I honestly do not think it is something that I can do, knowing myself as well as I do. I am simply too shackled to tradition, too keen on conforming to the norm, to even consider it an option, no matter how strapped for choice I am. This however seems to be an emerging trend among Nigerian women. I say ‘seem’ because all I have to go on are three incidences that have followed in quick succession, within a very short period. I have no means of conducting a survey to confirm my suspicions but those three events got me wondering about what I would do had I been in the woman’s shoes who finds the need to say I do to someone considerably younger than herself.

You see having seen with my own eyes as they say, I now have reason to believe that  women in Nigeria are beginning to marry younger men, not just younger by a couple of months as used to sometimes happen in the time of the parents, but men younger by several years. Examples abound in the US, UK, Canada and such places I know, but that is among the people of America, Europe, Scandinavia and oyinbo type people whether they are yellow, black or white. They are not like us and their mentality is such that a medical doctor would get married to a refuse collector just because she claims they fell in love. How does love even happen in such instances? How can love happen between Gbadamosi, who comes to collect refuse from my house and I, him with his grimy face and sickeningly sweet smell of putrefaction?  What would have happened to men that groom themselves nicely and wear perfumes to titillate the senses? Such men who used to have to be old enough to be deemed men by a woman’s estimation before being given her light of day. It usually meant that he would be older than she was, if only by a bit and a lot more accomplished.

True, women have been known to prop a man with prospects, a man that is down temporarily and needs some financial help or a man who if dressed up in appropriate garb would actually have the semblance of the husband that a woman could be proud of. It is preferable if he is good looking and exudes enough confidence to give credence to stories we use to justify ourselves to friends that he is just down on his luck at the moment, he really is from a prominent family and will not need help for long. The weekly allowance and other necessary  paraphernalia, including a well-furnished apartment, a good car and designer clothes are only  to support him until he gets back on his feet.

We have come to accept this and we advice each other that if that is what it takes to get a husband, better to do it. Many men need help and who knows what tomorrow will bring? The men we choose to ‘help’ always have prospects, their hapless victims can tell just by listening to them discuss deals about to be clinched and tell stories of  glory days when things were still going for them. They keep their women hooked with emotional blackmail and make endless demands on hard-earned resources. Perhaps sisters are finally beginning to wise up to these kinds of men, that they will always be a liability and expect to be slavishly loved not just with body but with all that is owned and sometimes borrowed. The men in their turn lavish their love on others, preferably younger, prettier and extremely needy of affection. Affection freely demonstrated with money snared from misguided providers desperate for the respectability bestowed by a simple gold band.

The desire for respectability appears to have opened up other options that now include rummaging through the debris of friends that younger brothers bring home for husband material.  It might be mean to say this, even though I acknowledge that love truly does happen where love will. Still, I believe that people should take some responsibility for deflecting or redirecting cupid’s arrow so that it does not cause untoward complications.  I empathise with the reasons women have, who have had to marry men younger than they are, but it does take a bit of getting used to if you have any direct relationships with the couple. Many women have had to wait decades for the right man to come along and it often is the reason they have decided to make do with what is available. What they have not stopped to think about is what happened after Laura got her groove back and life returned to normal.

In our Nigerian context for instance, where the senior sister’s husband assumes the status of nearly a demigod in the family, is accorded all the respect due to a senior son and addressed as such, what will the wife’s younger siblings be required to do, particularly if they are themselves older than husband. Looked at cursorily, the situation is hardly of consequence and will be deemed easily addressed until events arise that require his contributions in terms of advice and decision-making. Most women of my experience are touchy, tetchy even about how their husbands are addressed and treated. A younger husband can therefore be the cause of many family feuds.

Unless the happy couple choose a reclusive life and refuse to socialise, there will be occasions that bring friends and family, and husbands of friends and family together. Whether we admit it or not there is an unspoken pecking order at these events, prescribed mostly by age, although depth of pocket is sometimes taken into account when cash and favours are freely dispensed. Even so, this has to be within reasonable limits, we are after all a nation of proud people. It is conflicting to say that pride is a key motivation for financial crimes that have proliferated among us, in spite of the very high risk of shame when found out. We mostly cannot bear to be dictated to or treated shabbily by anyone just because they have money, so we look to make our own by crook or by crook. In our reckoning, the status accorded by wealth is non-comparable; it is the only thing that will make a young person disregard an older one, or question wisdom generally accepted to be conferred by age.

