Features
The epidemic of failing marriages
Observing the typical Sikaman family from afar, one can really be amused. You won’t fall to see a family member behaving exactly like a Vice-President and another doubling like a Trades Union Congress (TUC) man.
There is also every chance for you to meet an opposition flag bearer and if you’re lucky, you’d meet the President himself, His Excellency Sir Kwame Korkorti, commander-in-chief of the family forces, head of state of the Republic of Korkorti and Sons.
There are various family types with some having the wife as the President for reasons too obvious to mention. They are the breadwinners, and on top of that, they wield the power of the laddle; meaning that the portofolio of the kitchen is under their armpit.
In such a situation, the husband ceases to be a power broker. At best he is a linguist. He doesn’t make the rules, he interprets them. Such a family is a stable one because the woman is a better manager of family resources for the fact that she doesn’t spend on alcohol. She may take ‘quarter’ once in a while, but that is only to trigger off a dull appetite against fufu and groundnut soup.
The sad thing about the Sikaman family is that many of them do not last these days. It is also a fact akin to a worrisome global trend. In the United States, three out of every five marriages end on the rocks. In Russia getting married today and getting divorced the next dawn is a common phenomenon.
Press reports on the Russian situation denote a sad palaver of a super-power society. Russian women are blamed for most of the divorces. According to observers, they are unfaithful to their husbands, a factor that has skyrocketed the incidence of the divorce comedy.
Some, however, blame capitalism on the bad turn of events. With a liberal political and economic atmosphere, everyone is said to be liberated, adventurous wives inclusive. So their husbands must bear with the situation or quit. No compromise!
The Russian situation isn’t an isolated one, though. The whole palaver is that divorce is becoming a global epidemic, a disease no vaccine is able to prevent. I was sad when Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley got divorced.
The lady claimed Mike could not do “things” to her. “He didn’t know I ever existed”, she bemoaned the last days of a tragedy-hit marriage. If that is true, then I’m sorry for her. She should have taken someone like Kokotako. It would have been a different story altogether, because the guy regularly drinks the dregs of palmwine. No lady comes and goes back without a dream in her heart.
Tyson and Lady Diana
Talk about the marriage of Mike Tyson to the beautiful Robin Givens and you’ll realise how it all started fairy-tale-like and ended in a bedroom that and often been transformed into a boxing ring – a mini Madison Square Garden.
When Tyson took Givens and her mother to Russia, I guess the cold entered into Mike’s head and he chased wife and mother around a hotel swearing to kill them.
The old lady did not know she was a good sprinter until the occasion presented itself. And she ran as if she had mad-cow disease. The die was certainly cast. In a television appearance with Mike, Givens told the interviewer that her husband suffered psychiatric problems and beat her. Mike could not bear it any longer. They divorced.
The marriage between Prince Charles and Lady Diana and its tragic coda is one that has brought doubts whether the monarchy is worth perpetuating or dismantling. My own opinion is that the monarchy is no longer worth a dime. Not with all these sexual tragicomedies inundating the centre of the royal family by a relentless osmosis.
Anyway, before the marriage, an astrologer announced it would not last. The prince, a Scorpio and the princess a Cancer, both of the water group were supposed to experience a very boring marriage. With a supposedly incompatible birth numbers and whatever, the astrologer declared the marriage was disaster-bound.
It is not, however, clear whether it is a prophecy come true or the marriage could have been saved if both had wanted to preserve the honour of the monarchy. And with the prince and princess having been very liberal with desecrating the temple of God in adulterous escapades, the monarchy has lost the moral legitimacy of its existence. Moreso when other members of the royal family like Fergie have been too morally wayward for the sanctity of and reverence for the throne.
In Sikaman, the cause of rock-bound marriage include money palaver, infidelity, sexual incompatibility, boredom and common snoring. Well, some wives complain that when their husband snore, the foundation of the building shakes. So they experience mini earthquakes at night and cannot sleep. So they must go to their parents and complain.
The palaver is that in some cases the women out-snore the men, but the men rarely complain. It is normally the women who complain to their parents as a first step to quitting the marriage.
