By — Tombra Sunday
It is often argued that the concept of cheating in a relationship or marriage is a product of the man rather than the female counterpart for just no plausible reason. But the bitter truth is that man is a polygamous being while women is monogamous. I know this would be subjected to a great deal of criticism but let me in digress, simply prove this to your conviction with these few brief points.
Firstly, the African context of marriage systems encourages it. For instance, our customary laws allow a man to marry wives but forbid a woman to do so.
Secondly, our religious system also permits it. The Qur’an, the Muslims’ authority, asserts that a man can marry up to four wives so long as he is capable. Even in the Bible, Solomon and other prominent men of God married many wives. Yet, Solomon was the man after God’s own heart. It is even furthe prophesied that ‘a time will come when hundred women would run after one man for protection’.
Again, statistics have shown that women’s population is more than their male counterparts. Then the fundamental question is that if man is to go by the monogamous doctrine of ‘one wife’, how will the remaining population of women be fixed for marriage ? It is indeed a question for the gods.
However the digression, the concept of cheating could be mainly addressed from two perspectives. Firstly, cheating while still single and secondly, cheating while married. To me, any geniune relation should be predicated on trust and not in doubt and unfaithfullness. For lack of the former proceeds the latter. But unfortunately, in the first instance, the phenomenon is more common with the female counterparts on the ground of trying to meet up with the trends of demands and the euphoria of fantasy. It is the belief of most girls that a single can hardly provide all their needs and therefore, prefer to indulge in cheating on him in order that their demands can be met. In most disgust, they prefer to hang out with married men in order to achieve this purpose even though they have no intention to marry them.
In contrast, most guys rely on the defence of alternative means in case of any eventuality for perception of any infidelity on the parts their girlfriends. Honestly speaking, most single guys may want to please their girls and make them comfortable but unfortunately, their sincere efforts would always amount to nothing before their girls because of their insatiable nature of wants. In essence, girls originated the concept of cheating in a relationship through their insatiable wants of life and until this is drastically curtailed, cheating would become perennial impediment to genuine relationships that would have led to successive marriages.
On the other hand, cheating while married on the part of man, is partly induced by our customs which occasioned him the privilege of marrying more than one wife as stated earlier. Although, the fact cannot be disputed that not all relationships that lead to marriage, but it cannot also be completely debunked that some married men go into relationships not out of any infidelity but with the intention for marriage without any ill feeling for their wife or wives.
Conversely, this cannot be practically said of the female counterparts. The reasons for this clear cut practical distinction are obvious from the concurrent dangerous implications. Firstly, unlike the male counterpart, a married woman hardly cheat on her husband without an ill feeging against him either originated from within her or induced by her intending husband or partner because of the flexibility of her heart which can be said to be vulnerable to any external influence. The dangerous implication to this is that, is either she has the intention to quash the marriage in question or quit the man in the marriage for her to fully enjoy and proceeds to the new relationship. Meanwhile, due to the rigidity of man’s heart which is not always vulnerable to external influence. A man can be cheating on his wife yet, be happy with her due to is polygamous nature. This is beter explicit in the biblical illustration of the devil’s first contact with Adam and Eve where he had to come through Eve because of the flexible nature of her heart.
Comparatively, though the woman’s heart is flexible but dangerous but that of the man is rigid but simple to the conception of life. For this reason, a man can cope with the variation of life adherence to his simplicity while it is to the contrary with a woman because of the danger attached to her flexible being.
Thus, the concept cheating in a relationship or marriage is a bad phenomenon but mostly originated by women due to their insatiable wants of life, the attempt to change from their monogamous status to polygamous being and their flexible but dangerous heart. Rather, it is a misconception to substantially shift the blame on man because the polygamous nature of man is justified by nature itself.
