Culture is manmade, but there is a culture that we can create from the character of God that is fair to all concerned. I am not against culture, but where culture hinders the happiness and the laudable intention of a human being, then culture has to be checked and scrutinized so that we can appreciate the intention (which is mostly selfish) and set people free to fulfill God’s mandate for their lives. The terms that governed most of these cultural beliefs have changed over time, but the actors have chosen to become, in the words of Prof. Yomi Fawehinmi, marital terrorists.
– Culture Integration – This is another system that you must intentionally put in place in your family. You want to be able to agree on a culture that is fair to all concerned and that never leaves anyone unhappy or with a feeling of being cheated. I have had to let go of some cultural beliefs that dont align with God’s word and dont positively affect the members of my family. For example, where culture makes a woman less important than the man. The word of God says both of you are joint heirs and are the same. Now, the fact that the man takes the lead when it comes to leadership in the home doesn’t reduce her to a voiceless kitchen and bedroom equipment. Men who reduce their women to second class citizens or chefs whose lives must end in the kitchen are not fair to someone made in the image of God. ‘Come let us make man in our image’ never referred to the male gender; it actually talks about humanity and that is why the next line says let them have dominion’. Any culture that relegates an intelligent and incredible woman simply because of her gender is a faulty culture that must change. That you are a man doesn’t make you an island of knowledge. If your wife can lead an organization as the financial director, why can’t she lead and handle the family’s economy at home?
What cultural beliefs are upsetting the sanity of your family? I sat with my mentor yesterday and we were discussing the development of Africa and he made a profound statement that never left me ‘The biggest problem of the African community is our inability to combine the spiritual with critical reasoning, so we leave the use of our brain and strategic thinking simply because we want the miraculous and that is why our churches and our nation is the way it is’.
Later in the day, I found myself addressing a men’s conference and I started sharing with them how they all need to go back home and kick-start a rebuilding process. One question I asked that threw a lot of light into what I have been sharing in the last 21days is the question, ‘Who taught you about manhood and fatherhood’? All of them chorused ‘my father’, but that led to another question, ‘who taught your father’? By the time you stretch it, you might get to a great-great-great-grand father somewhere whose beliefs and concepts may be totally wrong. So, it is not impossible that what many of us have held tightly to may have been borne out of an erroneous thinking that should at best have been discarded if the actors had learnt to ask the right question. For example, how does your wife disagreeing with a particular action of yours amount to disrespectfulness? You have married a woman with a doctorate degree or even a first degree, yet you expect her to accept everything you say simply because you are the man?
Most of the times your wife’s disagreement is to save you from you and it is her quest to ensure you have examined all the details of your decisions. Olakunle Soriyan says ‘error happens not because we thought we were wrong but because you were so sure you were right’. What kind of culture is it that arrogates wisdom to a man simply because he is an elder in the village or mutes an intelligent wife because she is a woman? If Germany which is a nation of strong men can be governed by a woman who looks frail, how about you empowering your woman to become the best she can ever be or even listen to her and her ideas?
To be continued.