“I am terrified”, a wife will tell her parents. “I can’t sleep even if I take valium.
When he takes akpeteshie before supper, it is worse. It is like his nose has been plugged to high-voltage electricity. I can’t stand it any longer. One day the building will collapse on us”.
“But didn’t you know the man was a dangerous snorer before you decided to stay with him?” her father would ask.
“At first it was not so serious. Now it has become like a criminal offence since he is depriving me of my sleep. He has to be put before the High Court”.
Problems associated with marriage can be minimised with counselling before and after marriage.
Very good marriage counsellors teach you how to become sexually compatible, how to resolve family crisis, how to bring excitement into a dull marriage and how to tone down a vibrating nose.
This is what the churches do these days. They have trained marriage counsellors that take prospective couples through the theory and practice of marriage. Perhaps if Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie had been counselled, it would have been a different matter today.
And Lady Diana would still have been in the arms of the Prince of Wales.
This article was first published on Saturday, November 2, 1996
The children started bombarding Gladys with questions from the moment she got home around seven.
“Mama, where is Sarah? We haven’t seen her the whole day.”
“She went to spend a few days with one of your uncles in Accra. She will be back in a few days.”
“One of our uncles? Which uncle? I never knew any uncles in Accra who would invite us to spend time with them.”
“You don’t know all your relatives, my dear. I think we should do something about that.”
“But how can Sarah leave just like that? Mama, this is not fair. Is she not our sister?”
“I’m very sorry, my dear. As I said, she will be back in a few days.”
“As for me, I don’t understand at all. You are living in your house with your sister, then one morning you wake up and she’s not there. And when you ask, they tell you stories. Maybe we won’t even see her again.”
Simon got home around ten. Gladys was preparing for bed. He noticed her swollen eyes.
“What’s the problem, Gladys?”
“David Asante called this afternoon. He said that Sarah was with him. And the kids are demanding to know where she is.”
“Ei! But how did she locate him?”
“I think she found his number in my handbag after I told her his name, and called him.”
“I see. This is certainly troubling. But Gladys, there is also a bright side to it, isn’t there? The guy is her father. He was bound to come for her sooner or later. I’m sure he was just waiting for the right time. And now that he has found her, he will assume full financial responsibility for her.”
“I knew you would say that. You are now able to avoid any responsibility. But don’t forget that I told him that he was not the father, and he seems to have accepted the situation till now.”
“That’s a ridiculous statement. He certainly didn’t accept it. He must have assessed the cost of fighting you for custody, and decided to wait. He may have even been advised by a lawyer. And let’s face it, Gladys, what we did was wrong. Very wrong. You must accept the fact that your main motivation for taking Sarah away from him was revenge. Revenge on him for ending the marriage. And such behaviour always goes with punishment. I don’t want to blame anyone for my problems, but you don’t steal somebody’s child and expect life to deal leniently with you. Let’s accept the situation. Let’s eat humble pie. In fact, I would even go as far as saying that we should go and apologise to him. Immediately.”
“You must be crazy, Simon. All that beer has gone to your head. Don’t you have any pride, as a normal human being? You can go up there, crawl on your knees and beg for forgiveness, but don’t expect to find food waiting for you when you get back.”
“Shut up! You proud, selfish woman. It’s always about you. You are so proud and selfish. Let this be the last time you insult me, okay? I do not bring enough money to help with the family upkeep, but have you counted the cost of your insults on the children? Do you know what you do to your children’s emotions when you insult their father before them constantly? Listen well. Tomorrow morning, we are going to David Asante’s house to apologise for our behaviour. Our stupidity. We leave at five. Call him, or get someone to give you the directions to his house. And pray that God will forgive us for what we did to the innocent girl and her father, and change our difficult circumstances here.”
Betty knocked gently on the bedroom door. Adoma asked her to come in.
“Madam, Steven says there are two people at the gate who want to see you. They are Simon and Gladys.”
“Whaat!” David said.
“Let them in,” Adoma said. “Offer them seats, and water. We will be with them in a few minutes.”
Some fifteen minutes later, David greeted and welcomed them.
