OPINION: Now I Know That A Beautiful Bride May Not Make A Beautiful Wife Or A Beautiful Home

As writen by Mazi Anayo  Nwosu

Many people that know me personally and how I look, would understand why I insisted on marrying a beautiful woman as a wife.

The lady I ended up with, met and surpassed my expectations and set standards in that, many people including my haters, adjudge my wife as being very beautiful.

I was even shocked that she accepted my marriage proposal despite my not-so-good looks and my economic status as at that time.

I did not marry Uche, my wife, to fan my ego or to increase my swagger but to improve the genetic traits of my offsprings, and particularly to enhance my daughter's physical appearance and capacity to attract better suitors. That's what a loving dad should do for his unborn daughters.

I wanted my kids to be good looking, period!

Don't ask me if I succeeded in harvesting the desired genetic attributes from my wife considering how my two daughters turned out. It is a story for another day.

My obsession with "only a beautiful lady is good to be a bride" was a disease I contracted from reading love novels and watching love films.

The picture of Mary the Mother of Jesus was painted as immaculately beautiful just as the portrait of her son, Jesus hung at St. Peter Claver's Church, Otolo Nnewi. Jesus was painted as a very handsome man.

As a growing young man, I would always feel inadequate whenever I looked in the mirror to find out that I rather resembled my dad instead of Romeo or the painted Jesus. So, I needed to do something about it.

I was righteous in my thoughts that for me to beget Jesus-like children, I needed to marry someone as beautiful as Mary.

My worldview on what were the key qualities of a wife received a puncture a day after my traditional marriage ceremony when I introduced my wife to one of my father's cousins named Mr. Nnadi.

It was customary in my village for a newly married man to take his wife round on a visit to his relatives especially the elderly ones for introduction.

On sighting my brand new wife, Uncle Nnadi called me aside for a long unsolicited advice.

I was rudely shocked by his opening sentence, "Anayo, i bago motor ndi ohi" meaning "Anayo, you have entered a bus about to be robbed" purporting that I had made a mistake in my choice of a wife.

He continued, "nwunye gi di ka ogbenye anu" meaning "your wife is a type strictly meant for the rich and not within the reach of the poor".

Mr. Nnadi knew that I recently finished schooling and had just secured a job and as such could not be said to be rich.

"She, as other fine ladies like her, usually have a high maintenance cost. Besides, many marauding men, like hawks, would swarm around her whenever they learn that you have travelled out of town.

"Don't fool yourself about love and fidelity because everybody has a limit beyond which he or she would succumb to a temptation.

"Every woman has a price especially when the husband is far away and even more, when the husband annoys her.

"There men that I know who, like a snake charmer, could decode and deceive a supposedly faithful wife. So, don't begin to tell me that your wife is not like that.

"At 75, I have used these my two naked eyes to see things not to talk about the ones my ears have heard.

"The only option left for you to keep hold of your very beautiful wife is to always maintain an excellent performance in bed and to treat her as a queen.

"You need a combined strength of a lion and a horse to make a beautiful wife ignore any experienced masculine sex predator.

"Never police your wife as long as she returns home, cooks your food and warms your bed. If you try to make a career of wading off men, that would be milling around her like flies do around the palm wine tapper then, you should number your days as your own heart attack or stroke will arrive sooner than you expect.

"My brother, ensure that you fire this girl in all cylinders and quickly harvest your own children to prevent a roving philanderer from sowing into your family, children you think are yours but belong to your wife's lover", uncle Nnadi added.

"What kind of advice is this?", I kept asking myself, though inaudibly, as Uncle Nnadi concluded.

I guessed he must have felt relieved as a pastor who had just finished delivering a power-packed sermon to sinful politicians.

As I made to leave, I said in my mind, "it is not my portion. Not my Uche! I bind and cast to the bottomless pit, all evil thoughts and counsels as regards my new marriage. I'm covered by the blood of Jesus", I prayed and left.

But before then, I had to thank the adviser as he only gave me an advice not a command.

As months went by, I began to rationalize Uncle Nnadi's advice which I had deemed outlandish, harsh and unchristian.

I noticed that I had inadvertently been applying the tenets of Uncle Nnadi's preaching or advice but in a refined way.

I was not to be blamed, considering that my wife worked as a customer service officer in her company and subsequently as a marketer. She would return home with stories that "my customer said that he would pay anything or price to be around me".

My wife would tell me that some of the customers of her company and her bosses  offered her gifts of phones, money, electronics and shoes whenever they traveled abroad and returned.

Being in the same industry, I could tell and had experienced generosity from customers so, I didn't read any amorous meaning to the gifts. I also believed that she had no cause to seek for satisfaction elsewhere as I was firing in all cylinders.

I continued feeling cool that I was the man until one day when my wife decided to puncture my over-bloated ego.

That day, my wife was recounting why she married me to a young lady that had come to seek for her advice on how to choose a future husband from a sea of suitors.

I was to learn that my wife accepted my marriage proposal based on what she saw in me as in future potentials not necessarily my well rehearsed toasting renditions.

She wanted someone who could always make her laugh and a focused young man as a husband.
She didn't want a ready-made husband but a man she would participate in making.

I was not amused to find out that my wife didn't want to marry a handsome man because according to her, fine boys usually feel so proud and believe that they are God's gift to women; that handsome men are easy targets of wayward and fun loving women of easy virtues.

It was then that it became clear to me and I could now understand the rationale behind my wife's choice of me instead of more handsome or wealthy suitors considering that she was making a lifetime choice.

"What if I malfunctioned and turned out a bad investment?" I queried.

"Baby," as she would call me anytime she wanted my head to spin", "you were not that ugly at the time you were chasing me but you can see now, how handsome I have made you look.

"You can also see that real beauty is contagious. Most of these girls that mill around you now wouldn't have touched you with a pole when I embraced you as my crown.

"Anayo, I was convinced that you were all I wanted when you proposed to marry me. But, note that you were my pick not the other way round!

"All these years, I would laugh in my mind whenever you bragged that you chose me. You are wrong! I actually chose you because you met my minimum criteria for a husband material.

"If you don't mind, would you please pluck out the few grey hairs on my head as I intend to look ever younger and more beautiful for you", she said to me, her play thing, a man feeling used and scammed.

My dear reader, you wanted to find out if my beautiful wife turned out a bad wife. I can't tell for now, I'm still so much in love with her that I hope to regain my sanity someday.

I can only state with a clear head, that when a woman is said to be beautiful, an indiscernible mind would attribute her beauty to the physical attributes which she inherited from her parents.

A woman has a minimal input into her body formation even though she could enhance her looks using makeup kits and make believe projectors of key body parts like push-up bra, dentures, weave-on, artificial eye lashes and other beauty enhancers.

However, the real beauty of a woman is embedded in her worldview, education, home training or upbringing.

A car may outwardly look beautiful even though it has a faulty engine. The real taste of the pudding is in the eating.

To my greatest surprise, I have come to realize that my wife is even more beautiful now, not because of her bewitching beauty before I married her or due to her today's looks that are enhanced by modern beauty products. Not all that!

Uche, my wife, looks more beautiful to me now, even at her advanced age, because she now earns more money for the family and makes my economic life less stressful and more beautiful.

No woman is ugly.

We all resemble our parents.

Young hard working men should note that the most beautiful woman is that intelligent, good mannered and properly focused girl that can complement you and make your entire life so beautiful.

Look for her, she is around you. When you find her, marry her immediately.