Women who know how to extract their pound of flesh !

Written by Bunmi Sofola.

NEVER let it be said that you deliberately sent your husband packing. Over the years, women have devised numerous methods of getting rid of difficult husbands in such clever ways that they (the women) would always look like the wronged party. Otherwise, how would you explain a wife who always goes to the market just around the time her husband is crying for his lunch? Or the wife who gives the only bottle of beer to her husband’s friend, knowing dammed well that the poor thing wouldn’t eat his dinner satisfactorily without his bottle of cold beer? Not only that, she can’t hide her sadistic pleasure at her husband’s fury as she opens the bottle of beer - for another man!

For the twelve years she was married to her husband, Folake, an executive officer in one of the ministries, avoided cooking bush-rat stew because it was taboo in the village her husband came from. Recently, the tactless man announced with relish that he was taking a second wife and he did. In no time at all, meal-times were divided between two wives. “Three weeks ago”, Folake told me, “a friend of his travelled to his village and brought me smoked bush rat. The thing was edible afterall and I quickly made vegetable soup with it. My husband couldn’t praise my cooking enough as he ate his pounded yam. I felt guilty so I decided not to say anything about the meat. But when I remembered the arrogance with which he told me of his taking a second wife I just had to have the revenge I planned for.

“When I told him what he was eating, he yelled, hurriedly depositing a lump of half-masticated bush-rat into his palm and gaggled! He looked so apoplectic that I almost felt sorry for him. He swore I could have poisoned him if I had the opportunity. He was over-reacting, of course, I told him. I showed my resentment the only way I knew how, that didn’t mean I wanted him dead.

So, if, suddenly, the stew madam dishes out starts tasting too salty, the meat too tough and the wrong type; or if tears run freely from your eyes from too much hot pepper in the stew, ask yourself if your wife isn’t trying to send you a message before the message turns into text messages from her lover. A few mishaps could be overlooked but when it becomes a daily occurrence, you must be doing something wrong!

Sanni has just had the most nightmarish experience of his life, he confessed. He’s apparently still reeling from the impact of the blow of his humiliation. But, as he bravely puts it, the price of love is pain. It all started five years ago when Sanni met Ify, a forty-five year old ‘general' contractor who had more money than she knew what to do with. A stark illiterate, she has more than her share of intelligence. She also believed she had the misfortune of falling in love with men who took one look at her and saw a punching bag!

Sanni, now in his early fifties, swore he was never a violent man. That it was Ify’s arrogance and contempt for him that always brought out his violent streak. He told me that "six months after I met that witch, I had deserted my wife and kids to move in with her. It was at her insistence but she was like a fever in my blood. I would have killed for her.

“Through my office, I helped her to get yet more contracts. She bought me two brand new cars in appreciation of all the business contracts I got for her. I also travelled abroad regularly on trips for her. I, sometimes, took a girlfriend who happened to be a casual friend of my woman’s daughter. She got to know about it and that was where my hell started. Shortly after, I lost my job-and the contracts I could wangle for her stopped. She didn’t find that funny at all! I had to depend heavily on her, financially, as my own money went into a house I was building at that time.

She always handed me money with a sneer. To crown it all, she brought a lover to the house. It was her house, she insisted, and she could bring whoever she wanted into it. I knew what to do if I didn’t like the idea. “That did it! A wave of fury took over the pain and humiliation of the last few months. I slammed my clenched fist into her smug face over and over again; deriving a morbid sense of satisfaction from her yelps of pains as she cowered in fright.

“When she broke free, she ran to the police. Told them I had fraudulently bought the two cars in my name after I took money from her. She told them she couldn’t read, or write and didn’t detect the fraud until her daughter pointed it out to her recently. She alleged I started pummeling her when she confronted me with my ‘crime’.

“I was locked up, of course, pending full investigations. She pulled a lot of strings to put me behind bars but after a couple of days, my friends got me out. I was told she’d already sent my things to my elder brother’s place. There were thugs with big wraps of Indian hemp guarding the house when I later called for the rest of my things she hadn’t sent. I fled. Any man could easily kill that kind of a woman out of provocation. She is wicked and heartless. She always complained that her men beat her up. She’s lucky she hasn’t been killed yet.”