So why have Nigerian women turned to the nursery in their quest for marital respectability, knowing that family and friends will disparage their beau. How about issues of their own esteem, will they take on traditional wifely roles where they are expected to honour and obey their husbands, and be subservient to him. How will they relate to their husband’s friends and contemporaries and how will they expect their own friends and contemporaries to relate to him.

The latter became the topic of many conversations with my friends when a mutual friend recently got married to a younger man, one we all knew growing up in the same neighbourhood. This man has always addressed us with some level of deference, because we are older by a few years and his own friends are my very much younger brothers and sisters. However, getting on first name terms became less the problem when we watched our friend relate to this fellow. A once self-possessed woman reduced to dancing to the every whim and caprice of another, not because she has been asked to but because she believes, it is the way to show that she truly loves her husband and that she is committed to the relationship. She fusses over him at social gatherings, getting up to serve him from buffet spreads and leaving us to imagine that she cooks and cleans for him as would happen in any other marriage. This attitude sharply contrasts with the person that we know her to be and we all wonder how long it will last, while we try to play down the negative emotions this new relationship has produced in us.

Most worrying is that one of us insists that the man should continue to show her due deference, including preceding her name with aunty as he used to do. She explained that being invited into her friend’s bed granted him no liberties with her. She is still his senior and must be accorded and shown all the traditional respect due to her from him if they must continue to relate. Her position has divided us into camps with some saying that our friend’s marriage should be given a chance at success without interference from us. While others believe that if this fellow can now relate to us as equals, the same right should be given to every one his age and above, including my younger brother by seven years who is already a serious upstart and routinely challenges my authority in the family.

I argue that the others have not requested this privilege and we should therefore not pre-empt them, apart from which most of them may not be comfortable with the idea given their upbringing. My friend’s younger sister is particularly pained because she is older than her new brother-in-law and some of the errands she runs for her sister involve serving him by proxy, something she would rather not do. She is affronted that this boy as she refers to him addresses her sister by name, in direct negation of what she has been raised to do. She would not address her older sister by name, not even in thought.  She noted also a new familiarity in his approach that she resents because she is simply not his mate. Her brother and used to be close friend of the groom does not come by anymore, having decided to give his sister and her new husband their space while limiting his own chances of getting insulted.

Complicated, but relationships often are as are the emotions that surround them. Married people have had to decide at some point how much to be guided by tradition and culture, which friends and family members to discard and which ones to keep to protect the sanctity of modern marriages. What may not have been well thought-out is how important our marriages or indeed our marital status is when it comes to the unity and perpetuation of our ancestral families and customs.  Older husbands can often be tolerated no matter how cantankerous they are, but nuances in conversation will be subjected to endless analyses to ensure that disrespect if perceived was not deliberate especially when the husbands or wives in question are younger than we are. While we do not want to disrespect our seniors by appearing rude to their spouses, we also do not want to be disrespected by young spouses in the family no matter how inadvertent. If these things do not matter, we would not dedicate the time that we do to discussing and reviewing acts of rudeness and bad attitudes within the family. Many are the meetings called precisely to settle matters of ‘they said and did’; it is one of the things that make us family and adds pep to our lives. There is always a place for age in our communities, no matter how westernised we become.

So when inverted marriages challenge traditional relationships should we simply defer to the happiness of the couple and subjugate all other considerations to that or should we stand mutely by hoping that these things will resolve themselves with time. If tradition allows that a woman’s husband can be older than her parents why should practice not make way for a husband that is younger than the youngest child in the family.

Robot  Villager

# 1 ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 08.03.2008 23:02

lionking  Villager

# 2 Mutti! Mutti!! Mutti!!! You and your friends, make una take am easy. If 40yr old men prefer to kick it with 25yr old women , why not the other way? To me, more grease to any woman who seeks happiness in the arms of a younger man as long as she pays due heed to caveat emptor. Are you not guilty of stereotyping all younger husbands as toy boys and gigolos? Would it be fair to stereotype all women that married much older men as a gold diggers? Not to stereotype but I suspect some of the difficulties in nomenclature and appropriate salutation would figure larger in those Nigerian cultures where obvious exhibition of formal respect is the norm. A compromise might be for the hubby to address his wife as 'Iya XXX' that is if they have kids and vice versa. I do think he should continue to address his wife's friends as 'aunty'. Sharing their friend's bed certainly does not entitle him to that particular liberty. Indeed, he should have considered all that in deciding to Posted by lionking| 09.03.2008 03:57

aguabata  Villager

# 3 please in my own view, once you are an adult you deserve to be treated and respected equally, I dont think the writer is talking about a woman who married a man in his teens.If the woman's younger husband behaves maturedly then her friends have no reason to treat her otherwise, even in their minds. Posted by aguabata| 09.03.2008 05:37

