For I am sick, and capable of fears,

Oppress’d with wrongs,

And therefore full of fears,

A widow, husbandless, subject to fears.

— Shakespeare, King John III, 1

HUSBANDLESS and subject to fears. That’s the hallmark of many women as they fear for the future without a man. Fear, that very thing that makes men tremble, makes them weak in the knees, as their pulse races, their hearts palpitate, cold sweat washes them, as we say in Jamaica, and the urge to flee is often only overcome by the fact that they often become rooted to the ground, petrified by fear.

But there is nothing to fear but fear itself, it is said. Even so, fear often overcomes a lot of people, especially men, and you’d be surprised at what they fear too. A lot of women will stand up to any man, yet run and jump on a table if a mouse or spider scurries across the floor. As for the croaking lizard, that brings out the ultimate fear in everybody. And it’s a mystery why, as those creatures are harmless and in fact are revered in many eastern countries. But perhaps the biggest fear that men have is that of marriage, which we’ll explore right after some feedback to ‘Time…for women’.

Mr Robinson,

I enjoyed your column, (buttering you up), however, there were a couple of things that you wrote that caught my attention in an unusual way (buttering you down). Hence from the quote, ‘many women as they ripe and ripe,’ an unusual adaptation of the Bard’s words which stopped me in my tracks at the thought of women riping and riping. Guess I’ll be riping too from now on. Then you said, “Crap or get off the pot.” Oh my, so ribald. Did you think that you were discussing stuff with your men friends over beer instead of writing for a mainly female audience who don’t need to know the details? Even Thomas Crapper, inventor of said crapping device, would have been shocked at your boldness. Then your footnote mentioned not washing cars with hoses, but to use a bucket instead. You state that this works just as well. Yeah right, you try it on a mud-caked car, but see, the rains have started again. Anyway, keep on writing your stuff, you do tell it straight.

Miss (forever Miss, according to you) Foreman

Teerob,

So true, women are guided by time, and when their clock strikes a certain hour, no power on Earth can stop them from getting their way. Time to date, time for that first kiss, time to lose virginity, time to have sex, time to cut him loose, time to lock shop, time to let him suffer. Their time is their power and the men will just have to know what clock is striking or they will be left out in the cold.

Fitzroy

It is said that marriage is made for women, and that men get dragged into it more than often against their will. There are so many stories of women trapping men into marriage by faking that they’re pregnant. Ah yes, that pregnancy card was a real winner back in the day when honour was at stake, and a man was duty-bound to marry the girl if he knocked her up.

Many fathers would ‘gently insist’ that the man marry his pregnant daughter by subtly pushing a Remington 12-gauge double-barrel weapon in the chap’s ribs and giving him the choice, making him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Hence the term, ‘shotgun wedding.’ But those days are long gone, and pregnancy doesn’t carry the same weight that it used to, and most mothers are single parents now anyway.

But still the fear persists, that phobia of marriage that fills the heart of most men. If you do a serious poll, you will see that the majority of women want to get married, it’s on every girl’s wish list. Yet the majority of men don’t, and only do it as a compromise.

Still, somehow many take the plunge, only to be single again in a short time as the marriage crumbles. I have a bredrin who’s gone down the aisle three times now, only to be single again as each wife kicked him out. Word has it that he’s looking to try for a fourth. But those guys are the exception, and maybe have some deep-rooted urge to be taken care of, brought on perhaps by a doting mother who spoilt them rotten.

The majority of men ‘fraid a marriage like puss ‘fraid a water and only do it for fear of losing the woman they love. One of the reasons for this fear is change. Yes, many men are set in their ways, and the prospect of change scares them. “Lord, if me go married now, me whole routine going to mash up. Night out with dem boys, watching sports all weekend, doing what I do when I want to do it.”

