By Francis Ewherido

What I have found out is that we are very chauvinistic. Forget about the “daddy’s girl” stuff you see or hear about.

“Daddy’s girl” is only sweet when daddy also has sons who make him feel complete. About 99.9 per cent of the men who have daughters only will change the situation if given the opportunity. Some have gone ahead to either marry more wives or have children from other women.

Others with Rhino-skin simply hauled defiance at a chauvinistic society and moved on with their lives.  Yet others only keep their cool because they cannot handle the disruptions and fallout of their actions, not that they are happy having daughters only.

A friend who has three daughters once narrated how her husband hit the roof when a family friend suggested a recipe for having male children to them. He advised that their legs should face east, west, south, or is it north; during their conjugal act (there is no nonsense you do not hear when people think you need help).

The husband claimed to be satisfied with his “three angels.” If he was, why glare at the friend with such a laughable proposition? Why not laugh it off?

I had a pre-marriage class of about 50 participants two Sundays ago. I asked the men, especially, how many will be contented having only female children? Not a single person responded! I have come across only one man who seemed genuinely contented with his daughters. “I’m done with baby making,” he told me, with an air of finality after three daughters.

Now, I have some posers. One, we are a very religious people and all the major religions accept that there is heaven and hell: the joy of the heavenly kingdom is so much, we are told, that our lives on earth pale into insignificance in comparison, while the torment of hell is so much that people do not have time to think about what they left behind on earth. If this is true why do we bother about perpetuating a family name when it means nothing to us when we are gone, heaven or hell?

Two, while these couples who have daughters only are sulking and mourning, what do they expect childless couples to do?

Three, why do we take vows during marriage to accept all children lovingly from God knowing that we will have issues with female children if there are no male children?

Four, if having male children means so much to you, why not spend time in acquiring the needed knowledge, and patiently exercising the discipline needed, in order to successfully preselect the sex of your babies? Five, if God were to grant our wishes and we all start having only or mainly male children where will the females they will marry come from?

You know our God is all-knowing: He is so smart and knows the hearts of men. That is why even though he gave couples the knowledge and power to determine the sex of their children; he made it common sense that is not common.

That is why a gynecologist in whose hospital my friend’s first son was born was surprised to hear that they naturally preselected his sex. Even though she studied reproduction and theoretically knows about it more than my friend does, she probably did not believe in preselecting, or tried it and it did not work out.

All her children are girls and I suspect that it is not by choice. Another friend of mine behaved as if I was speaking Greek when I was discussing ovulation and natural family planning with her. She said she does not even know when her ovulation occurs and she is well educated. She has five daughters.

Even those who have the knowledge and know how to apply it sometimes misfire due to impatience and indiscipline.

You know this thing called sexual urge can bring out the worst in a man. That is why a famous writer said that when a man gets an erection, his brain goes on recess. Not to worry, it is all part of God’s plan to perpetuate humanity. There must be some form of equilibrium between the population of males and females; if not, mankind is in trouble.

We live in a society where women are disadvantaged. This discrimination is probably responsible for the aggression we experience with some women.

They are just unnecessarily difficult. In offices, they drive fear into subordinates and all, especially men, who cross their path; on the road, they will not give way even when you have the right of way.

They are fighting against the odds, swimming against the tide of a society that sees them as inferior and expects them to prove otherwise. I work in the same office with my wife. Even though I am no longer part of the day to day running of the business, some people still prefer to talk “man to man” with me.

Sometimes women are their worst enemies. When an aunt of mine who wanted my father to marry a second wife could not use the absence of a male child to justify her request, she simply told my father that sleeping with only one woman leads to impotency.

When I was growing up the chief protagonists of female genital mutilation were women. They called it circumcision and will readily point to women of a particular ethnic group they claimed were very promiscuous and unfaithful to their husbands because they were not circumcised; so they have unlimited libido and insatiable appetite for sex.

A female banker, who pleaded with her female boss to take female bankers’ place of residence into consideration when carrying out transfers, got this reply: “you can choose between your husband and your job.”  `She lives about 70 kilometers from her branch and travels through a traffic-infested route, so she leaves home before 5am and gets back between 10:30pm and midnight every working day!

How many women who have daughters only are truly happy and contented? Isn’t it sisters who are in the forefront of prodding their only brothers to marry a second wife who will give them boys “so that the family name will not die.”

These are educated women, who studied biology in secondary school level, and know that biologically it is the man who determines the sex of a baby. For them the sex of a baby has become a matter of luck and the wife in the house is not lucky. Women need to help women a lot more.

I know things are changing and improving, but a lot of minds are still in prison. For me, it is really a battle of the mind. What we see is a fixation of our mindsets.

The theme of this year’s Women’s Day is EQUALITY FOR WOMEN IS PROGRESS FOR ALL. Agreed but my interest is not really in equality but equity, more like giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what belongs to God. This makes more sense to me due to the natural circumstances of men and women. Men’s and women’s needs are simply different.