How many men can emulate Joseph?
MY other name is Joseph. Maybe Dad who gave it to me, hoped that my emotions would be contained in the same noble ease like Joseph did. But alas! Joseph is too noble to emulate. <br>
By Hilary Bainemigisha
MY other name is Joseph. Maybe Dad who gave it to me, hoped that my emotions would be contained in the same noble ease like Joseph did. But alas! Joseph is too noble to emulate.
There is one colleague, who returned from Japan to find his wife pregnant and unwilling to abort. He agreed to stay and look after the wife and the baby and we were baffled. Secretly, however, he was trying to transfer the family property into his names. When he accomplished this, he threw her out.
Another pleaded for his wife’s understanding before confessing that he had two kids outside the wedlock whom he wanted to bring home.
He knelt and pleaded for mercy. Encouraged by her husband’s reconciliation moments, the wife took the opportunity to confess her secret child she produced before they married. She was beaten to pulp for being ‘a harlot’.
That tells you about men.
According to theories of evolutionary psychology, the physical act of a partner’s infidelity offends a male mind like heat does to ice. A male brain is allergic to being duped into raising and protecting another man’s child, a child who will not perpetuate his own genes.
But this Sunday, as Christians celebrate the birthday of Jesus, only a few will remember Joseph. It is true he has no hand – not even a leg — in the manufacture of Jesus, but he suffered more than Kiiza Besigye in jail after seeing his wife impregnated by another man and, instead of employing the Bugingo formula; meet-greet-slap, he was supposed to applaud, protect and nurture.
Joseph lived in the same town with his girlfriend, Mary. They were brought up in the same community and everyone was wondering what such a beautiful girl would want from a poor man like Joseph. So, he hurried to engage her, which in those days was a binding contract — as binding as marriage today because it could only be dissolved by divorce.
Then one day, one of Mary’s girlfriends came running with hot news (they always do!); she had seen Mary being sick on consecutive mornings! And that she was so sleepy during the day and had taken to big oversized dresses! Wasn’t she pregnant?
Joseph was shattered! He grabbed his Black Mamba uniform, but it was too late. Mary had disappeared to far away in the hill country of Judea where her sister, Elizabeth, lived. She stayed for three months.
Imagine your fiancée pregnant when you have been holding the abstinence banner! It is a betrayal. Your ego is punctured. You imagine that she found the other man more acceptable and superior — that hurts. You wish she had been raped instead. You regret your emotional, financial and time investment in her and if you had power, you would arrest them both with buffaloes, detain them without bail and charge them with treason and terrorism only in the Court Martial. Indeed, Joseph kept his Black Mamba uniform ironed and ready.
But when Mary arrived from ‘exile’, his resolve crumbled. He just looked at her pregnancy, then at her face and back at the pregnancy. Mary was saying things like God sent me…, I could not refuse…, it was God’s will… — sounding as ridiculous as some Ugandan politicians.
Joseph humbly put on a police uniform and started arranging a private bail that included a secret divorce to save the traitor from public ridicule.
When a woman betrays you like this, the best you can wish for her is to be locked up in a small room with a respectable amount of expired teargas. But Joseph was very understanding and gracious. If Mary wanted to campaign for some other constituency, it was her legal right.
It took just a night of a single dream for Joseph to swallow his pride, withdraw all treason cases, marry Mary and look after someone else’s pregnancy and child. He gave her a husband’s protection and the child, the dignity of a foster father. Hands up if you can do it!
Oh yes, he was a stupid man! But that is by earthly standards.
I cannot do it – that is why God cannot dare impregnate my wife. I would still wake up, chase her away and charge him with rape. Joseph even went an extra mile to hide his wife’s pregnancy from the press. After five months of marriage, Mary’s childbirth would have surprised the whole village, which would have done calculations and started asking questions.
But thanks to the census registration, Joseph took her away from Nazareth rumours at the risk of delivering on the streets.
Thereafter, Joseph took the whole family to exile in Africa. By the time they returned, Jesus was old enough and Nazarene villagers could not pinpoint Jesus’ actual birthday.
They would have thrown Joseph out of their drinking joints. Joseph was humble, allowing ‘his son’ to escape his confines to the front page. When Jesus turned his attention to the world, Joseph did not demand his payback.
