Getting a wife

For some curious reasons, mar­riage is becoming popular. The churches are even encourag­ing it, although if you are caught romancing before marriage, you are likely to be summoned before a dis­ciplinary committee which will be empowered to investigate whether there is an evil spirit involved.

After the offending church mem­bers are made to testify, a deliv­erance session will be organised so that the evil spirit responsible for pre-marital licence can be paid off. The spirit will be asked to vamoose and come back no more.

The ‘couple’ now free of evil, one will be asked to go through counsel­ling to prepare them for marriage that is if they really want to become man and wife.

Prospective brides and grooms are always advised to attend counselling together, they are taught all about the need for marriage and how marriage should be conducted along biblical lines.

They are taught to love and not to hate, and tutored on issues concern­ing reproductive health and child bearing and courtship.

Normally when it comes to court­ship, the Pastor realises that those he is counselling are more knowl­edgeable in the subject than himself. In that sense, the Pastor should be the one who deserves counselling, because there are some tricks he should be made to learn judging from his ignorance.

However, in some cases, a coun­sellor has so much experience that those counselled are compelled to listen. The counsellor takes the pains to teach even the art and craft of lovemaking, which aims at equip­ping the man with all knowledge he needs to satisfy his wife in bed and vice versa.

In doing all these, the pastor assumes that the man and woman before him, listening with rapt at­tention, aren’t already copulating. It means they do not know each other, of course in the carnal sense.

But if they already know them­selves, they are supposed to keep it a secret from the pastor, otherwise they would be charged with engaging in pre-marital sex, which is against the doctrine of the Lord Jesus, the Christ.

After the counselling sessions, which can take some six weeks, the prospective couple are supposed to be ready for the altar, where they would be blessed and whatever they do in bed can be regarded as sanctioned by the church, encour­aged from the pulpit and blessed in heaven . Halleluyah!

The fact that man and woman have gone through counselling means they must wed. These days, howev­er, the pastor would require an AIDS certificate before the two are bonded together. The idea is that, the church must not be party to situations where two individuals are joined together to infect each other, in short, for one to kill the other.

But the issue of AIDS certificates often becomes untenable, because in many instances, before counselling, the man had already known the wom­an about thousand times and without condoms, so the issue of one infect­ing the other doesn’t rise.

So it is the duty of the man to tell the pastor not to worry his head, because even ‘yesterday was a good time.’

The only problem is that people fear to tell the pastor the truth, meaning that hypocrisy in the church is accepted as a virtue and plain talk a vice.

Plain talk can only complicate matters for you, because in the first place the pastor expects you to hide certain things from him. Even if you are having pre-marital sex, the pastor expects you to say nay! Never! God forbid! Then you’ll be regarded as good material for heaven.

For man and woman who have long known each other succumb to an AIDS test, which I bet, isn’t an easy thing.

The problem with the test is that a positive result is worse than a death sentence. So you’d want to live without knowing whether you are positive or negative.

I have also learnt one strange thing about the disease and the test. Those who sound very confident that they are virus-free are those who test positive. Those who are not quite sure all come out negative.

When you present a negative result to the pastor, he rejoices with you, pending the outcome of that of your mate. If she is negative, praise the Lord.

A positive result, however, prompts the pastor to quickly ask you to leave the church premises lest you infect the congregation. So you leave mournfully and start preparing for your obituary.

It is quite interesting the way pastors insist on the AIDS certificates as the only foolproof passport into marriage. For their information it is not.

When the AIDS virus enters into the human body, it might not be detected until sometime after six months. So an AIDS test can be neg­ative today but positive when it is done after six months.

The pastors, themselves need to be tutored on the disease and should also be tested to show their congre­gation that they are free from the virus, and that they are being faithful to their wives.