“I will go straight to the point,” Simon started. “My wife Gladys and I are here for one main reason. We are here to apologise, without any reservations, for our behaviour that resulted in depriving you of custody of your daughter Sarah, for over seventeen years. We also apologise, unreservedly, for all the associated hardship that you suffered. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to make amends for our behaviour, so please find it in your hearts to forgive us. Now Gladys, do you have anything to say?”
“I agree with every word Simon has spoken. I am very sorry for my behaviour. I am begging you to forgive me, and Simon, for what we did. We are prepared to do anything in our power to make amends.”
“Okay,” David said after quite a pause. “I, we accept your apologies. All is completely forgiven. The only thing we will request from you is to provide us with all Sarah’s school and other records. That is all we need. But I appreciate your boldness for coming, and your frankness.”
“We are so grateful. We will not take much of your time. We will beg to leave.” Adoma whispered a few words into Simon’s ear, and he nodded.
“Sister Gladys, may I have a word with you?” They moved to another side of the hall. “I was wondering if there’s any issue we could help you with.”
“Well, the problem is that Simon brings virtually nothing home. All is not well at his job, and my salary is simply inadequate. If I could get some capital, I would revive the bakery. It was doing well, but we were using our working capital for feeding. If I could start running it, that would give me another steady source of income.”
“So how much will you need to revive it?”
“Ten thousand cedis, to service the machines, and to buy flour, sugar and other ingredients.”
“Okay. We will give you twelve thousand cedis to fully revive the business and sort out any outstanding issues. And we will give your husband five thousand cedis to help him with what they call one-two-one-two. Let’s go back to our seats.” Adoma whispered back into David’s ear. David went to the bedroom, came back and handed an envelope each to Simon and Gladys.
“Thank you very much, David. We are truly grateful. Well then, we will be on our way.”
“Steven will drop you at the bus station. But before you go, let’s tell Sarah you are here. Or, Adoma, why don’t you call all of them?”
The girls came and stood before them.
“Abrefi and Adaawa, this is Sarah’s mother Auntie Gladys, and her stepfather Uncle Simon. Sarah, they came in to apologise for any mistakes they made in the past, and have promised to do anything they can to put everything in its place. Now, you fully belong here, but we will later find a way for you to interact with your two other siblings. Is that okay?” Sarah nodded, and the couple rose, hugged her and walked to the door.
“Now, Frenchman,” Adoma said as she hugged her husband, “Sarah is fully and truly yours.”
“I noticed,” Simon said as they sat on the bus to Koforidua, “that your envelope was much bigger than mine. Why is that?”
“You should count yourself lucky that I did not snatch it before he handed it to you. Listen, they asked me what they could do to help us, and they gave me the money after I specifically told them that I need help to revive the bakery. I’m going to make sure that it brings in good profit. And they gave you the money to help you fix anything that is outstanding. I don’t think anything is more important than your car. If you can do some repairs on it, you can take the kids to school and back, you can help me with bakery purchases and deliveries, and you can get some respect back by driving to work and back instead of taking tro-tro.”
“I will certainly do that, I assure you. I’m taking this as an opportunity to put our life back in order. I will not disappoint.”
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
THE journey from life to death is a musical one. The human corpse knows not what is happening but the soul exists and plays the music of life after death. Sometimes becoming a ghost to frighten and plays the music threat to little children and adults too. Of course, older people are more scared of ghosts than their children; what a shame!
The problem with the dead, at least at the mortuaries, is not a ghostly one, however. It is one of temperature. It is somewhat of a tradition that those who refuse to continue living are detained in custody probably against their will. It is a sort of transit point with extremely low temperatures such that a woman being (human being) can be likened to frown tune.
This is necessary pre-burial procedure and every corpse, no matter the height, social status or volume of moustache must enjoy a full-air-conditioned living status in a transit quarters.
If this is not done and properly too, people in the area cannot breathe. Perhaps if you visit Rwanda, you’ll realise the nasal implications of what I’m driving at. Till this very day, corpses are still floating in rivers, a painful reminder of the stupidity of war.
