WOMEN ARE EQUAL PARTNER IN MARRIAGE

The notion that women are helpmates solely responsible for childcare and housekeeping dangerously reduces their humanity. It does not mean women are appliances, servants, or slaves to prop up poorly managed households.

Women are equal partners in building a home and a family. A true partnership means sharing responsibilities like cooking, cleaning, washing, childcare, and emotional labor. In my own marriage, my wife primarily handles the laundry, I take the lead on general cleaning, and we share cooking duties occasionally. This mutual effort creates balance and respect.

I witnessed a stark example of exploitation just few years ago. A neighbor, during farming season, would send his wife alone back to their village for three months to work the farm fields. Meanwhile, he remained in the city, reportedly engaging with other women. The profound injustice came whenever his wife returned, she would spend four exhausting days cleaning a house left in utter disarray. She faced mountains of unwashed dishes piled up for weeks and clothes soiled months prior a testament to his utter lack of responsibility and respect.

Women are human beings. They have physical health that can be broken by relentless, unshared labor. They have deep emotions they feel exhaustion, frustration, neglect, and resentment. They need care, support, and rest, just as anyone does.

Men must understand this. You, along with your parents and siblings, have absolutely no right to bring someone's daughter into your home and turn her into an indentured servant. If you, as a man, were not raised with the basic skills or sense of responsibility to maintain your own living space, the solution is not to exploit your wife. Instead, learn the necessary life skills, hire professional domestic help if you can afford it or engage your mother or sisters.

A home thrives on shared responsibility, mutual respect, and genuine partnership. Treating a woman as anything less than an equal human being degrades her, destroys the relationship, and ultimately fails the entire household.

Until the moment when will shall dance in white Greater Grace.

Oyugbo Jonah Osagie