How house girls become co-wives

By Shirley Genga

Kenya: The other day, I got into an unexpected fungua roho session with a friend on a car ride into town. For some reason or the other, he let it all out. He went on and on about his wife and all her faults.

According to him, his wife of five years, does completely nothing other than watching soaps and doing her nails. She does not make their bed or clean their bedroom; she does not wake up to prepare the kids for school; she does not cook, clean nor iron. And the worst crime, according to him, was the fact that even serving food — prepared by the house help — is a problem, she whines and make him feel like he is asking too much from her. He claimed the maid does everything.

As such, he was very hurt by his wife’s lack of interest to do ‘wifely’ things in the house, and thus, he was thinking about getting a second one.

Apparently though, we have left the very dark ages and walked into bright and brave new modern world, men still prefer the ‘traditional’ wife.

Keeping a man

And thus if you are a woman in today’s world and you have plans of keeping a man, the truth of the matter is that you have no option, but to have some knowledge on how to carry out certain chores. Honestly, if you cannot cook or clean and you call yourself a wife, then of what good are you?

Women, before you throw stones at me for being a traitor, lets reason together. Look, men are never going change unless you get a man from out of space or something.

Gender roles are not all bad; they help to bring some order into this very crazy world. And  anybody who dishes out oppression mumbo jumbo theory of how gender roles are oppressive and unnecessary is clearly living in a bubble. That kind of thinking is the reason we have men today walking around with an overly active tear ducts, tight pink trousers, and believing they can be house husbands.

I had to express my disappointment in women who cannot cook or clean and believe being a home maker is a third grade job.

All I am saying is that a woman should at least, learn the art of home making — which entails cooking and cleaning. Reason being, if she cannot do the activities herself, she should be in a position to know whether whoever she assigned the chores to — the house girl — carried them out correctly. If a wife has to delegate duties, she must supervise and chip in where possible.

Feminist

If you are a wife and you are in the habit of leaving all the household chores to the house girl, don’t blame her when your husband turns her into his second wife. Men, at times, get attracted to women who care for them not necessarily those that love them. 

Feminist activism might be good and necessary, but the reality is, men prefer homemakers. It’s never negotiable, that much I know. The world has changed, and yes, we women are busy, but the day we hand over our homes to be run by house girls, let’s not cry foul when house girls become our co-wives.