her bride price was paid. However, considering the duration of the union, the magistrate asked the couple to seek a means of resolving their differences, especially by seeking counsel from elderly members of their extended families. If, however, they still insisted on parting ways, the court said it would have no other choice but to honour their request. ____________________ Mr. Jide Zaid, a lawyer of over 25 years, versed in handling matrimonial cases, told Punch that cases like that of Tasie and Ekeh families were true reflections of recent rising spate of divorce cases in Nigeria. Although he said that the development was common with younger married people, there had also been a significant growth in cases involving older couples. He described it as a global trend, citing harsh economic conditions, social networks, absence of children in marriage and loss of African family values as the usual reasons for divorce. He said, “When a man, who used to spoil his wife with luxuries suddenly becomes unable to fend for the family, it could become unbearable for his wife and usually, the first casualty is the marriage. “When a girl introduced a man to the mother these days, they wouldn’t ask if she loved him; they asked what he did for a living. So when the object of attraction is gone, the centre will no longer hold.” To him, “Social network has also encouraged promiscuity among married people such that even after leaving your girl or boy friends, you can be in bed with their spouses and still stay in touch with them through BBM, Facebook and the likes.” He identified three contentious issues in divorce cases - the actual dissolution of marriage, settlement of property and custody of the children. He decried the rate at which he received expression of interest in divorce from couples seeking divorce. Zaid said, “Compared to 10 years ago when I might not get more than one, I am currently handling 10 divorce cases in court. The number would have been more except that we succeed in persuading some to seek alternative ways of resolving their differences, especially when children are involved. “The number of divorce cases is astronomical among people who have been married for just between six months and two years.” At Ikeja High Court, Punch found that 70 per cent of cases listed for hearing everyday were divorce-related. Also, statistics obtained at the Ikeja Customary Court showed that in 9 months, Lagos State had recorded about 960 divorce cases in customary courts alone. There are 48 customary courts in Lagos apart from the High Courts. A judge, who would not want his name mentioned, because he was not the spokesperson of the Justice ministry in the state, told our correspondent that except something was done, the number of divorces would soon be at par with the number of marriages. He said, “Unlike few years ago when only about 10 marriages got dissolved; today, about 100 get dissolved within three months.” It is usually a tale of two worlds at the Ikeja Local Government premises on days when partners in some marriages walk in angrily to file for divorce, while those just entering the union will be rejoicing on the other side. Another lawyer, who has handled matrimonial cases for 26 years, Mr. Kunle Fadipe, shared his experience with Punch. He described the growth in divorce cases among young and old couples and even pastors as phenomenal. “The most disturbing aspect of my experience is that more pastors and their wives are seeking to dissolve their marriages in spite of the Biblical stand against such. “Right now, I have a number of them that I am handling... I now get at least five families in a month asking that their marriages be dissolved. “With many entreaties, one or two of those five end up in court. The work is overwhelming for lawyers. There was a case involving a pastor and his pastor wife. The Judge had to appeal to them to go and settle their differences as ministers of God. He thought they should know better, but they would not go back on that decision. More than 50 per cent of marriages contracted these days end up in divorce.” On the reasons for the trend, Fadipe said economic factors, immaturity of people going into marriages and fake dispositions during courtship were the main reasons. Asked to give a comparison between the ratio of marriages and divorces, the General Overseer of Evangelical Ministries, Lagos, Bishop Stephen Ogedengbe, said that more divorces were taking place than marriages. He said that although people do not always inform the church that they want divorce, it eventually comes to light. As for marriages, he said that the harsh economy had made it difficult for many young men to marry. He said, “It is correct that the cases of divorce are rising. From my observation, there are more divorces now than there are marriages because young men can’t even afford to get married. Many do not have jobs. “In most families, the woman is the one footing the bills, yet the man wants to lord it over her. It gets to a point that the woman becomes tired. “There are more of these cases among pastors, especially those I call the reactionary pastors: those who are not groomed or mature for the job. There are those that are still susceptible to infidelity; those who got into the ministry because they had failed in their actual vocations. Some pastors are also unfortunate to have been married to ladies that cannot fit into the position of a pastor’s wife. Eventually, they call it quits. Of course, you know that the church will never accede to that.” Professional marriage counsellor, Pastor Bisi Adewale, said marriages crashed mainly because of ignorance, pride and promiscuity. He said that while many couples shy away from seeking help when their marriages were threatened, others simply did not know the right places to seek such intervention until things got to a head. “Most pastors are not trained counsellors, so they may not know how to tackle threatening divorce in marriage. Besides, some men fail to meet their responsibilities to their immediate families, creating cracks in the wall,” he said.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 13:29:55 +0000
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