Hi Folks, Hmmmm......interesting!! However, I am neither endorsing nor repudiating the views expressed in it. Just forwarding it out as FYI. Cheers, Madiba. Sunday Vanguard: Feminique Why do you want to marry? The couple wedded traditionally last year. However, the supremacy of the "White wedding" has become an unfortunate reality in our cultural life. Perhaps, because of this notion, the girl felt half-married. If she had not felt half-married, she wouldn't have insisted on stupid conditions that has now cost her, her happiness. The guy from the point of view of society has a bright future. He is a struggling businessman who doesn't have to contend with looking after the extended family as he comes from a well to do family. The girl is from a middle class background. Both are from the East. A few months to the white wedding, she began to make funny demands. She wanted the guy to move from his Ikeja apartment. She wanted fried rice for the wedding instead of Jollof rice. She wanted a proper band instead of a police band. She doesn't want any family interference. She above all wanted the guy to declare his assets. All these, in spite of the fact that each family member from the guy's side had pledged to do something. The elder brother was going to be incharge of her wedding gown; a yard cost ten thousand Naira. The groom's mother was going to be incharge of getting the gift plates and so on. The sad thing is that the marriage has been cancelled. Why? Because (as I feel) the lady never felt married; she obviously does not know the reason for marriage. She must have focused too foolishly on the material aspect of marriage where the woman is supposed to be expensively taken care of. I find the situation very unfortunate because this couple traditionally got married in 1978 and almost a year later the lady began to give unnecessary conditions. Sometimes, (some) women are the cause of their problems. If a woman is so fixated on riches and a man treats her as a material component without any spiritual essence; people will say the man is bad. It is not as if it is totally out of place to know the financial situation of your man, maybe as a way of knowing how to move your family forward or simply how to comport yourself; but when you now behave as if that man owes you because he wants to marry you, it becomes ridiculous. All right, let us just suppose that the guy is also ruled by materialism, so what happens to the marriage when there is no money to meet the high taste? Marriage is acquiring a new definition in our modern world, your man for health reasons may not be able to make money for some time, and in that case the woman takes over. Which is what "for better for worse" entails. A friend told me about this fair dame who does not hide the fact that she likes money. She even goes as far as boasting to her female friends on how she gets money from these guys. She is married now. Her husband gives her fifty thousand every month, but he is hardly around and there is even a rumour that the husband is dating her best friend. The husband, I understand had on occasion told her that as far as he was concerned, he satisfies her. Their marriage is just turning one. It is a very worrisome thing when a woman goes into marriage with the thought of perpetuating false values because of the love of money. Such women should not complain when their husbands treat them the way they ought to be treated: as decorated mannequins. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------