The call came and I received it with my usual excitement each time the person called. His request was however, strange. It was a plea for his wife to visit me in Lagos so that I would counsel her on how to marry him. I smelt a rat! I told him that I do not counsel a spouse without the partner when there is a misunderstanding and that my house was available for the two of them, any time and at any day. My position of not talking to a spouse alone was strengthened a few weeks before his call, when I went to minister at the Assemblies of God’s Church, Surulere. I was excited when they announced that those whose spouses were not around should leave.
It is always difficult for a spouse to practise at home what is taught during a marriage seminar if the partner did not attend. This explains why I like to talk to a couple first before discussing with each of them. It affords each spouse the opportunity of opening up on sensitive issues concerning their relationship. Where a spouse fears that the partner may react negatively later for the disclosure, wisdom guides me in making the presentation. After discussing with each of them, I will bring them together for us to deal with the grey areas. Apologies and clarity on certain issues may follow. We pray and then bury the issues in God’s sea of forgetfulness, which is underneath the cross of Calvary.
In the telephone issue I mentioned above, Uncle refused to be drawn to line. It was not that he was avoiding the Air ticket to Lagos. His rationalization was that it was his wife, the devil, who needed counselling, while he, the saint, did not need it. ‘She is very stubborn and that was why I slapped her,’ he told me casually. ‘You slapped your wife? How can a Christian husband slap his wife?’ I asked him cheerlessly. ‘If you are in my Church,’ I followed up, ‘you will be placed on discipline. How dare you slap God’s daughter?’
When we were in leadership position in our Church, one day, the Pastor-in-charge and me, his Deputy, invited a member for discussion. It had to do with a report we received about his involvement in inappropriate relationship with a lady. In the course of our discussion, he asked, ‘What will you do to me?’ I told him immediately that we would discipline him. And we did. And he left our Church. Discipline frightens members because of the announcement in the Church of the sin committed, not minding the personalities involved. What gave me the jitters later was what might have prompted his question. Was he ignorant of the punishment to be meted out to him? Was it to intimidate us, being a top military officer, in fact, a Brigade General in the Army? Was it for him to know the punishment so that he would be preparing for it? I really did not know. What was true about him was that he was a militant soldier for the nation and also for Jesus, a man roundly known to be respectful and extremely humble. In fact, had he denied the allegation, I would have bought his own side of the matter.
‘Why should a Christian husband slap his wife?’ I continue to ask myself. Does he ever imagine how the Lord Jesus feels when His daughter is slapped? Will the prayer of such a man be answered? Has he forgotten how he and his spouse, perhaps, sat in the same lecture hall during their university days and in some cases, while Aunty was making good ‘A’s, he was collecting only ‘C’s? And yet, she accepted him in marriage! ‘Why should a man slap his wife?’
The father-in-law knows that he is a lion and his daughter a lioness, and yet, he gave her to him in marriage, believing that he would love her. Slapping her is certainly not that, but the opposite. Has he forgotten his wife’s brothers, who may be as strong as he is, if not stronger? When Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, was defiled by Shechem, the son of Hamor, her brothers reacted. They killed Hamor and Shechem. They also ‘spoilt the city’. Whatever spirit that makes a man to slap his wife can also make her brothers to revenge beyond measure.
‘Why should a Christian husband slap his wife?’ Well, rascality is not the exclusive prerogative of men. Some wives also beat their husbands silly. In 2011, one of my friends visited me. We were in my bedroom discussing, when another man visited. Many people were visiting me because I was recuperating from eye surgeries. I did one in the US and another one, by their counsel, in Nigeria. In a few days after, I would be going back for the final one. In the living room, I met rather a strange face, though he said that we had met severally. We were there for a long time, when the friend I left in the bedroom joined us. He felt that the man should have left, for me to have sufficient time to rest. Feeling that he had no plan to leave, he asked him when he would be leaving. The man’s response was only by smiling.
My friend then left. The man was still with me for long hours talking, longer than you could imagine, without showing any sign of leaving. It was at last that he drew the curtain and showed me the picture that prompted his visit. It had nothing to do with my surgeries. It was all about himself and you may not blame him. The heat in his home was beyond what he, though a Pharmacist, could bear. He came to take cover because his wife, an Amazon, was beating him!
Landlords have no legal right to stop their tenants from exercising their physical gifts. They expect them, however, to go to the sports stadium, which is designated for testing prowess. Boxing, wrestling, athletics, soccer, weight lifting, are a few of the areas such competitions are rife. It is what a spouse does there and not at home, that testifies about the physical abilities. The beauty of going for contests at the stadium is the possibility of winning prizes. It is only the devil that awards his own prizes when spouses slug it out at home. Ndigbo say it all, that, ‘Ogbu nwanyi a bugh ike’ – Beating a woman does not mean that the man is strong.
‘Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it’ – Prov. 22:6. Beating a spouse is one of the ways a child is trained. Most of the men, who beat their spouses, learnt it from their parents. If couples are aware of this, there will be no provocation from a spouse that will attract beating by the partner. Does God beat us for offending Him? The tolerant God, described by the Bible as ‘slow to anger’, is the One, Who gives us mercy all the time. We, His children, should not be deficient in this area.
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi: 0802 3002-471;[email protected]