Ukwa

Getting married is a big deal in this part of the world with the ladies at the receiving end of the whole drama. 

Once a lady is over twenty eight years old, her family starts to look at her in a funny and except she is from a rare radical family where marriage means little or nothing, she will always hear things like “I am thirsty” or “when is he bringing the wine?”

This sort of orientation often makes some young ladies rush into the wrong hands. It could be a bad man, or a good man from a very bad family which was this case of Nkem. 

Just like every other young lady of marriageable age, Nkem was happy to have found the man whose missing rib she was.

Uko was a wonderful young man, he met 

her through a mutual friend who had the intention of hooking up his two good friends. 

It was love at first sight for both of them at Edem’s house and in short  time Nkem and Uko became like Siamese twins.

After one year of dating, both Nkem and Uko knew that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together and so towards the end of the year they started plans to meet each other families. 

Nkem’s family was very receptive of Uko and welcomed him like a long lost son but it was a different story with Uko’s family.

His mother was very inquisitive and wanted to know everything about Nkem and her family. Being inquisitive is not bad at all but asking questions about Nkem’s past love life was very weird, she said she wanted to be sure that her son was not getting married to a left over.

This is exactly what the society encourages; bullying of young ladies by their in laws to be. The first meeting did not go quite well and so after the dowry was paid and other traditional rites carried out, Uko believed that a second visit to his mother by Nkem alone would afford them the opportunity to  know each other better.

Nkem had to make herself believe that some of the nasty words uttered by Uko’s mother were not directed at her even when she referred to her as “this girl”. 

She tried her best to be as polite as possible to her mother in law to be. She also put up her best act; waking up early to help with the house chores and asking if there was any other thing she would help with. Afterall, is it not what is expected of any girl who intends to become a wife? 

It is called being a wife material and so the lady’s chances of getting married depends on how many yards of wife materials she is able to produce.

Nkem was at her best till Uko’s mother asked her to do a very hard job; she was asked to pick raw ukwa (bread fruits) and also peel them. For those who know, the bread fruit comes in very large pods, heavy enough to kill if it falls on someone.

Ukwa pods. Photo credit: WordPress 

It does not fall from its tree till its rotten and then it is handpicked and peeled. It is a very tedious process which discolours the palms for weeks. At that point, Nkem cut her wife material to a manageable size and had something to say for the first time.

She politely told mama that she would not be able to carry out the task. Uko’s mother told her that ukwa was her son’s favourite food and so she had to learn how to process it from the scratch to which Nkem responded that she would rather buy the processed one for her hubby.

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Processed ukwa. Photo credit: thepretendchef

Nkem immediately knew that she had to cut short her one week visit to Uko’s mother.

She made up her mind as she packed her things to leave that she would never have a woman like Uko’s mother as a mother in law; it will be an unending drama between them and she wouldn’t be able to hold on too long.

It was a marriage that never happened; the bride price was returned as quickly as it was paid. Uko did not see anything wrong in his mother’s actions and that further raised a red flag for Nkem. 

She found someone else some years later just when she started to think that she might have made a mistake by letting Uko go. Her new in laws are friendly and very tolerant of everyone.

That is Nkem’s story, now I have to state that wife material is no longer in vogue, we see the chics with long nails, long wigs, false eye lashes and undeniable love for material things hook the best guys and also before the good girls.  

The supposedly bad girls seem to know how to trap the men and make them want to settle down with them. Some have argued that the bad girls are so good in bed and cook really well; an average man wants to come home to good food and extremely good jangolova.

The good girls are more concerned with keeping their good names that they watch their lives go before them, they do not take risks and are often very rigid. It takes a man who is out to look for a good girl to settle for a good girl. 

From experience, anytime I try to hook people up for marriage the bad girls who I call daughters of Eve are always more preferred. The feedback I get is that they are lively and light up the atmosphere.

Some of the good girls are usually very quiet to a fault and end up not giving the guys any opportunity to get to know them. 

I am not promoting waywardness or any sort of bad behaviour in ladies but one must be spontaneous and versatile. Being good does not mean being slow, a lady must be smart, witty, unpredictable and fun to be with not just for the guy but for her own wellbeing. 

The few men who go for the good girls end up disappointed sometimes because some of these good girls do not know what it takes to keep or run a home. 

Even while you keep your legs together which is highly commendable it is also important to know the other things that make a home a happy one. My friend was a virgin at thirty years when she got married but knew everything about the sacred dance. She read up a lot on it and tackled it as a pro when the time came.

I worry about those who will be looking for the right hole on their wedding night; too much of everything is bad including too much of being good. 

Ladies, be more knowledgeable, parents teach your daughters; there is no room for slow takers in the world today. 

In all, there are no hard and fast rules; know what you have to know, do the right thing and leave it all to God.