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Not every choice from the past deserves ridicule; sometimes, it deserves understanding. [iStockphoto]
A lady recently brewed a storm against a first wife, otherwise called “Goat Wife,” for staying in her matrimonial home after her husband abandoned her for twenty-one years. The words thrown around included “choose you,” “love yourself,” “respect yourself”, and many such lines. It was putting the dutiful mother and wife down for doing what she believed was the best option under her prevailing circumstances.
There is a reason why, if a new law must apply retroactively, it must be stated clearly. More often than not, new laws will apply to cases that occur after that law is enacted. It is thus preposterous of young ladies to look down upon the older generation for living their lives as their times in past dictated.
Today the reference “millennial” or “generation X” online carries derogative undertones because of such misplaced superiority. AI is going to push you off your low-hanging perch.
I used to hold strong feelings against wife inheritance. Talk of the HIV-Aids traumas of the 1990s to early 2000s. I just looked down upon men I heard had inherited a widow back in the village and had more bile for the widow for giving in to the selfish wishes of men. Until I grew up and met a widow who has stayed in our clan, got inherited and had a family!
Why she stayed
I met her after many years because she moved away a few years after her husband died. Looking at her now, she was divorced in her twenties and her husband left her without a child. She hails from a neighbouring country, so I believe it was easier to go back home and start this marriage journey again. Then I asked her why she stayed when she had no child and she was young and I got a Ruth answer.
According to her, she left her people to get married into my clan. There was no way she was going back to her people. Even if none of my uncles had offered to inherit her, she would have stayed on her piece of land until her death. She was grateful that God had remembered her and given her three children. It was her choice, made without coercion. She made me change my perception of wife inheritance. It is better to have one known partner than change men and remain single and independent.
When an adult of sound mind makes a choice that doesn’t make sense to you, respect it. The tools available at the time of taking that decision allowed for that choice. You will never know what options were available, what ran through her mind while making it and why she picked the choice she took.
For that matter, we all need to look back at our elders with grace. Especially in family setups and where children are involved. When a woman or a man chooses to stay in an abusive marriage despite efforts to get them out, respect it. More so when children are involved. Separation and divorce affect children in ways we often don’t want to highlight or acknowledge. The same way, staying in an abusive marriage will have effects on them. It is about choosing the better poison.
In such cases, be gentle with such people and affirm them. By the time you get to hear about it, a lot of water has gone under that dark and slippery bridge. They don’t need your negative energy and bashing. Who tells you that your children will look at your context and choices you made and clap for you? It is these “archaic” choices that led to us being born and have preserved most of us to who we are today.
Nothing new
Times change, culture is dynamic and new models come up every day. What you believe is the best thing to ever happen to your gender could be viewed as a disaster a generation down the line. As a lover of history, I have come across stories in my village of women who left marriages in the nineteenth century. There is nothing new under the sun.
Raila Odinga’s grandmother was married and later widowed in Kisumu. She left that home and found another husband in Bondo. We all know of her household in Bondo; nobody ever brings up the Kajulu side of it. This was about a century before your parents saw the Internet.
Relax, the world is moving. In the larger scheme of things, our experiences are only a punctuation mark in the big picture story. It is not always about you and what you think is a new cool belief. What we are experiencing now as revolutionary, especially for our women, was experienced in the West over fifty years ago.
You can travel and go look at how their families and societies have turned out, then ask yourself if that is what you want.
Every rose comes with thorns, so look at both sides of what you aspire to. That should inform your decision on what you will tell someone you believe wasted their time in a context that made sense to them.
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Not every choice from the past deserves ridicule; sometimes, it deserves understanding.
[iStockphoto]
A lady recently brewed a storm against a first wife, otherwise called “Goat Wife,” for staying in her matrimonial home after her husband abandoned her for twenty-one years. The words thrown around included “choose you,” “love yourself,” “respect yourself”, and many such lines. It was putting the dutiful mother and wife down for doing what she believed was the best option under her prevailing circumstances.
There is a reason why, if a new law must apply retroactively, it must be stated clearly. More often than not, new laws will apply to cases that occur after that law is enacted. It is thus preposterous of young ladies to look down upon the older generation for living their lives as their times in past dictated.
Today the reference “millennial” or “generation X” online carries derogative undertones because of such misplaced superiority. AI is going to push you off your low-hanging perch.
I used to hold strong feelings against wife inheritance. Talk of the HIV-Aids traumas of the 1990s to early 2000s. I just looked down upon men I heard had inherited a widow back in the village and had more bile for the widow for giving in to the selfish wishes of men. Until I grew up and met a widow who has stayed in our clan, got inherited and had a family!
Why she stayed
I met her after many years because she moved away a few years after her husband died. Looking at her now, she was divorced in her twenties and her husband left her without a child. She hails from a neighbouring country, so I believe it was easier to go back home and start this marriage journey again. Then I asked her why she stayed when she had no child and she was young and I got a Ruth answer.
According to her, she left her people to get married into my clan. There was no way she was going back to her people. Even if none of my uncles had offered to inherit her, she would have stayed on her piece of land until her death. She was grateful that God had remembered her and given her three children. It was her choice, made without coercion. She made me change my perception of wife inheritance. It is better to have one known partner than change men and remain single and independent.
When an adult of sound mind makes a choice that doesn’t make sense to you, respect it. The tools available at the time of taking that decision allowed for that choice. You will never know what options were available, what ran through her mind while making it and why she picked the choice she took.
For that matter, we all need to look back at our elders with grace. Especially in family setups and where children are involved. When a woman or a man chooses to stay in an abusive marriage despite efforts to get them out, respect it. More so when children are involved. Separation and divorce affect children in ways we often don’t want to highlight or acknowledge. The same way, staying in an abusive marriage will have effects on them. It is about choosing the better poison.
In such cases, be gentle with such people and affirm them. By the time you get to hear about it, a lot of water has gone under that dark and slippery bridge. They don’t need your negative energy and bashing. Who tells you that your children will look at your context and choices you made and clap for you? It is these “archaic” choices that led to us being born and have preserved most of us to who we are today.
Nothing new
Times change, culture is dynamic and new models come up every day. What you believe is the best thing to ever happen to your gender could be viewed as a disaster a generation down the line. As a lover of history, I have come across stories in my village of women who left marriages in the nineteenth century. There is nothing new under the sun.
Raila Odinga’s grandmother was married and later widowed in Kisumu. She left that home and found another husband in Bondo. We all know of her household in Bondo; nobody ever brings up the Kajulu side of it. This was about a century before your parents saw the Internet.
Relax, the world is moving. In the larger scheme of things, our experiences are only a punctuation mark in the big picture story. It is not always about you and what you think is a new cool belief. What we are experiencing now as revolutionary, especially for our women, was experienced in the West over fifty years ago.
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You can travel and go look at how their families and societies have turned out, then ask yourself if that is what you want.
Every rose comes with thorns, so look at both sides of what you aspire to. That should inform your decision on what you will tell someone you believe wasted their time in a context that made sense to them.
By Kenyatta Otieno