Tag Archives: Marriage

My dear Jil,

You must know when to pull the plug on a relationship – lest you waste your youth. If time were static, or we lived in the days of Methuselah, I’d say luxuriate with the spring of your life. But you’re not getting younger, and he seems unable to make up his mind – your boyfriend I mean. Continue reading →

Dear Jack,

Homer Simpson is a very famous man. As famous as any man can be. He, of the television cartoon series The Simpsons, has been described as one of the most influential TV characters. We hear women use the expression, “D’oh” but we don’t realize it’s from Homer. The word is now in Oxford Dictionary.
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Dear Jack, I’ve sometimes wondered why marriage is so powerful. Marriage is such a powerful institution! I’m not sure the average young man or woman knows how powerful marriage is – how very consequential marital decisions are. No one goes into marriage and remains the same. It’s impossible. It has such power!

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Dear Jil, sometimes I marvel at our capacity to complicate simple things with religion. It’s exasperating.

This boyfriend-girlfriend thing: it seems so simple and straightforward! Boy meets girl. He wants to be with her, for whatever reason – her physical or non-physical attributes or both. He begins to fantasize about being married to her, imagining scenarios in his head. Boys do that. Guys think in fast forward mode. It’s why a guy wants a kiss on the very first date. He’s way past himself!

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Dear Jack, I honestly don’t get it. You fell in love with this lovely girl. You’ve dated her for years now and thinking of marriage. And then your mum “took her name” to the Pastor who “examined the matter” spiritually and declared the marriage accursed.

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Dear Jil, seems you have a VAT boyfriend – a Value Added Tax boyfriend. He brings some value into your life – you can now boast you have a boyfriend, and that feels good. But the value he brings is so highly taxed that when the tax is netted you have a serious deficit. This guy you call boyfriend – he’s feeding off you in the name of relationship.

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Dear Jil, let me state from onset it’s a double jeopardy situation. A “Thus saith the Lord” marriage proposal is. It actually dates back over 35 years in Pentecostal circles. Founded on teachings about submission to the will of God. The language comes from 17^th century King James Bible. Lends prophetic gravitas to the proposal. It does suggest God is linguistically anachronistic though. “This is my declaration” says the same thing.

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Who can ever forget Michael Caine’s speech at the start of the movie, The Prestige? It’s the cinematic equivalence of a hook in music. [A hook is a short riff or phrase used to make a song appealing. It’s like a chorus]. The Prestige, the 2006 drama film directed by Christopher Nolan was adapted from Christopher Priest’s novel of the same name.

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Dear Jil, the problem in your marriage is a clash of civilizations – a head on collision of three civilisations. Since each civilisation has its own philosophy it means three philosophies are clashing in your marriage.

There’s the traditional African culture, there’s secular humanism, as well as Judeo-Christian belief system. Each of these is a complete system. Each has its own philosophy, values and adjudicatory system. Different outflows. Unfortunately they are operationally contradictory. Their marital philosophies don’t agree. They have a commonality in subject matter only – marriage! But the philosophies differ.

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Dear Jack, yes I know the pressure that comes with late conception. Especially in an African society. But if I were you I’ll shield and protect my wife from it all.

Let’s deal with the family angle first. They can be very pertinacious and proprietary. When you think about it you kind of understand why God says you should leave your father and mother and cling to your wife. Your family can’t be regulating family planning in your nuclear family. They’re overreaching. If you don’t draw the line and contain them they’ll destroy your marriage. You must be in control of your matrimonial agenda. And so we see the clash between the word of God and culture; of God’s viewpoint and man’s.

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