Ephrem Endale Contributer
This Ethiopian month of Tir is traditionally the month of marriages. Every other person you know seems to be tying the knot; some for the first some for the third time.
“Hey, Did you hear ….got married?”
“What do you mean got married? The guy is already married.”
“No he isn’t. The word is his wife left him for a rich guy.” Aha, ‘the rich guy;” the guy for whom buying his ‘current girlfriend’ a Lexus or some expensive toy is like buying her chewing gum. (Yes, once upon a time chewing gum held the position the Lexus does these days! And, the misinformed or the uninformed say there is nothing good about the old days! You can rightly guess that many marriages which happened because of the chewing gum are still intact!)
A storyline so overused, it has become a cliché. When a lady marries a rich guy ‘she’s after his money. I’m not sure how this all started. Maybe we’ve become such a materialistic lot that for us there are only ‘financial motives’ behind any and everything.
The story of the lady marrying not for love but for money! Yes, that’s it. Every time the groom is ‘rich’ the guns are trained at the bride. “She is after his money!” He’s the goldmine and she’s the gold-digger.
Not that there are no such souls. But what is disturbing is this chauvinistic generalization. (I hope I don’t sound like a Marx protégée!)
Well, truth be told, these days there are men, and a lot of them too, whose Alpha and Omega in life is hunting for the ladies with money. Also the would-be grooms who walk their legs raw in search of the rich man’s daughter.
But we never talk about this. I mean, never! If the bride was rich and the groom is ‘just another ordinary guy’ like you and me it
isn’t about money, but about love. You wouldn’t hear something like, “He married her for her money.” No; that would spoil the ‘rich man, poor girl’ story line cast on some invisible stone.
A few months back a fellow was asked to mediate between a couple whose marriage was cracking on all sides. He wasn’t happy about it. More than once he landed in hot waters being accused of taking sides.
But this one was different. He was intimately close to both and he was afraid some misinterpreted comment would put him at odds with either of them. That was exactly what happened. He advises the man to go it slow on his drinking and the guy took it as some blow to his pride.
The catch here is the hubby was a seven-days-a-week drinker! And he has the guts to think of pride!
The lady put up with his excesses for years and finally decided enough was enough. When word got out she asked for a divorce the tongues began wagging. Out of the thin air stories of her having a secret affair with some ‘rich guy’ circled around the hubby’s friends and relatives.
Her hearing these rumors sealed the fate of the marriage which has endured a decade or so. Sad people were talking not about an innocent lady who suffered for years and still remained patient to save her marriage; but about a mysterious affair with a mysterious ‘rich man’ without a face or a name. (Maybe I should read more how those bearded guys dealt with the chauvinism issue.)
There is one issue that really been nagging me. Once in a while we hear of multimillion birr marriages of prominent entertainment personalities; wedding extravaganzas costing in the millions and all the made-for-camera pre and post marriage events. You can’t help remembering over again that ancient Ethiopian pun crudely translated as, “When there is money, there is a way in the sky.”
Since many of the brides fit our notion of ‘beauty’ and since some of them were good in their profession you can’t help giving them the thumbs up! But no sooner than our thumbs have assumed their natural position the house comes down.
“Did you hear about…?”
“Yes, I know she was married some months ago.”
“Well, she is now separated.”
“Separated from what?”
“Separated from what?”
“Separated from her husband, you dummy!”
I wish some professionals looked into this common, too common, occurrence and tell us what it is all about.
Until then, about this ‘rich man, poor girl’ storyline, I think it’s time we got over it. These days the cards aren’t stacked as in the old days.
The Ethiopian Herald January 24/2021