Vaya con Dios  Villager

# 4 =lionking;4294994603>Mutti! Mutti!! Mutti!!! You and your friends, make una take am easy. If 40yr old men prefer to kick it with 25yr old women , why not the other way? To me, more grease to any woman who seeks happiness in the arms of a younger man as long as she pays due heed to caveat emptor. Ehn. . . . .na wetin? Why una come dey call my name for here? Dem no put my name inside the original tori, na which one come be my own for inside di matter, now? :lol: But on a serious note, I can relate fully to all what was discussed in that article, having trod that path once, myself. I wouldn't do it again, but I learnt a lot from it. My verdict at the end of the day is very simple - to each man or woman, his own or her own. Some younger men are more mature and responsible, than their older male counterparts. Others are not, and have to be spoon-fed every step of the way. It all depends on what both parties want out of the relationship, and how much sincerity, love and understanding they bring to the table, from the onset and how much of those qualities they continue to deploy in the course of their relationship. If dating a younger man rocks your boat as a single woman, hey why not? Just open your eyes well, be fully armed with the facts and pitfalls before you take the plunge. :rolleyes: Posted by Vaya con Dios| 09.03.2008 07:58

ajimoh  Villager

# 5 =Vaya con Dios;4294994612> Some younger men are more mature and responsible, than their older male counterparts. Others are not, and have to be spoon-fed every step of the way. It all depends on what both parties want out of the relationship, and how much sincerity, love and understanding they bring to the table, from the onset and how much of those qualities they continue to deploy in the course of their relationship. If dating a younger man rocks your boat as a single woman, hey why not? Just open your eyes well, be fully armed with the facts and pitfalls before you take the plunge. Sis Mutti, Thanks for brightening our Sunday with this refreshingly entertaining piece. I don't believe I can better the wise counsel proffered by Vaya con Dios quoted above and lionking who opined "To me, more grease to any woman who seeks happiness in the arms of a younger man as long as she pays due heed to caveat emptor". However, I will further counsel those sisters lucky enough to want to Captain their ships with young guns, and especially where the pot done cook already, to consider drawing up what is called a prenuptial agreement. They must not be carried away with the earthquakes happening in the...’you know where’! Sisters in America and UK in particular should think seriously and not confuse love with unbelievably good...; do your prenup first before taking your eaglet to the alter. Times have changed and I am sure we all know it is hardly until death do us part any longer. I am sorry if I appear despondent. It is based on personal and professional experience, albeit it does not necessarily mean it will happen to you people. Posted by ajimoh| 09.03.2008 08:31

lionking  Villager

# 6 =ajimoh;4294994614>Sisters in America and UK in particular should think seriously and not confuse love with unbelievably good...; do your prenup first before taking your eaglet to the alter. Prenup can work in the case of a gold digger; but what about green card aspirant? :D Posted by lionking| 09.03.2008 08:40

toksyleigh  Villager

# 7 Mutti, It is very funny and indeed very true that love nowadays has become complicated.....Gone are those days when no matter how educated, independent or beautiful a woman is; she is always able to find a good husband (emphasis on good) that will love and respect her. I still do not know what happened? I think a lot of Nigerians nowadays really mis-understood marriage. If you think the so called "Oyinbo" women do not love, honour and obey their husbands, you have totally missed the point. Some of them don't and those are the ones that make up the statistics of 45% divorce rates in the West that you always read about. Now about 1/2 of that 45% is made up of mis-guided foreigners who do not really understand the Oyinbo people or thier marriage life to start with. There is nothing wrong with some of our tradition at all; yes age plays an important role in our traditions and cultures, it is how we show respect to one another; then there is our traditional marriage culture. On this issue I really think it depends on the younger husband. An important part of marriage is to love, honour and respect your spouse, if this young man is a smart man and he is not full of ignorant arrogance like most Nigerians, he would love, cherish and treat his older wife with all due respect (and she thesame deserving of a good husband as the culture dictates), he will also know his place within her family and friends circle i.e. that is show respect to everybody until any of her family or friends shows through their own behaviours that this young man needs to treat them with some well deserved disrespect. If the wife is sure that it is a real love and not the one based on money or "stay/green card" she should try and protect her husband because no matter how smalll in age he is, she choose him as her husband. So to my Sisters Mutti et all, if she fusses over her younger husband, rushes to get his food at a social gathering or dances to any tune as he dictates that is what a wife does for husband as our culture dictates and there is nothing wrong with that, please remember that a husband is always a husband regardless of age. Please leave dem alone ooooo. Most importantly, the two of them should not let outsiders into their marriage as the Yoruba adage goes "if the wall is not opened, the lizard can not slide in and hide inside" God help us all, Goriola Abamieda Jr. Posted by toksyleigh| 09.03.2008 10:33