This is compounded by the aspect of being trapped in a routine that ultimately leads to boredom. Just the thought of doing the same thing over and over with the same woman all the time really scares some men. “Imagine, I am just 30 years old, footloose and fancy-free, racetrack on Saturdays, Dover Speedway every time, nightclub every weekend. I must give up all of that for housework and drudgery?”

That guy may have a point, for many married men have that trapped-hound-dog-look of someone who’s tethered to a whipping post, broken, despondent, dispirited, sitting at the window looking out at the free world as it spins by.

“Hey Dennis, come mek we make a move, nuh man?”

“Sorry, can’t go, me wife have things for me to do.”

Some men even admitted to me that the prospect of having sex with one woman for the rest of their lives scared them out of their minds. “You want to say that if I get married, she will be the last woman that I ever have sex with for ever and ever?” That fear keeps many men at bay and is a very real fear that they harbour.

To compound this, there is also the fear of giving up their dreams. Many men have dreams and aspirations and somehow think that getting married will put a dent in them. Interestingly, statistics have shown that most successful men have spouses that spur them on. Hence the old saying, “For every successful man there is a woman behind him.” Even so, it frightens some men who would rather build their empire solo.

There are also men who think that a wife will only come around to share what he has spent so many years to build up. “Man, dem come into yu life, see what yu have, then leave and take a half of it.” There are many cases of men losing their homes and a great deal of their assets to wives who came and plundered. “My last wife turned me into a millionaire…when I met her I was a billionaire,” said this man.

Statistics have shown also that some men fear marriage because they were from broken homes. Growing up and seeing their parents at war every day was hell, and that’s their reality. “How can I subject myself to those constant battles that I witnessed my parents go through every day?”

Women somehow think that marriage validates their existence, and that men don’t put much of a premium on it. I have a friend who’s been involved with a woman for 16 years, and they even have two children, but are still not married. And as far as I can see, they are happier than the married couples that I know. Still, I’m making no judgement, but just stating the facts.

When I discussed this with a young lady recently, she admitted that she also knew of many situations like that, adding that she also had friends who were married for 15 years, but only had sex five times in the last seven years. And yet they class themselves as happily married. Ah yes, that’s another fear that is more real than imagined…the prospect that marriage ruins sex. Say what you will, there are too many complaints for it not to be true, and the wives can give all the reasons that they want; the fact is, the sex stops after marriage, never before.

And one last fear that men harbour is that they can’t stand the big splash weddings. “I would marry if we just did it in a nice, quiet civil ceremony with a few witnesses and the parson. But she want big splash.” So the fear or phobia exists, and real or imagined, it poses problems for many couples.

Some men are even afraid of having more children, especially those who are past middle age and just don’t see the prospect of babies running around as a pleasant future. “My word, it’s back to doctor visits, sleepless nights, baby sickness, prep school fees and pickups…at my age now?” “Well, it serve you right, nuh you at 65 go pick up young girl of 28?!”

Maybe one fact to allay those fears is that married men live longer than single men, according to the statistics. I pointed out this fact to some men and their reply was startling. “Is alright, I will rather have a shorter happier life than a longer miserable one.” One guy even said, “What better, to live 90 years in a dungeon or 60 years running free?” Hey, even so, the obituaries always read, “Survived by his wife.”

More time.

seido1@hotmail.com

Footnote: Civic pride and civic duty are the hallmarks of a civilised society. And yet some people still behave in the most selfish and uncivilised ways. A reader wrote: “Hi Tony, my neighbour, a very nice single mother of two boys, keeps on burning rubbish in her backyard which is very near the front of my house, choking my asthmatic daughter and myself. I try to be a good neighbour, trying never to disturb them, but she still lights early on Saturday mornings, so we are awakened by smoke which makes us choke. I keep asking her to stop, and we get a short break until she starts again. Do we live in a civilised society or not?”

Lenford

There does seem to be a breakdown in social values, honour and integrity, and as the saying goes, “Those who have no honour, fail to grasp the concept of it.” Some people simply do not know any better.