By Francis Ewherido

I was at St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, Baruwa, Iyana Ipaja, Lagos, on Sunday, February 28, 2016, at the instance of the Priest-in-Charge, Rev. Fr. Theodore Martinos, to give a talk to kick start the parish’s Family Reconciliation Week. The talk was a cocktail of Conflict Resolution, Marital Communication and Forgiveness, three topics we have treated in this column.

But the questions and answers session threw up issues affecting married people generally and I want to share some of them with you. One woman asked, “What happens when relatives, who live with you, interfere and come between you and your spouse.” I responded with a quote: “Jesus answered…a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:5-6). The problem many married people have is that the import of leaving father and mother and cleaving to a spouse has not fully dawned on them. The mystical one plus one equal to one means you are one with your spouse and anything or person that threatens the mathematical equation must be cast aside. The earlier you imbibed this, the better for your marriage.

The other problem is that relatives do not easily let go. They cannot understand why Peter’s property is no longer theirs just because “he married that stranger.” They do not understand that they can no longer go into Peter’s kitchen to help themselves the way they use to do before he got married “to that girl.” Well, you are now extended family. Peter now has a new nuclear or immediate family comprising himself, his wife and children.

It is not an easy situation for relatives to accept, especially within the African set up, but that is the way it is. Our only appeal is for spouses to accept, accommodate and tolerate members of their spouses’ family because in Africa, you do not marry only your spouse; you marry his/her family. But family members must know their boundaries and if a family member threatens the survival of the marriage, he/she must give way. Pleasing God by protecting your marriage is supreme over pleasing His creation, your relatives.

St. Paul likens the union between spouses to that of Christ and his church. Can you separate Christianity from Christ? Guard your marriages jealously. But as I said some time ago your heart should be large enough to accommodate your spouse and children; your parents, siblings and other relatives, if you have the wisdom and maturity.

Next, I had told them to refrain from talking when they are angry so that they do not say rash things in a fit of anger. A woman then asked, “What do you do if your spouse wants a response from you and would be offended if you refused to talk?” I responded: “Tell him you are not in the right frame of mind to talk now and would rather talk later.” That for me sounds polite and respectful enough.

After the second mass, a parishioner walked up to me and asked why “you motivational speakers” always avoid Paul’s teachings on the relationship between husband and wife. One of the portions of the Bible he is talking about is Ephesians 5: 21-33. It starts with “submit yourself to one another because of your reverence for Christ.” The instruction, to me, sounds like a two-way traffic, mutual submission, guided by reverence for Christ. Then verse 24 says, “and so wives must submit completely to their husbands just as the church submits itself to Christ.” God forbid that our wives should submit to us as we (husbands) submit to Christ. If that happens, we will be finished and the marriage institution will be doomed or at best endangered because we have been most unfaithful to Christ. In large part we honour him with our lips, but our hearts are far away. My prayer for all of us is that God should not deal with us according to our sins.

Some men want wives who will be at their beck and call, women who will say yes to everything. They want to recreate their growing up when their fathers were all in all. The truth is that many of what we called stable and successful marriages in those days were one-sided marriages where the women suffered and even died in silence. That era is gone. Today’s woman is educated, enlightened and somewhat assertive. Some are not just helpmates, but breadwinners. Or we want wives who will contribute to the family upkeep but have no say about how the money is spent? I certainly do not want my two daughters to grow up timidly to become such yes-wives.

Verse 25, tells men to love their wives just as Christ loves his church. Christ loved (and still loves) his church and paid with his life to set us free; not every man can die for his wife? Have you not heard of the man whose wife was consumed in an inferno while he watched helplessly? Or the one whose fat wife drowned because he was worried he would drown with her if he tried to rescue her?

St. Paul’s writings on the relationship between spouses should give men real concern because he set the bar too high; very few men can make the cut. These St. Paul’s privileges for men have concomitant responsibilities. For instance, “wives must submit completely to their husbands” is a Greek gift with steep conditions attached: “just as the church submits itself to Christ.” St. Paul did not do men any favours at all, if you ask me.

Over all, the relationship between spouses should be understood by Christians in the light of the relationship between Christ and the Church. It is an ideal we should all strive to attain. Meanwhile, husbands and wives need to sit down and find a win/win formula for their marriages. The lopsidedness or over lordship that some men crave is outmoded.