Times Of Swaziland: EVIL GENIUS OF PATRIARCHY

EVIL GENIUS OF PATRIARCHY
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The Editor on 08/11/2019 00:43:00


Sir,
The evil genius of patriarchy is breathtaking. It has lulled women into a false
sense of security, comfortable with her knowledge that her moral obligation to
honor her sacred vows could at any time be instantly dissolved if she utters the
three magic words, I am unhappy.
A lasting marriage does not always signal a happy marriage. Plenty of miserable
married women are still with their abusive husbands for children, religion and
other reasons. A sustainable marriage is not just about staying together but it
should also be meaningful and satisfying.
The traditional idea of a marriage seems to treat women as tools for their
husbands’ self-expression and personal growth and if they are no longer a
means to that end they should be divorced or worse abandoned.
Abandoned
It just seems keeping the wife is only good until she has career problems or
mental health issues or falls ill at which point she will be abandoned.
It is still hard for couples to come to an agreement with the fact that a
relationship, where the partners act like equals and negotiate who plays what
role in the relationship, is a fertile ground for breeding happiness for the
whole family.
Licence
My stay at-home parent status does not give my husband a licence to sit on the
couch and get a daily dose of the news while I scrub myself silly!
The household grunt work is still everyone’s responsibility just as it would
be if the women worked outside the home.
Women who are treated as work-horses, punching bags and semi-happy wives will at
often times be heard saying they are holding on for the sake of their children
who will be traumatised and feel abandoned if their parents go separate ways.
Those mothers are doing their daughters no favour by teaching them tolerance;
that a married woman should accept such treatment.
Right
All women have the right to their choice of birth control, when to have sex and
what to wear.
Women should demand their reproductive rights because every time we go down the
route of sexual freedom it becomes an edgy version of what men find sexy.
Nosipho  Matsenjwa