The Sun newspaper of Sunday, January 4, 2018, published the reactions of people concerning the woman, who is carrying pregnancy from her son-in-law. Nobody spoke in her favour or that of her randy son-in-law. Mama did not seem to see any evil in what they did. She did not realize that they sinned against God, against her daughter, against her other children, against herself and also against the society.

Her grouse and singular pain were that she had thought that the sex relationship she consented to would be a once- for-all affair. Secondly, that she was pregnant at her age, when she should be in menopause. Menopause at 43, if that age is correct! Well, she is the first mother-in-law I know, who is younger than the son-in-law. If she was not pregnant, nothing could have stopped their unholy union. A mother-in-law! I wrote it in my books and also in this column and I have preached it in many Churches that a mother-in-law is a mother a man acquires by law through marriage. How would such a woman be sleeping with her son-in-law?

Mama’s third pain was that her daughter did not cooperate with her in terminating the pregnancy. She forgot that a woman gave birth to her and that she gave birth to her daughter, whose husband, she was snatching. If the man’s mum had terminated the pregnancy, would he have married her daughter? Why then should she kill the baby in her womb? Some people agreed that the innocent baby in her womb should be murdered. Their take was that it is an abomination for her to deliver the baby. After the abortion, they said that certain rituals would be performed to appease the gods. They did not say how the Living God, Whose law will be violated, and has been violated, would be appeased.

Mama claimed that their sinful acts started from joking, perhaps, by expensive jokes. Should a son and his mum indulge in that unholy manner? When a door is opened to sin, the extent it can go cannot be guaranteed. Lookery may be followed by touching, kissing, fondling and then sex. They might have enjoyed all these processes. Any slight guilt in any of them might have been crushed by the other person’s passion. ‘I saw thee when you were under the fig tree,’ Jesus told Nathaniel. God sees all things! The next day, they might have resumed their union with greater pleasure. All sinful acts, be it armed robbery, stealing, kidnapping, etc, follow the same pattern. One day, God decided to expose them. Mama, a widow, had lost her monthly period, and the world was then told what had been going on in secret. The pain at the end is now surpassing whatever bliss they had enjoyed.    

Uncle’s feeble argument was that her mother-in-law, nay his mum, seduced him by exposing what should be hidden. Sin is in the heart. He saw what he was looking out for and it enticed him. When a female staff in my farm sat in a similar way during our meeting, not to embarrass her, I sent her a text to sit well. I have written in this column, how I went to buy a recharge card at the PWD Bus Stop at Ikeja. I saw a recharge signpost displayed by a lady. I noticed that she also displayed something else by the way she was sitting. Not sure which one she was really marketing, I bought from another lady, I was sure what she was selling. Uncle would have ignored Mama or sent her on errand that would make her sit well, when she returned to her seat. If she did not, and like the PWD lady, had continued her advertisement, he would have spoken volumes through body language, such as frowning his face, leaving the food and going back to work.

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Some people blamed her daughter for carelessness, as she did not suspect what might transpire between her husband and mum. That she would not have invited her mum to the farm when she was not there. I refuse to buy this position. How could she imagine sexual relationship between a man and his mum? There are randy men in town but my wife cannot suspect what I might do with her mum or our daughters. No man needs to be born-again before he refrains from such wicked deeds. I have argued in this column our error in branding a randy man, ‘a dog’. My male dog died when the female one was pregnant. It gave birth to two puppies, male and female. I was coasting on the fact that the male dog would be crossing the mother dog when it was old. It never crossed the mum, even to my hurt! But a human being has done that, crossing his mother-in-law. Chileke!

Trust is basic in life, also in marriage. When I was engaged in marriage, Marriage Counselling was unknown, but being believers, we knew that she would not stay in my house, when she was to visit me in Lagos. She was to stay with my Bible Study Leader, Prof. Francis Onofeghara. Her dad refused. ‘You people say you are born-again, she will then stay in your house,’ he wrote. Trust! Expectation! Thank God that before he passed on, he was like us, born-again!

Nobody is happy for the sexual relationship between a mum and her son, exposed by pregnancy. If there was no pregnancy, Uncle would have continued as ‘Citizen Joe’ cartoon of the Sun newspaper of January 18, 2018, painted, ‘Smart guy. He paid for one and got one free’. It was not the pregnancy that made God to know what they did. He knows all the things we do, including those people, doing the same thing right now. Some men, who in the day put on designer’s suit and are well-respected in the society, might have slept with their daughters or housemaids during the night! Uncle might not have been the first man to sleep with his mother-in-law. We can now appreciate God for the pains He goes through because of our sins. Jesus lived with and endured Judas for three and half years before he betrayed Him

To cover the sin they committed, Mama wants her pregnancy to be terminated. This is the problem with us, committing sin brazenly and labouring to cover it. God’s position is that anybody who covers his sin will not prosper. Adam violated God’s law and hid himself. Achan ignored the instruction from Joshua, his GOC, and lusted after money and clothes. To conceal his deeds, he buried them. Today, people do terrible things and still sit comfortably in the Church, singing and praising God. People kill by night and cover their tracks, but one day, they stand in the court to disclose the things they did. The best thing to do is to avoid evil deeds rather than labouring to cover the evil committed.

For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi:   0802 3002-471;anyalechiosondu@yahoo,com