He died quietly without demanding that his ‘son’ resurrect him the way he did Lazarus. Joseph deserves a posthumous pat on the back. If all men were as humble and calm, where women are concerned, this world would be a better place.
MY other name is Joseph. Maybe Dad who gave it to me, hoped that my emotions would be contained in the same noble ease like Joseph did. But alas! Joseph is too noble to emulate.
There is one colleague, who returned from Japan to find his wife pregnant and unwilling to abort. He agreed to stay and look after the wife and the baby and we were baffled. Secretly, however, he was trying to transfer the family property into his names. When he accomplished this, he threw her out.
Another pleaded for his wife’s understanding before confessing that he had two kids outside the wedlock whom he wanted to bring home.
He knelt and pleaded for mercy. Encouraged by her husband’s reconciliation moments, the wife took the opportunity to confess her secret child she produced before they married. She was beaten to pulp for being ‘a harlot’.
That tells you about men.
According to theories of evolutionary psychology, the physical act of a partner’s infidelity offends a male mind like heat does to ice. A male brain is allergic to being duped into raising and protecting another man’s child, a child who will not perpetuate his own genes.
But this Sunday, as Christians celebrate the birthday of Jesus, only a few will remember Joseph. It is true he has no hand – not even a leg — in the manufacture of Jesus, but he suffered more than Kiiza Besigye in jail after seeing his wife impregnated by another man and, instead of employing the Bugingo formula; meet-greet-slap, he was supposed to applaud, protect and nurture.
Joseph lived in the same town with his girlfriend, Mary. They were brought up in the same community and everyone was wondering what such a beautiful girl would want from a poor man like Joseph. So, he hurried to engage her, which in those days was a binding contract — as binding as marriage today because it could only be dissolved by divorce.
Then one day, one of Mary’s girlfriends came running with hot news (they always do!); she had seen Mary being sick on consecutive mornings! And that she was so sleepy during the day and had taken to big oversized dresses! Wasn’t she pregnant?
Joseph was shattered! He grabbed his Black Mamba uniform, but it was too late. Mary had disappeared to far away in the hill country of Judea where her sister, Elizabeth, lived. She stayed for three months.
Imagine your fiancée pregnant when you have been holding the abstinence banner! It is a betrayal. Your ego is punctured. You imagine that she found the other man more acceptable and superior — that hurts. You wish she had been raped instead. You regret your emotional, financial and time investment in her and if you had power, you would arrest them both with buffaloes, detain them without bail and charge them with treason and terrorism only in the Court Martial. Indeed, Joseph kept his Black Mamba uniform ironed and ready.
But when Mary arrived from ‘exile’, his resolve crumbled. He just looked at her pregnancy, then at her face and back at the pregnancy. Mary was saying things like God sent me…, I could not refuse…, it was God’s will… — sounding as ridiculous as some Ugandan politicians.
Joseph humbly put on a police uniform and started arranging a private bail that included a secret divorce to save the traitor from public ridicule.
When a woman betrays you like this, the best you can wish for her is to be locked up in a small room with a respectable amount of expired teargas. But Joseph was very understanding and gracious. If Mary wanted to campaign for some other constituency, it was her legal right.
It took just a night of a single dream for Joseph to swallow his pride, withdraw all treason cases, marry Mary and look after someone else’s pregnancy and child. He gave her a husband’s protection and the child, the dignity of a foster father. Hands up if you can do it!
Oh yes, he was a stupid man! But that is by earthly standards.
I cannot do it – that is why God cannot dare impregnate my wife. I would still wake up, chase her away and charge him with rape. Joseph even went an extra mile to hide his wife’s pregnancy from the press. After five months of marriage, Mary’s childbirth would have surprised the whole village, which would have done calculations and started asking questions.
But thanks to the census registration, Joseph took her away from Nazareth rumours at the risk of delivering on the streets.
Thereafter, Joseph took the whole family to exile in Africa. By the time they returned, Jesus was old enough and Nazarene villagers could not pinpoint Jesus’ actual birthday.
They would have thrown Joseph out of their drinking joints. Joseph was humble, allowing ‘his son’ to escape his confines to the front page. When Jesus turned his attention to the world, Joseph did not demand his payback.
He died quietly without demanding that his ‘son’ resurrect him the way he did Lazarus. Joseph deserves a posthumous pat on the back. If all men were as humble and calm, where women are concerned, this world would be a better place.