Not long in Accra, six male friends between the
ages of 30 to 35 years gathered in front of an office located on the Barnes
road street in Accra. Four out of these six men were married. They were victims
of corporate stagnation, a case where work task continually abounds but with no
added benefits. Three worked in the same company, two worked for rival
companies in the telecom industry. There was one among them who had lost a job
recently and therefore in job search. Their identity will be hidden so no one
can trace them except for their stories. And usually such as it is the
custom among friends that when they meet, after exchange of pleasantries,
they fall to discuss random matters, so they did. Their conversation ranged
from corporate business, families and life in general, and later converged
on marriage discourse. The single men among them were always their
mocking bird. They joked about their marriage status. They accused
the single status men to be adding unto the reasons why there are
several pretty women who remain single in Accra.
But the first single, a tall lanky man with his hands
always in the pocket and carried the look of a philosopher than the engineering
he practiced disagreed and with thoughtfulness asked, "do you see this
problem in the village?" To this several replied “No”, and he continued,"
if there are more married women in the villages than there are in the cities
then it is perhaps that, the order of things has been disturbed in cities and
that, it is a matter of the water finding it's course after
disturbance." On this he explained strongly that women in Accra
being highly educated and occupying higher positions still surprisingly expect
to marry men who are above them, forgetting that, it is these same
men that they have displaced and humbled into lower roles and therefore
rendered them unable to meet their standing criteria. "These choosy women
should change and consider men for who they are rather than what they do. If
they do, cooks, low wage carpenters and well-built but empty pocket construction
workers will all make their list," he continued, massaging his
stomach with his left hand.
"In the era when only men worked and
occupied the top roles and women occupied the kitchen, men still found most
women marriageable, but now that women work, they discriminate against
not only the-non-working but also the poorly-working-men," he said, with
conviction and the look on his face suggested that he could be a victim.
All gathered agreed that education, money, and power has the tendency to falter
women's taste about men to a funnier level.
The second single suggested that, the course of
nature was in favor of multiple partners and that to him the transgression
against this single holy commandment by men was enough to explain
the unavailability of enough criteria-meeting-men to single women.
This statement of the latter, even two who were newly
married showed concealed faces of approval, but the first single who
was motivated by philosophy than by practical thoughts countered by
saying, "if nature approves of multiple partners, but men are shunning the
practice altogether then, they must have learnt the hard way that, it always
come with the price of pain and of suffering," and proceeded to quote king
Solomon of the holy Bible who after marrying and enjoying several beautiful
women of his time suffered some pain and therefore concluded that they
were all vanity of vanity.
At this, a third who was married replied, "I
disagree that we men are shunning the practice of indulging multiple women
because of pain, I will rather think that it is the case of money. I believe
given the same amount of wealth, all men will do what king Solomon of Biblical
time did. Also concerning life in general being of vanity, one need to test
by doing what he did so one can independently come to the same
conclusion,"
This statement from the third brought some debate
between him and the philosopher who said one need not repeat what leads to pain
and that even rich people cannot escape the consequences of a promiscuous
lifestyles as the married man sought to say. He then broadened the definition
of the consequence of that lifestyle not just on the individual but also on the
family. And this the married man replied that, " though I admits a
man's promiscuous lifestyle will live some effect on his immediate family and
that of society at large but that is for those whose conscience are not
seared," and confessed that, "of all ladies I have laid, the easiest
catch are those who were victims of a bad family example," at this they
all paused to reflect, after which the second single guy, either he
wanted to benefit from this new theory or from sheer curiosity, asked,
"how do you pick out ladies who are from distress homes?" "It is
very simple," the latter began, " In your conversation with them you
will soon discover a pattern; that is, either they have single parents,
or one parent is traveled and so isn't around, or they have
siblings with either a different mother or different father and this experience
I have come to believe blurs their
judgement and motivate them to seek love outside their home and so once you can
demonstrate some genuine love to them, you can go to whatever extent that you
want with them. So that is my personal philosophy: I hunt for ladies from
a disturbed home,” and this, all men gathered, seemed to agree to that,
ladies from distressed homes, they found them the easiest to date.
After some pause, the married man who thought that he
needed to drive home the point that money and not pain decided men's cause of
action continued, " for those who give a hoot not about morals and
conscience, money can reduce their pain" and to illustrate it, he
told a story about two different men who went to the aid of these numerous single
women and what became of them.
"On the case of the first man, he was a cool and
respected gentleman who after several years of working at the bank rose to
the rank of a bank manager and happened to be married to a beautiful working woman
and lived happily in Kumasi. They had 3 children with 2 having graduated
from the university whilst the last born was at the final year during
which the incident that I am about to recount happened. Unfortunately for this man,
he got laid off and having stayed home for so long without any job, it was the
wife and children that supported him. After some time, the man decided to
go to Makola law school in Accra to acquire new skills and get a new career. And so,
when he moved to Accra, it was the wife and children that supported him
financially in his upkeep and in the schooling. He went to Kumasi only on
weekends, and being in Accra alone and seeing beautiful single ladies well
dressed and well perfumed, he took one and together stayed with, but
unfortunately for this man the lid opened and so the wife happened to
find out but how and of what means that I cannot tell, and the short of
it was that all the financial support was withdrawn and the man was abandoned
and later on the man developed a stroke and died, so yes the man brought
pain unto himself but the pain was because he had no money, " he said.
"Here is a different case," he began,
"there is this rich lawyer in Accra who is a rascal of a man and given to
seeking pleasure outside his home, he will on Friday close from work, come home
and changed into a different attire, change his car into one that fit the
occasion and spend the whole night with single young women at night clubs and
only come home at dawn, yet his wife knowing all that this lawyer does still
wakes up early to ensure that on Saturday morning breakfast is always served
before sunrise."
"My friends the problem is money, the only way to
help our young single ladies is to get more money like the lawyer and that way
our pain will be less if we do what nature approves but our wives frowns on,
" he ended
