An Alarm That Recently Unsettled Me — AskEditors.com
By: Alade Blessing
Tags: Domestic Violence

An incident unfolded slowly before me as I sat at a table deeply engrossed in the reading of a literary text. It was past 10 in the night, the atmosphere looked serene. Suddenly, I heard a man ranting loudly about his phone. I thought the phone must have been stolen. There was long silence visibly interrupted by a woman crying out “I can’t find my teeth”. I listened keenly as she was being led away by those people trying to pacify her. The story was real, not as fictional as the literary text I was reading.

Shortly after that, I heard the woman shouting repeatedly, “Come and beat me, mad man.” Then she shrieked as I heard the footsteps of some people rushing to rescue her from her supposedly heavyweight husband. From her railings I could surmise, if I heard her clearly, that she had lost almost two pregnancies in the boxing ring of her matrimonial home fighting her Mayweather husband. She insisted she must speak even when her helpers were holding down her Mayweather who was still bent on unleashing greater terror on her, probably giving her a total knock-out.

The story climaxed when I heard her say it was over between two of them and that she was going to call her lawyer to file a divorce suit. It was on this chapter of the story that I heard the most insulting statement ever spoken to womanhood. Her husband replied her, “go, I will return your bride price.” What! He would return the bride price of a woman who produced children for him? He would return the bride price to whom? Her parents? What an insult to her parents!

The most touching chapter of the story happened when the atmosphere returned to normal around 12 am when all sympathisers had gone their own way. Then, I heard one of their female children sobbing out loudly. I could not endure the grief coming from the third floor into my room in the second floor in a three-storey building. I fought back my tears. I was pressed within me to go up to console the small child and bring her to my room and tell her that what happened between her parents was not her fault, but I could not, rather, I went to my bed. I thought about how what a child raised in such atmosphere of hate and violence would grow up to be in future.

I strained my ears to catch the origin of the fight from one woman who was blaming the woman on why she had to seize her husband’s phone. I surmised that the woman must have done that on an alleged infidelity on the part of her husband.

Dear Reader, there is little that can be done about this couple. They are married already and divorce is not an escape route if they have Heaven in mind.

I am pressed in my spirit to tell all the singles like me, that if you think that love is blind, wait, marriage will open your eyes. Why can’t you commit your life and relationship to the ONE who knows the future? God instituted marriage, and it must be done in His own way. Marriage is God’s field, do it the way He had programmed it, not the way you think it should be. And if you think you can do it in your own way, go ahead, time will tell. Think about your future with that guy or lady and the children you are going to raise in that home. If at least, you can’t pity yourself, pity the unborn children. God will not only hold you responsible for your own sins, but the sins (or corruption) of those children who are entrusted into your cares. Are you laying a good foundation based on trust? Is the relationship based on purity? Any relationship built on pre-marital sex is faulty. If your foundation is faulty, you are pulling out bits and pieces from the walls of your marriage-the rest is wreck. Surrender your life to Jesus Christ and He will make it beautiful. You will only experience PEACE on earth, if you find JOY in the Holy Ghost and LOVE in your spouse. God richly bless you.

© Alade Blessing.