22 Apr 2009 |
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For Men Only: You Cannot Marry Your Grandmother in Washington, D.C. I am here at the boulevard of broken dreams. Depression has taken over my being. I am broken-hearted and finished. My childhood dreams are shattered! I have discovered that my life-long marriage to my grandmother is against the law in Washington, D.C. Here is the law, enshrined in the law books at D.C. Code § 46-401. This law states that here in Washington, D.C., the following marriages are illegal and, therefore, are prohibited: “The marriage of a man with his grandmother, grandfather’s wife, wife’s grandmother, father’s sister, mother’s sister, mother, stepmother, wife’s mother, daughter, wife’s daughter, son’s wife, sister, son’s daughter, daughter’s daughter, son’s son’s wife, daughter’s son’s wife, wife’s son’s daughter, wife’s daughter’s daughter, brother’s daughter, sister’s daughter.” You see, as early as I can recall, my grandmother, a quintessential Igbo spirit, unapologetically steeped in traditions, used to call me “di m” in addition to other pet names. In Igbo, “di m” literally means “my husband”. I was her husband and, by her repetitive use of that title to address me, grandma ensured that everyone in my extended family, and in my hometown, was aware of our marriage. It was at the age of five or six that I knew how I became my grandmother’s husband. I was told that after my birth, my grandmother, following our Igbo traditions, had gone to see a diviner to find out who I was. In other words, whose spirit, among our deceased relatives, had returned to the family in the form of this new baby? Grandma was thrilled when she was told that the new baby boy was her deceased husband (my grandfather) reincarnated. My family, I was told, promptly broke into an impromptu festival that went on for several days. I was the reincarnation of my grandfather. Thenceforth, to my grandmother, I was her “di”. My place and status in the family instantly was elevated to levels that would make my childhood thoroughly enchanting and, in my adulthood, nostalgic about my childhood. Those numerous benefits, accruing to my raised status in the family, including unbelievable degrees of protectiveness and pampering, made other children of my age wish they too were reincarnations of deceased prominent members of their families. Now you can understand why, here in Washington, D.C., the fond memory of my fantastic marriage to my beloved grandmother is unsettled by this wayward law. I cannot marry my grandmother? Can you understand how a little boy’s secret desire to continue being the husband of his grandmother, shrouded in innocence, is being disturbed by the sinful hang-ups of this adult law in a foreign land prohibiting such marriage? Can you? And so I was shocked, well, more precisely, the little boy in me was shocked, to discover that, in the eyes of Washington, I had been involved in an illegal marriage to my grandmother from childhood. My heart is broken, my innocence shattered. If I tell people here that I was married to my grandmother, will I be dragged to court and charged with a crime? Will they publish my story on the pages of the Washington Post newspapers and on the Internet? I am afraid. Can you, the reader, keep this secret between you and me? I am worried that I have offended foreign laws, alien to my African notions of reincarnation and marriage. I am even more worried that, by being worried, I am now offending the spirit of my grandfather which inhabits the physical object that is me. As for you, adult man, who has been nursing a secret desire to marry a grandmother, I dislike being your messenger of this bad news. You cannot and should not do it unless it is someone else’s grandmother. In short, let me warn you right now: stay away from Washington, D.C. And while you stay away, I hope you find a modicum of solace in the knowledge that your dream of marrying a grandmother is actually legal in every country as long as it is not your own grandmother or your wife’s grandmother. If, in spite of my warning above, you are still contemplating coming to Washington to wed an old grandmother or relative, consider the following fine, and not-so-fine, loopholes about this law and you may yet figure out a way around the law. First, did you notice that the law does not prohibit a man from marrying his great-grandmother? Consider marrying a great-grandmother. Maybe the lawmakers thought that no man in his right senses would contemplate marrying his great-grandmother, which was why they did not include that option on the list of prohibited marriages. Or did they think that great-grandmothers would not agree to marriage proposals of their great-grandsons? I have a picture in my head of a twenty-two-year-old man kneeling down on one knee, with a ring in his hand before his ninety-two-year-old great-grandmother saying, legally, “will you marry me?” This picture does not look good to me. I don’t know whether to frown or laugh. Second, did you notice that the law does not prohibit a man from marrying his father’s wife? But the law prohibits a man from marrying his grandfather’s wife. This one baffles me. Is it that incidents of men snatching their fathers’ young wives away from their fathers are not probable? Or did the lawmakers assume that the wife of a young man’s father will always be the same as the young man’s mother (or step-mother) and that prohibition of such marriage (between a man and his mother or step-mother) was already covered by the law? That would be a mistaken rationale. Just wait until my uncles come to live in Washington, each with his three wives. Third, did you notice that the law prohibits a man from marrying his wife’s mother or his wife’s grandmother but not his ex-wife’s mother or grandmother? Why? I am convinced that the lawmakers were not thinking properly on this one. If a man has a wife, why would he need to marry his wife’s mother or grandmother? Can a man legally marry more than one wife here in Washington? And if the man’s wife is dead or the man has divorced his wife, then the old ladies are no longer his wife’s mother and grandmother because he no longer has a wife. I assume then that the man may proceed because the law does not prohibit a marriage between him and his ex-wife’s mother and grandmother. Yea, yea, I know, the law is an ass. So, to all of you unorthodox men looking for grandmothers to marry, whether for their money or for love, you may not marry your own grandmothers; but consider exploiting the loopholes in the law by marrying your great-grandmother or your father’s wife or your ex-wife’s mother. But if you do it in Washington, D.C. and end up in jail, remember that no wise man takes the advice of a professed wayo guy. My apologies to grandma.
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