• Home
• Columnist
• Videos
• Artist
  • Musicians
  • Actors
  • Comedians
• Notable Nigerians
• Legend Dies
• Articles
  • Nigeria Articles
• Photos
• Submit Article

Author: Elyger Agwu
Posted to the web: 7/12/2005 6:48:44 AM

Marriage has become the most complex institution in our universe today. Marriage between a man and a woman is a very difficult experience. It is difficult and utterly complex because it is an arrangement where two totally different strangers decide to brace all odds and form a union.
Ordinarily, human being is a phenomenon, very self-complicated entity itself whose actions are always as surprising as it unfolds. Then suddenly, he decides to liase with another same individual. Of course, marriage is an arrangement of compromise for a harmonious co-existence. But it is not that easy. I must say that it is that innate desire to move away from a solitary being that drives one into marriage.
 
But marriage has its basic attractions. These include the show of affection, conjugal freedom, to reproduce others for human propagation as well as for companionship. It is not easy. People with the desire to be seen as responsible tend to tailor their conducts by accepting others. But most of these arrangements are shrouded in great deception.
 
Relationship between a man and a woman is one in which there is no definite level playing ground. There is more pain than joy. Getting married takes a total will to adjust to the other's ways of life. It takes total decision to give up your ways and cut a bridge to moderating it to the other's.
 
A lot of absurdities are noticed about marriage. Most cases are those of incompatibility - person with complete different behaviours. Most marriages are full of chagrin, anger, frustration and pains. You wake up to realise that your partner is a complete fraud, a total stranger you find too crude to understand.
 
I once took a survey on promiscuity in our homes and was surprised at the incredulous revelation. Most gave their reason as disappointment with the whole situation which was centred on financial deficiency, poverty of sex, abandonment and multiple emotional depression.
 
The fact here is that the reality of marriage is the experience itself. Most couple gets disappointed over their marriages when they begin to see the whole thing in their real senses. One question worth posing however is, is marriage fraught with deception? Are there expected standard to be used as assessment towards marriage?
 
It takes skill to get another person to accept you. In our present-day society with high incidence of poverty, people tend to place premium of marriage on economic security as the basis for accepting a partner's proposal. This makes people adopt deception for meeting the acceptance of others. They pose as rich persons, even going into great debt for it. The men take the ladies to every happening places and shower them with great gifts all to win their admiration. Sisters too, who are obsessed with fantasy, give in to such overtures and abandon those brothers who have tried to be as open as possible.
 
But the fact here is that marriage is not as easy maintaining as it is easy entering into. A lot demand goes with it. You lose your independence, you are responsible to each other, and you build an entirely new home altogether.
That attention you were shown before marriage suddenly dies and you are merely mechanically attended to. Some brothers just abandon sisters and make them mere meshed potatoes. So sisters, too, make the lives of brothers miserable by their frustrating lives. That personal independence they both have agreed to put away to build a strong relationship suddenly begins to rear its ugly head and in no time, you are torn miles apart.
 
You look at sister and ask yourself, who really she is. You think about brother and punch yourself for not really studying him before the marriage. Your entire life begins to tumble; the dreams you've built after the years begins to die; the light you thought was there suddenly become opaque and you see abyss instead.
 
Each time I see lovers grinning from ear to ear like 'Alice in wonderland' I begin to ask myself, why do such tantalising experience die? In my course of seeking for answers, I realised that people expects too much from marriage. They believe that marriage will end all their nasty experiences; that it will bring about the realization of their dreams; that it will transport them to a perpetual happiness.
 
But this is illusion. The dream for an eternal bliss is a part of paranoia. No body really want to make sacrifice now-a-days, because they expect too much from marriage. I must state here that marriage is not El dorado. Marriage is not a world of phantasy but a truth of the complexity of human lives.
 
Look beyond your immediate gains and expectations. Look at what you'd give to help build it on sound footing. For every frustration you feel over your marriage, you have a hand in it. You might not understand it here but look at the method of the marriage. Either you did not really understand something about your partner before marriage or you were too desperate to marry ANYONE-and nothing more.