Should all despair

That have revolted wives,

The tenth of mankind

Would hang themselves.

— Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale I, 2

You are a thousand times

A properer man,

Than she a woman.

— Shakespeare, As You Like It III, 5

Take heart, all you subjugated men, don’t hang yourself, for you are an even more proper man than she is a woman. At least that’s what those characters in Shakespeare’s plays were saying. Maybe that’s what Basil Dawkins was also saying in his latest play, Once a Man, Twice a Wife . I must confess that I sort of ripped off that title to headline my column this week, but the production was so up my street, I couldn’t help but address the same issues that it explored.

Without giving too much of the plot away, the play examined the position of husbands who are ruled, dominated, subjugated, by wives who somehow think that they are on a lofty perch, a pedestal, a throne of sorts, and the husband is the bwoy. “Hey bwoy, come here, do this, move that, fix that, clean that.”

There’s a twist in the play, of course, as the household helper also has something to say about the scenario, but like I said, I won’t give away the plot of that thought-provoking, dynamic, funny play.

But I will give you my take on the issue of ‘Once a man, bwoy to wife’, right after these responses to ‘Women, love, money’.

Hi Tony,

I believe that in our era there were women who lived to fleece men of their hard-earned cash. A fool and his money are soon parted. We were lucky because we were young, broke and didn’t associate with those types of women who were more mature than we were. We associated with young, wholesome girls who were looking for a loving relationship and didn’t care much about how much cash we earned. In our day, it was more of men, love, women, and vice versa.

Peter

Teerob,

It’s simply a matter of supply and demand, with the women having the supply, and the men making the demands. All this pre-dates your writing, and goes back even before the Bible. In fact, those same stories existed in the Bible. The three words ring true, like the chimes of a beckoning bell: women, love, money. What a sweet, yet deceptive sound it makes.

Lila

The biblical saying is, once a man, twice a child, and there is a sad truth to it, for if we live long enough, we come full circle, from toothlessness, having to be fed and bathed, to wearing diapers again. Big man turn into a bwoy again. Yes bwoy, which is really a boy, but more inferior, slave-like, disrespected. “Yu a treat big man like bwoy now.”

But it’s not only age that completes this cruel circle of men turning back into boys, where they end up losing their power, strength and respect, as they succumb to a greater force… their wives. Many men will tell you that their wives turn them into bwoys.

“Go buy the groceries, water the garden, wash the car, clean the house, do the dishes, feed the dogs, pick up the kids.”

“I must be the house bwoy now.”

In Basil’s play, again without divulging too much of the plot, the highly-educated and upwardly mobile wife feels her strength and treats her blue-collar husband like he is a bwoy. She’s embarrassed by the way he speaks, dresses, and smells. “Try not to speak when we’re with company, make sure you bathe, and spray on plenty cologne,” is what she constantly tells her husband.

But life does imitate art, for I know quite a few men who are bwoys to their wives. As far as those wives are concerned, their husbands no longer have any say at all, as they are the only ones who have any sense. “Stop talking rubbish, do it the way that I tell you.”

We may have heard the term that many husbands use, “Let me talk to my wife first before I get back to you.” What he really means is, “My wife makes all the decisions, so I’ll have to get her approval first.” Oh yes, the reality is, those husbands had better seek the approval of their wives before they make any move.

All decisions are made solely by the wife, and the man is nothing but a bwoy in her eyes and in the house. Somehow along his sad sojourn through life, the once proud man capitulated, abdicated his throne and handed over the reins to his wife. And they are not benevolent rulers, for power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

One big mistake is letting the wife handle all the finances, deal with all the money, for that new found power and assumed independence make her feel that the man is redundant. She distributes the funds, makes all the decisions regarding the household purchases, and the needs of the children. She decides where they go and when.

You may think it absurd and nigh impossible, but those scenarios exist and it’s not pleasant to witness. She who handles the purse strings handles the man, and she who handles the man, turns him into a bwoy.

It even boils down to when they have sex, as she is the one who decrees the date, time, and duration. Now, you’re going to say that I’m stretching it, and that nutten cyaan go suh, but domestic truth is stranger than fiction, and husbands confide in me, sometimes begging me to talk to their wives for them.

Not me, for I ain’t got no dogs in that fight, and cockroach don’t business inna fowl fight either. When he was a man he would demand sex whenever he wanted it. “Come baby, get yourself ready, me and you tonight.” But now that he’s a bwoy, it’s she who calls the shots as he awaits the pleasure of her majesty. “I’ll give you a few minutes tomorrow night if you behave properly at my office party. And don’t mess up my hair.”

This sex thing has really given some women the ability to turn men into bwoys. So much so that I read that some women in Trinidad are advocating that women withhold sex from their men in order to curtail domestic abuse. Why should sex be the dynamic that dictates the outcome of domestic abuse? Don’t many husbands have it hard enough already getting a little honey from their wives without throwing in yet another element? Won’t that just create more discord? Plus, some husbands wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference of this industrial action.

“She say that she withholding sex, but is four months now me nuh get nutten, so what’s the difference?”

If a hungry man is an angry man, can you just imagine what a horny man would be? Ladies, I say, give it up, give in, lay down on the job and spread more loving to your man. Don’t use sex as your trump card, as your ace in the hole, as your bargaining chip.

Making him cross and miserable may just add to the abuse. Of course, a real man never agrees to those conditions and would never sign that contract. “Say what, yu lock shop pon me, yu take strike action, deh pon go slow? Well, fast food shop always open.” The man who’s a bwoy, though, will meekly accede to the conditions. “Yes dear, I’ll just do without until you tell me when.”

Basil Dawkins is a man after my own heart, and his plays always resonate with me as we seem to be on the same wavelength. It’s as if watching life unfold on the stage, and even after the play I heard some male patrons saying how true those scenarios can be. One guy even said that it was his life that he just witnessed.

The play even moved the actors — Earle Brown, Dorothy Cunningham and Karen Harriot, who told me that she wept copiously during one scene when they just opened. There was a time when men were men, wore the pants, called the shots and reverted to being boys only with the onset of old age. But many wives nowadays speed up that cycle as they go back to school, have lofty ambitions, assume power, and think that they have strength for some men.

That being said, it takes two to tango, and I blame the men too, for allowing that to happen. If you were a man and not a bwoy deep down, no woman couldn’t turn you into one. Once a man, always a man.

More time.

seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: I got a really sad and shocking e-mail from a friend of mine whose son recently committed suicide. I knew the son very well. The e-mail was titled ‘The Inner Enemy’, and chronicled the journey of his son as he struggled with chronic anxiety, depression and substance abuse for many years. This is a father who I know really tried with his son but ultimately lost him to the enemy within. I’ll always remember when he took him to my karate class and actually trained beside him as he desperately tried everything to get him back on track. There was this big elderly man, sweating in his street clothes, huffing and puffing, all for the sake of his beloved son. He’s appealing to others to not see shame in mental illness, but tackle it with the same intensity as you would physical ailments. The inner enemy exists.