Date Published: 12/13/09

DILEMMA OF A CHILDLESS BUT LOYAL WIFE By Farouk Martins Aresa 

There are so many children uncared for that can be adopted instead of giving our own births. Africans still want their genes passed on so much that we are willing to go out of fine character to achieve it. Amina was a very dark and slim beauty with appropriate curves worthy of the most appreciative man who adores God’s extra touch in creation. She matched this elegance with a character any man would die for except that she could not bear children after so many miscarriages. 

As she aged, she retained her baby face but her husband got impatient. Both discuss many options of adoptions from the children of relatives to that of a stranger. All efforts to implant her husband’s sperm and her egg proved abortive. Unknown to her, the man wanted a natural child of his own, undiluted and unhampered with. When she got the wind of the husband’s desire, she obliged him. Little did she know that she would lose him to an affair he had been having for about a year just to bear his child.  

Amina could get any man she wanted but another man was not part of her character. She was hoping to be with him while they find a suitable carrier for their embryo. When she found out who got pregnant, she was devastated. She could hardly believe he would stoop so low to get a child from a nonentity around the same locality. She got news the mother of the lady was happy that her daughter was going to be the wife of a high class professional. Hiding her rage, she only joked about the caliber of the girlfriend with him.  

If you have a wife as good and understanding as Amina who is willing to accommodate your desire to pass on your genes, it may make no sense not to involve her in the plan. In our best frame of mind, men do not ditch beauty in character for someone that could not provide the type of love and the emotional maturity needed to sustain, sometimes, men inflated ego in life. Anything happens once men start thinking with their dicks. 

It could be the same reason a highly placed executive would bow to a prostitute with a lash and leash in hand. Those may do it as a gig for a day but how does he surrender his reputation to a lady of dubious class and privilege in the community? Men could be bad but women could be wicked, to one another. Man could be so proud and authoritative but could also ignore his simple and ordinary births as if he comes through some special birth canal. Yet when it comes to sex, both men and women could go very low. 

Amina almost gave up and accepted her faith until her friends expressed doubts about the paternity of the husband’s child. The husband met the girl, who lived near a college campus the boyfriend was a student, at a party and decided to take her along to a conference out of the city for sightseeing. In order to keep her husband, she spilled that the child belonged to a young college student. She had no problem keeping the baby, no matter what, but her fear of losing her husband to some tramp was greater. 

The husband reluctantly asked for a paternity test and found out the baby was not his. They both decided on keeping the baby anyway because the mother was irresponsible. The husband figured that if he could take care and send the children of his relatives, his driver and house help to schools, he might as well do same for the child of his girlfriend. It has never occurred to him that his sperm count or spermatozoa may be wanting.    

Then Amina became curious, so advised her husband to see a doctor for barantashi to increase his sperm count as both were getting older. As usual, she was willing to accept a mature reasonable woman he chose to bear him a child. Since she might be getting too old to have a baby of hers and willing to accept another woman in vitro fertilization, he was moved and went along. They saw a medical professor and a reputable babalawo.  

Both results were shocking! Amina had so many miscarriages because her husband had chromosomal abnormalities all through the times she was having miscarriages. In other words, she wasted all her reproductive years being faithful to him. She had always gone for medical testing and came out perfect each time. It was widely blamed on emotional or some hormonal problems. So she took fertility pills and stuck to all the right diets. 

If it was not for her friends who suspected the girlfriend, she would have resigned her faith to a fault that was never hers. The irony could have been that she could have been unfaithful and given her husband the child he wanted so much by sleeping with other men. Indeed, there are cases of men who knew they could not father a baby but were made a father through family arrangement with a brother or a member of the family. 

In the case of Amina, it became difficult to find out who was hurt more. The husband was full of remorse on one hand but also angered that his manhood was challenged and exposed after the fact. Amina’s friends who encourage her to tell the husband about the paternity of the child knew about the family secret. Since it was not within the nuclear family anymore, it became who else knew and how the husband would be respected. 

It is one thing for a man to choose not to be a biological father but quite a different notion to know that even if he wanted, he could not. There are stories of fathers who wanted to sponsor their children for visa but never realized they were not biological fathers until genetic test was done. Some men became disappointed but still retained their relationship while others revolted against their families. 

Amina tried holding on to her husband in spite of the disappointment but embarrassed, he was too ashamed to stay with her. The family became fragmented but her love for the man never ceased. He got married again and had two more children that were not, probably or of course not his. He was happy his new family never had to challenge him. 

Since the college student denied the child and never submitted to paternity test, Amina remained the mother of the girlfriend’s child but never denied who the real mother was. As Amina and the girlfriend got the child, he was missed but he stayed part of their lives.