Wife Material

By Esther Chineye Mbabie

When I was young, every time I left the food on fire for too long, I was told that my husband would be angry if I did that in his house. At first, it seemed like a joke but as I grew up, I would hear even more of these statements. When I sat too comfortably, I would be told that I was putting my husband’s property on display, when I chewed loudly, I would be told that I was not chewing like a woman who would one day become somebody’s wife. When I slept too long, I would be told that I could not afford to sleep so much in my husband’s house.

Wife material, they said!

So, as I grew up I started to “learn” that in order to make a good wife, I would have to be a “proper” lady, I could live with that…but soon it became more than that, I started to “learn” that I would have to be a different woman. A woman who could not speak up in the face of wrong, a woman who was not allowed to chase her dreams, a woman locked in a box and taught to submit to every other authority but herself.

Wife material, they said!

Eventually, my mind started to agree. If I wanted to a good wife material, complete “yards” and all the in-between, it didn’t matter if I was happy in my marriage, all that mattered was that my husband could sit at a table with his friends and bore them with tales of my cooking skills, how the house was always clean or how I only slept 5 hours every night.

 Wife material they said!

Too many years and too many experiences passed by before I realised they were wrong. The yardsticks they had written, laminated and handed down to me were never really the yardsticks.

Indeed, I would build a gracious and beautiful home but doing that would not cost my happiness.

Wife Material they said!

However, defining the quality of this material was up to me!