The Ewe word for marriage couples is sr)towo. A literal translation into English will render it ‘study mates’. Spot on. Perfect description for that kind of relationship. Anlo linguistic philosophy teaches that married couples are study mates. Even long before you get married, just right after you get into a relationship, it behoves you both to start studying each other. And this becomes more important in marriage. You can never get to know a person well enough before marrying them.
There are traits and behavioural patterns and beliefs people may not exhibit during courtship but nail to the mast right after saying ‘I do.’ You are never really gonna get a perfect person. You’ll have an imperfect person who might develop some form of perfection in time.
If they don’t, you can choose to live with it, tolerate it as long as it doesn’t affect your sanity. The study mates in marriage are supposed to study each other. You identify some shortcomings in your spouse and find a way to live with them, tolerate them or help them change.
Helping them change is tricky. They might not want to, and it may not take weeks or months. Proceed cautiously. Know what matters most and what doesn’t. Don’t be like the couple who divorced because one person did not like flushing the toilet.
Our forebears who loved and married before the advent of Christianity and an overly romanticized view of love had huge tolerance thresholds and great respect for one another–key to solid relationships and marriages. They even married strangers and made it work.
Fast forward to the 21st year of the 21st century and people who are not yet married even quarrel about how many times their lovers call them, whether they respond quickly enough to their chats online, and attach huge importance to things that may not be important in the grand scheme of things.
Modern lovers judge love with tokens. They prefer symbols over substance. Some prefer hearing ‘I love you to ‘seeing you love them.’ If you don’t call enough, it means you don’t care. If you appear online but do not respond to their chats, it means you are chatting with somebody else or not prioritizing them, and they hate that.
If we are gonna make our relationships work, build solid partnerships and stress-free marriages, maybe we should rethink what it means to love, what it means to care. Defining love for yourself and expecting others to love as you do is a false move from the getgo.
Care and concern does not thrive on tokens. Don’t develop your own marking scheme for love and throw tantrums when your partner fails to get maximum scores. Somebody calling you three times per day may be putting up appearances or just getting that out of the way.
Rethink.
Let’s do this.
By Stan Dugah
StantheStoryTeller
24/09/2021
