Source: Daily Trust 
Kano — Often times, mothers tend to exercise undue authority in the house by dictating everything that goes there. They are the ones in charge of deciding the shopping list and the kitchen menu. The daughters are only charged with cooking and serving the food. This tradition of mothers dictating what goes on in the home is posing an enormous challenge to the daughters when they finally leave home to their matrimonial abode.

 The challenge often comes in the area of managing the resources that is given to them by their respective husbands. How to budget for things and be prudent in doing so remains a major challenge. A newly wedded bride that is not used to budgeting for a day's meal may find it difficult to do it with the resource that her husband will give whether meagre or much.

If the money given to her is much, she might end up squandering it and if it is meagre, she might find it difficult to plan for what to buy and the quantity to buy. Her inability to budget well for the home might result sometimes in misunderstanding between her and her husband and if care is not taken, it might be the genesis of a matrimonial crisis.

On the other hand brides fortunate enough to come from homes where the parents had carried them along in the actual running of the house, face little or no difficulty in managing their own homes with the resources given to them.

Balaraba Ibrahim is one of those that were fortunate enough to have mothers that carried them along in running the home while she was a spinster. Now happily married with a child, Balaraba said because of the training she received from her mother, she did not find much problem in starting as a newly wedded bride.

She said when she was at home her mother would insist she make the shopping list and the kitchen menu, "My mother being a civil servant would in the morning before going to office give me money and say I should decide what should be cooked and budget for the ingredients to be bought. Sometimes the money would be so meagre that I would feel like crying but at the end I would still prepare the meal that would earn me her accolade."

She added, "And some other times she would give much but insist I keep the remaining money after buying the ingredients. In this case also I tried to be as prudent as possible because of fear of being scolded. And as young as I was then, she would travel and leave the house under my care with the other siblings around"

She said it was not easy and any time that she would complain, her mother would say it was better that she was learning it at home, "I did not see the wisdom in what my mother was doing to me then until when I got married. To manage and use whatever resource that is given to me by my husband has not been a big task. My husband was overwhelmed by my ability to manage resources that he would give it without any fear."

Shafa'atu Mustapha on her part was not fortunate to receive such training at home. When she got married things could not go well at the beginning. Her husband belongs to the kind who do things with calculation. He plans for everything and would ensure that any kobo spent in the house is accounted for. Things were not easy for Shafa'atu because the type of house she came from is exactly the opposite of what obtains in her husband's house. In her father's house, they spend without calculation. They could spend every kobo in their pocket without minding the next day. If a crate of egg is brought to them, if they like they eat it all that day and nothing would happen. Neither the father nor the mother frowns at the way they do things.

"It was not easy for me when I got married because I was not used to the kind of life my husband is living. He plans every bit of his life so much so that any kobo given to me, I had to account for it. It was not easy because planning has never been part of my life. It was not a problem to me if I fry a whole crate of egg to eat with my friends. The same thing with meat, I cooked everything the very day it was brought and since we could not consumed it all, we end up giving it out to neighbours. My husband saw this as a waste and started to show his anger."

Shafa'atu had to undergo a lot of training to be able to cope with the type of life her husband is living. She found her new life to be very fruitful as she could now plan and save a lot for other things.

She therefore advised parents to be allowing their children particularly the female children to be participating in running the house so that they would not encountered similar problem she encountered when she got married.

Malama Iya is an old woman with lots of experience in life. She opined that the foundation of a successful marriage is laid right at the homes of the couple by their parent. How well children are trained by their parents determine how well they fare in their matrimonial homes. She advised both parents to involve their children in matrimonial issues so that it will not be a new thing when they finally got married.

 

• Nigeria