It’s not easy being married to a lastborn
Jan 30, 2009
THE Nandi in Kenya’s Rift Valley knew better. For them, there was no way a lastborn daughter could leave her parents home to marry when they (parents) were still alive.
BY VISION REPORTER
THE Nandi in Kenya’s Rift Valley knew better. For them, there was no way a lastborn daughter could leave her parents home to marry when they (parents) were still alive.
If she wanted to move on she had one option — kill them. Interestingly, the parents had no qualms if she conceived every year while in their threshold. Lastborn girls had to take care of their parents. How I wish I lived among the Nandi!
Fast forward. The Obama era does not allow for such. You know of men not marrying last born girls. Do you ever bother to know what they go through?
I won’t speak for others. Though many will rub it off as a male stereotype and insist that the success of a marriage has nothing to do with birth order, experience tells me otherwise.
It is true that where firstborns live up to the parents’ expectations, lastborns live up to parents’ fantasies. Where the mother or sisters get emotional, there is a sense of apprehension from the men.
Never have I been interrogated like I was when it dawned on my wife’s parents I was to marry their daughter. “She is my doting daughter please, please; never do anything to upset her. She is FRAGILE and take extremely good care of her,†said my mother-in-law, tears rolling down her cheeks.
I was even given a to-do list by her Ssenga on how best to handle her.
Most of the rules were contrary to what an average man dreams of in a wife. The average man craves a wife who doubles as a caterer in a kitchen, a brooding mother at home, a girlfriend at social functions and a whore in bed.
On my part, I was supposed to give her time to learn how to cook, had to help her with the laundry, and I wasn’t supposed to pester her into having sex, if she did not feel like it!
Interestingly, as I was later to understand, none of the rules were meted out on the elder sisters. Actually one of her sisters comes to our home under the pretext of visiting and has cooked some of the best meals we have had.
I believe she came short of saying it; but I remember that piercing from my mother-in-law when my nauseous wife went back home for proper treatment! Yes she was pregnant; I wasn’t giving proper care. No words were spoken, but never in life have I felt so guilty without words being spoken in my direction.
There is a way a lastborn will want you to think for her and think about her, although you might end up thinking because of her!
If you are wanting on the romantic side, prepare to pretend or don’t dare. They love being cuddled like puppies. My wife loves attention and needs to be loved even when she does not reciprocate the love! Thank God I’ve learnt to live with it.
THE Nandi in Kenya’s Rift Valley knew better. For them, there was no way a lastborn daughter could leave her parents home to marry when they (parents) were still alive.
If she wanted to move on she had one option — kill them. Interestingly, the parents had no qualms if she conceived every year while in their threshold. Lastborn girls had to take care of their parents. How I wish I lived among the Nandi!
Fast forward. The Obama era does not allow for such. You know of men not marrying last born girls. Do you ever bother to know what they go through?
I won’t speak for others. Though many will rub it off as a male stereotype and insist that the success of a marriage has nothing to do with birth order, experience tells me otherwise.
It is true that where firstborns live up to the parents’ expectations, lastborns live up to parents’ fantasies. Where the mother or sisters get emotional, there is a sense of apprehension from the men.
Never have I been interrogated like I was when it dawned on my wife’s parents I was to marry their daughter. “She is my doting daughter please, please; never do anything to upset her. She is FRAGILE and take extremely good care of her,†said my mother-in-law, tears rolling down her cheeks.
I was even given a to-do list by her Ssenga on how best to handle her.
Most of the rules were contrary to what an average man dreams of in a wife. The average man craves a wife who doubles as a caterer in a kitchen, a brooding mother at home, a girlfriend at social functions and a whore in bed.
On my part, I was supposed to give her time to learn how to cook, had to help her with the laundry, and I wasn’t supposed to pester her into having sex, if she did not feel like it!
Interestingly, as I was later to understand, none of the rules were meted out on the elder sisters. Actually one of her sisters comes to our home under the pretext of visiting and has cooked some of the best meals we have had.
I believe she came short of saying it; but I remember that piercing from my mother-in-law when my nauseous wife went back home for proper treatment! Yes she was pregnant; I wasn’t giving proper care. No words were spoken, but never in life have I felt so guilty without words being spoken in my direction.
There is a way a lastborn will want you to think for her and think about her, although you might end up thinking because of her!
If you are wanting on the romantic side, prepare to pretend or don’t dare. They love being cuddled like puppies. My wife loves attention and needs to be loved even when she does not reciprocate the love! Thank God I’ve learnt to live with it.