I am your wife

If you will marry me,

If not

I’ll die your maid.

— Shakespeare,
The Tempest

In that first quote, it shows how desperate some women are to become wives, at least back in those days. After all, there’s childhood, boyhood, manhood, so why not wifehood?! But after achieving that status, things tend to change. Wives are complex, multi-faceted, and as this other quote implies, also very secretive.

“Wives won’t tell,

Wives won’t swell,

Wives are grateful as hell.”

So said this man who specialises in dealing with married women. Yes, there are men who do that, the same way many women specialise in married men. The only difference is that the wives are so much better at it.

We’ll see what that’s all about right after these responses to what I had to say about ‘No gold in golden years’

Teerob,

You are spot on, and if only we had the Midas touch when we grew older, we’d be happy. But things don’t turn to gold just because you touch them as King Midas did. They sometimes crumble to dust with the passage of time. It can be a frightening prospect.

Richard

Anthony,

Loved the golden age piece. It’s true, especially regarding finances, but as a wise man once said, ‘I will take it at any level.’ Some oldsters can still work and earn, and if in your 80s you find yourself unwell and incapable, it will just be for a while, a small fraction of a great life.

Pardy

So often we’ll hear a woman talk about her husband having another woman and either forgives him or just accepts it as being normal. Rarely, if ever, will you hear a man say, “Mi wife have another man wid me yu nuh, cho, mek har gwan, it soon cool off.” If you ever hear that let me know. Women are so secretive that it hurts, and for every man who has another woman, there’s a wife who has another man, but the husband doesn’t know. Men brag and boast about it but wives never tell.

I read these two articles recently titled, ‘Why marry’ and ‘Things my mother never told me’ written by a woman. There she examined the myths, facts, fiction and legends of holy matrimony from the female perspective. Naturally my interest was piqued, so I had to delve further into the subject and speak to some women about the issue. It seems as if almost every woman wants to be a wife.

Oh sure, they’ll say otherwise, but as soon as the years begin to creep up, they’ll say it less and less and instead sing a different song, one with bells in it, one with a certain ring to it. Yes, oh yes, to the first guy who asks them.

“I’d rather be married and divorced than never been married.”

“Mi nuh want to be nuh old maid.”

“Even fi have the Mrs before mi name, that’s all.”

“If mi nuh get married, mi we buy de ring and wear it still,”

This and more I heard from the ladies in waiting. But the thing is, a lot of women see marriage as the end of their quest, and not the beginning of a new life. As soon as the ring goes on and the name changes, so does she, or so it may seem. The glamorous, fun-loving fox of a lady did a flip-flop and turned into a frumpy curler-wearing-can’t-bother-anymore wife.

“Cho, mi can’t bother anymore,” is the standard response.

I guarantee that if you see a lady out with a man, and she’s poorly dressed or with curlers in her hair, you can bet that she’s his wife and not his girlfriend. Just last week I saw a woman out in public with multicoloured curlers in her hair, an uptown woman too, in a Benz. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Girlfriends are always crisser than wives, yet when the man casts that wayward glance, the wife glares at him. Hey listen, people in beat-up, jing bang old cars look at people in Benzes, Bimmas and Lexuses, not the other way around.

“It’s just that I feel comfortable with my husband,” one wife told me when I saw her in the supermarket with her hair festooned with more curlers and decorations than the municipal Christmas tree. Her husband didn’t say a word but cast his eyes upwards with a look of resignation, right after he cast a furtive glance at the criss young miss.

Marriage ruins sex, it is often said, and the wives that I spoke to concurred.

“It’s not that it ruins sex, but I find that it’s just not the same. Either I got too used to him, or I’m just too busy, distracted or too tired at night.”

This was the same lady who told me how she used to rush to be with her husband for afternoon dalliances or marathon weekends of heavy sweating. All that before the ring went on.

“Now it’s more like work,” said another wife, “I just do it to appease him, then roll over and go to sleep. I really can’t stand him touching me.”

And people wonder why men wander. Of course, this does not apply to all wives, certainly not, but it does to many. In fact, those two articles I mentioned addressed this same problem, and I’m glad that someone else, a woman too, shed some light on the subject.

The irony is, these same wives who experience sexual boredom with their husbands will find gratification elsewhere, their libidos raging out of control, their appetites uncontrollable, their lust unquenchable, their desire unfathomable, their writhing unparalleled, their utterings unspeakable. That’s the mystery. Maybe It’s the husband’s fault, although he will say otherwise.

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Or as this husband asked his wife, “Honey, how come I never hear when you have an orgasm?”

“That’s because you’re never there,” came the reply.

Oops, that’s where Joe steps in, Joe Specialist. These guys specialise in married women, and the women know it, but don’t seem to care.

That guy says that there’s no commitment, no responsibility, no fear of discovery (won’t tell) and he still has his freedom.

“She nuh pressure me for anything, as she have har house, husband and hobby.”

Happy life, happy wife, and they are more abundant than you think. These wives have found a new sense of liberation and are content to have their few stolen hours fulfilled to the max. Some have been carrying on for years, often changing partners every year and the husband has no idea.

But if they ever suspect hubby of having any daring, dizzying dalliance, they’ll lash out like a harridan, a harpy from hell.

“It doesn’t matter that I’m having an affair, how dare he keep woman with me. He doesn’t even have the decency to be discreet about it.”

Strange how the human mind thinks, but as they say, “When a tief tief from another tief, God laugh.”

The only difference is that wives are so much better at it, and don’t leave tell-tale signs as the men do. Like the old cliché lipstick on the collar, perfume on the clothes, staying out late, calling the wrong name and sounding strange on the phone.

“Who was that on the phone dear?”

“Oh, just a friend.”

Yeah right. Wives are skilful, so much so that husbands will swear blind that it is totally and absolutely impossible for their wives to have an affair, because, “I know her too well man, from she was pickney, she not that type of person, not too crazy about sex and she couldn’t find the time anyway.” This and more I’ve heard from men.

This good friend of mine stopped me in the supermarket last week and told me that she doesn’t want to be a wife again, instead she’d rather just have a man for six months, a man with an expiry date. Now, that needs some exploring. Maybe that’s what some new-age wives want, term contracts with men, as opposed to the illusion of a lifetime commitment. Many wives are unhappy but voice this only in secret to their friends or lovers.

Back to the two articles, where this wife of five years said, “I loved to go out. I used to be at a club every Saturday night. Nowadays I’m not free again. I can’t go out unless my husband is present, and now three children later, I’m now an old married woman experiencing wifehood.”

More time.

seido1yard@gtmail.com

Footnote:
Daughters of the Dance Hall Queen currently in preproduction is the most recent project to grace the media landscape as filming is scheduled to start the first week in October. It’s the brainchild of writer/producer Ed Wallace who was co-writer of the now classic movie,
Dance Hall Queen. It’s not a sequel, but explores the activities of the daughters of the dance hall queen with some brilliant twists, turns, action and drama.

Ed Wallace has had a stellar career, having written and produced many hits such as
My Son’s Friend,
The Dry Run,
Boeing Boeing,
The Rapist,
Operation P,
Sarge in Charge, with luminaries such as Leonie Forbes, Oliver Samuels, Bobby Ghishays. Many have won Actor Boy Awards. The series will be directed by me, Teerob, who also has a rich history in film drama, having written and directed numerous award-winning TV movies and series, including
Safe Travel,
High Grade,
Flashpoint 38 and others. Sherando Feril, known for her extraordinary skills in movie and film, is the producer of the series. Look out for it, It’s all Jamaican. Our film industry, blossoming on the world stage.