ajimoh  Villager

# 8 Lionking, You are quite right; prenup will only mitigate against a gold digger and not Green Card (US) or Indefinite Leave (UK) digger. However, it is still better not to be screwed both ways; if the smart (sic) dud/chic gets away with immigration status good, but not also the sweat and toil of our hardworking sisters or brothers! A recent victim I listened to rained so much curse on men because, as she alleged, she had brought the considerably younger man from Nigeria to the UK; clothe him, fed him, applied for indefinite leave to remain for him and, this is not a joke please, even cured the pimples on his face - she showed me contrasting photos to back her point. Now, as soon as the young lad got what he wanted, he didn't know how to do the decent thing so he started assaulting the poor woman, who is 12 years older! Sadly, for her, the house she had bought with no contribution from the young stud had been put into joint names, albeit that doesn't matter under UK family law: assets are jointly owned by married couples regardless of contribution. Now, the poor woman is going to have to hand over some cash, at least, before she can be rid of the ingrate she married. She believed she had been setup but admitted she was blind all along, etc! Prenup is not as legally binding here yet, as it is in the US, but it carries a persuasive effect in the English family law courts now (see K v K (Ancillary Relief: Prenuptial Agreement) <2003> 1 FLR 120; V v C <2004> EWHC 1739; A v A <2007> All ER (D) 41; Ella v Ella <2007> All ER (D) 67). Maybe those with American/Canadian legal systems experience can tell us whether it is possible to have someone thrown out after Green Card, on the basis that it was procured by fraud, misrepresentation or deception? To be balanced though, it is better not to seek such extreme retribution since the younger man or woman would also have provided some sort of services in return so might be better to just protect one’s assets and leave them with whatever advantages might have accrued to them as a result of the failed relationship. Posted by ajimoh| 09.03.2008 10:38

emj  Villager

# 9 Most worrying is that one of us insists that the man should continue to show her due deference, including preceding her name with aunty as he used to do. She explained that being invited into her friend’s bed granted him no liberties with her. She is still his senior and must be accorded and shown all the traditional respect due to her from him if they must continue to relate. Her position has divided us into camps with some saying that our friend’s marriage should be given a chance at success without interference from us. While others believe that if this fellow can now relate to us as equals, the same right should be given to every one his age and above, including my younger brother by seven years who is already a serious upstart and routinely challenges my authority in the family. Hmmm...Mutti, i remembered asking a young friend of mine why he is yet to settle down...he said to me that the younger girls are too inexperience and flighty, that he is afraid of them....he would rather an older woman....a lady who he was courting cheated on him at the eve of their wedding, since then he's not been the same. I argue that the others have not requested this privilege and we should therefore not pre-empt them, apart from which most of them may not be comfortable with the idea given their upbringing. My friend’s younger sister is particularly pained because she is older than her new brother-in-law and some of the errands she runs for her sister involve serving him by proxy, something she would rather not do. She is affronted that this boy as she refers to him addresses her sister by name, in direct negation of what she has been raised to do. She would not address her older sister by name, not even in thought. She noted also a new familiarity in his approach that she resents because she is simply not his mate. Her brother and used to be close friend of the groom does not come by anymore, having decided to give his sister and her new husband their space while limiting his own chances of getting insulted. Hmmmm.....it now seems to be the norm all over the world for older women to hook up with younger men...but how to navigate through the path in a very traditional family is what gives one da jibbs/jibbers...but then in my tradition, one has learnt to address ones husband's sibblings that are younger....but this is quite different from dis case...can't imagine how i will address someone am several yrs older than cos he married my younger sister or cousins...drat, can't even begin to imagine it...but sha who knows, if he is respectful...maybe, but dang:eek::p Posted by emj| 09.03.2008 13:06

wizard  Villager

# 10 =ajimoh;4294994624>Lionking, this is not a joke please, even cured the pimples on his face - she showed me contrasting photos to back her point. How can this not be funny, I nearly fell off my chair :lol: Posted by wizard| 10.03.2008 12:28

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