Two married women were bothering a relative who was still a spinster.
“Now, tell us truthfully. Have you ever really had a chance to marry?” they badgered her. With a withering glance, she retorted, “I assume your husbands asked you the same.”
Sometimes, I wonder why some relatives get so much involved in your business especially in marriage and procreation affairs. The moment you are done with school and luckily get a job, they turn on the marriage-pressure button. If you are a lady, they subtly ask if any man has expressed interest in you. If you are a guy, they start questioning your manhood.
If time passes and you show no signs of getting hitched, they start matchmaking for you. They will do whatever it takes to facilitate your date. When all fail, they will subject you to medical attention to establish whether you are impotent.
You might think that when you finally get married, you will have overcome the pressure. However, that’s just the beginning. Nine months down the road and there is no pregnancy, they will come back to query your conjugal performance. Some will even encourage you to seek assistance from herbalists or divine powers from the gods.
It’s even worse for the woman because she carries the blame for failing to conceive. The man is then pressured by the same relatives to seek second opinion from a concubine. The entire situation is very traumatizing.
They celebrate when you have your first child. A few years later, they start coercing you to have another child because the firstborn deserves a playmate to overcome boredom. After the second child, they start telling you the dangers of having only two children depending on their sex.
They also narrate stories of untimely death that can rob you of your children. They come up with assumptions. For example, they will argue that if you have six children and one dies, you will remain with five compared to having two and one or both dying.
The annoying bit is that none of them is willing to contribute to your children’s welfare. If you insist on having one or two children, they will bring their own for you to look after because you don’t seem to have many responsibilities. After all, they will say, blood is thicker than water.