Preserving human corpses in Sikaman has become a big problem of late. Recently, when Spectator reporters visited the Korle Bu Mortuary, they found corpses rotting. When the landlords of the mortuary — rats — were asked to comment on the situation, they simply scurried away. Fat well-fed rats they were and had practically no respect for anybody. These days, even rats don’t respect.
Last week, the Mirror also reported that 200 dead bodies “have been crammed into refrigerated chambers meant for 72 at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, because there is nowhere in the capital that has room for preserving corpses.
As you can imagine, the situation is such for the dead bodies to move about for fresh air and that, certainly, is against the freedom of movement, which is a violation of the Constitution.
According to the report, the Police Hospital cold room with a 30-sleeper capacity has also been jammed with 60 bodies and Ridge Hospital which takes only six has been forced to do with 12. In effect, some of the corpses are ‘perching’. Many of them are in fact gate-crashers.
When it happens this way, identifying corpses for burial becomes a problem. One problem is that the corpses are notorious for changing their positions without obtaining permission. This has to do with the mortuary-men though.
After they’ve fixed your corpse and you’re gone, immediately another corpse arrives and the owners grease palms and your corpse will be moved to Siberia and the new candidate put in its place.
The next time you come to check whether your corpse is in good condition and enjoying the breeze, you are certain to find it in an entirely different place, a place you won’t like. If you’re not lucky, you’ll find it outside the freezer, an indication that you didn’t apply grease to the required quantity.
So what it means is that you have to be constantly greasing palms to avoid the problem of your corpse being made to participate in the game of elimination by substitution. The day you take away your body for burial, you also cease greasing palms. And all these would not have been the case if there were ample space and every corpse is offered the “one-man one-seat” VIP treatment.
There are many factors that contribute to the over-population of corpses. And one of them is that Sikaman natives do not want to bury their corpses in good time. Some wait for well over three months because the family has not even agreed as to whether the corpse should be buried, much more where it should be buried.
It is surprising that these things go on in spite of high mortuary fees. If every deceased person could be buried at most two weeks after death, the congestion will greatly reduce. But this will never be so in Sikaman.
A funeral committee will be set up with special powers to legislate, if not decree on how the corpse should be decorated, how many cartons of beer and gallons of akpeteshie must be bought, which brand of coffin must be procured and whether the corpse should be laid in state with a punk haircut or with sakora.
And suddenly, someone who has never worn a decent pair of trousers all throughout his life appears in a three-piece suit, but refusing to smile. Obviously it is not happy about the posthumous sartorial award. Why didn’t they give him the suit when he was alive?
Before the funeral committee finalises plans, the mortuary bill hits 2800.000 more, and this will surely be paid. What vanity, a pathetic instance of the vain gloriousness of the Sikaman mentality!
In Northern Nigeria, as I’ve once said; the Hausa’s don’t have time for this ‘nonsense.” If you say you’re dead, you’ll be given a grace period of three hours to wake up and apologise for your pretensions. After three hours, no one gives you extra-time.
Fact is that the situation is not synonymous with that of a game of soccer. You’ll be buried pronto and that ends it.
In some parts of the world, mortuaries are not necessary except for autopsy purposes. Corpses are cremated and people subscribe to it because of the belief, however misplaced, that when a body is cremated the soul finds immediate solace and heads straight to its maker.
In Sikaman, cremation has never been given any thought for the very fact that it is not part of our way of life. To burn man like khebab is not the Ghanaian’s idea of an obituary, so the problem of mortuary space will persist.
Another fact is that in this country, even when it comes to dealing with dead bodies, the state handles the matter, which in fact should not be the case.
Elsewhere, mortuary matters are dealt with by licensed private companies. And corpses are better treated by undertakers who are paid for the job. Corpses are bathed, put in polythene and decently preserved.
In our mortuaries, corpses are treated too indecently. The ‘mortuary-men’ do not even have the courtesy to say ‘good-morning” to the dead bodies. At least they deserve a ‘hello’ and, “Have you had a nice sleep? Looks like, you’re having a headache. How about trimming your moustache a bit.”
Private mortuaries! Isn’t it time we had them and left the rats to their arrogance at the over-crowded government hospital mortuaries?
This article was first published on Saturday, December 10, 1994
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
