It is often stressful enough being in a relationship with a Ugandan man; not only do you have to put up with the eternal worry that he might hit on your friend or your sister, there’s the maid in the mix too.
It is bad enough that you have been forced (or perhaps trained by the senga) to accept that it is perfectly OK for him to come home at 11pm but try doing the same with a ka polite night out with your girls and next thing you know you are being summoned to a family meeting to explain why you’re a ‘bad wife’.
And before we forget, you had long made peace with the fact that he won’t open the car door for you, pull the chair, or even hold your hand (just hold your freakin’ hand) as you walk to the restaurant.
Then after putting up with all that, you come across this article in a national newspaper, where some minister (a woman at that) is spouting BS like; working class women please understand your men… make sure to leave their socks in place or something along those lines.
Then this minister whose name I can’t care to remember and who you shouldn’t either, says something about making sure that in addition to getting your office reports ready and the kids tucked in bed, you must also make sure your man’s underwear is washed and all, because, that’s “one of the secrets to a lasting marriage”. What BS. Marriage in our time is supposed to be built on foundations like partnership, not servantship, you would think.
But it is 2017 and we have someone that rose to the rank of minister that thinks it’s an institution to mollycoddle a grown man? Man! Oba such ideas should not go unaddressed for the simple reason that young girls are reading such stories and some might take people like the minister seriously?
So the man in the home is someone before whom the rest of the household is to prostrate now? Clearly that must be the view underlying such advice. Like seriously, who goes picking out socks for their hubby or boyfie like they would for a child in P2?
If you sense even from a kilometre away that the prospective mother-in-law expects you to run your home along these outdated ideas, that should be her son put on probation. But wait, there is some good that came out of Madame Minister spouting her BS; it will help to encourage women to be a bit more focused when choosing their men, because that could be the only way to save yourself a mother-in-law who thinks like the minister.