OMO EKO CHRONICLES: EPISODE 1 - The Beginning
Welcome to Chronicles of Omo Eko. I did not think that it would come so soon, when I will have another opportunity to share my experiences with the world with the intention of affecting positively with my experiences in Lagos, my Lagos, your Lagos, or we-Lagos like others describe it.
Have you ever dropped something so important to you all for the sake of love? I do not mean a physical thing right now. I mean something that kind of makes you the you, you love. Now it is getting confusing right? Alright, I will explain.
As a lady, if I thought I would ever drop something for the sake of love or anything, it would never be my independence. Yeah, that’s true; I would never have thought that I would ever be under the ‘control’ of a man in ways that would make me happily succumb and bend from my personal beliefs. Now don’t get me wrong oooooo! I am and was not a Margret Thatcher. I have lived a life that has taught me that I had to be free from laziness and dependence on the ‘schemes’ of men. I have lived a life of ‘I can really make it with my choices’ which I always believed were and are still always carefully thought out. I am a thoroughbred Lagosian.
And that is exactly what confronted me a few days to my wedding. My precious independent me was going to give way to a more considering me.
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With preparations for my wedding in top gear, the thought of a whole lot of things flopping had me agitated. It was going to be a low-key affair but with a long list of things undone. I had the more than two hundred beautiful pinkish wedding invitation cards neatly arranged on the dining table and I was feeling jittery. I thought something was amiss which I couldn’t just explain. And I received a call not to long ago from my husband-to-be about holding on to some decisions and cancelling so many things off my ‘perfect list’. As a detail oriented independent lady I wanted a flawless wedding, maybe not a grand one but one garnished with a meticulous organization devoid of all the errors I noticed in some other events hitherto attended. I wanted a little luxury of some things towards the wedding which I felt even if I got married modestly should be available. These include an extra hotel room apart from the two that had been booked, I wanted another bus that will convey my bridal train, sisters and friends to the venue of the reception as opposed to what I and hubby agreed on and some other cool ideas.
And with reality dawning on me, I realized that my wings have been clipped since my engagement to this man (no regret at all); but the independent me was the one who desired the ‘little’ luxury. And in accepting to marry and become one with my hubby, I knew I must be willing to lay aside all that pertains to my old loyalties and lifestyles of separate goals and plans and be joined to another.
The marriage counseling session kept building questions within, leaving me with mixed feelings of ever wanting to get married.
Herein lays my feminism, my independent being put to test.
Independent {of sb/sth} confident and free to do things without needing help from other people. Feminism is somewhat difficult to define, for the term means different things to different people, it means the belief and aim that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men, the struggle to achieve this aim.
Femininity receives; Femininity surrenders. Surrender is a key ingredient in femininity. This does not imply that a woman should surrender to evils such as coercion or violent conquest. A woman in marriage surrenders her independence, her name, her destiny, her will, and ultimately, in the marriage chamber, her body, to the man {total submission, sacrifice}. As a mother, she surrenders in a very real sense her life for the life of the child, {selfless love, and sacrifice}. As a single woman, she surrenders herself in a unique way for service to her Lord and for service to family and community.
The thing is, as an Omo Eko born, bred and raised in Lagos Island; I built and structured myself to be strong, fierce and industrious independently; trusting my judgments and instinct alone. I did not decide to be independent overnight. No I didn’t, I found myself battered by reality into it.
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