Failing to understand we need each other

Bukola (Not real name) wants to understand where she went wrong. She is a young woman staying with her elder brother and his wife. “I’m a single lady in my early 30s. I moved into my elder brother’s house some months ago. We live in peace and I do almost everything in the house until one morning, while I was still sleeping, my brother’s wife woke me up to go and cook. I angrily warned her never to repeat what she just did. Since then it has been one problem or another. What did I do wrong as people keep telling me that I am a woman and would get married one day? As a woman, should I keep quiet and be pushed-around?” 

It is believed that there would always be a clash between wives and in-laws no matter how peaceful the home may be. Is this true? Where do wives cross their bounds and where do in-laws overstep their boundaries? Womanhood samples opinions. 

Motunrayo Adewale, 43-year-old economist, says “People forget that accommodation issues can be frustrating, that notwithstanding the woman has no right to wake her sister-in-law up to cook. She is the woman of the house and when her sister-in-law decides not to assist her, she should take charge of her kitchen fully. Wives forget that they give chance to unnecessary problems when they share their kitchen with others. Why on earth would a lady of the house wake her sister-in-law to cook for her family. It is her responsibility and not that of her sister-in-law. It’s a different thing when you have someone employed to do such chores, even at that; women please take charge of your kitchen.”

Rita Daniel, 34-year-old nurse, asks what kind of respect the woman expects from her sister-in-law after such treatment. “What kind of respect does the wife think her sister-in-law will give her? She crossed her bounds by going to wake her up to cook. Respect they say is reciprocal. Wouldn’t she cook if her sister-in-law wasn’t at home? People should stop taking advantage of others. That she is a woman doesn’t mean she is a slave.”

Halima Gidado, 35-year-old lawyer, says “There are two sides to every story. She said she ‘warned her’ which to me sounded like someone who was waiting for her sister-in-law to do something wrong. Come to think of it; warning her sister-in-law in her own home, to me, says it all. I can’t warn my brother’s wife, not even younger brother not to talk of elder brother, unless it’s a random issue. Since they have been living in peace, asking her to cook for the first time shouldn’t have been an issue for the sister-in-law. The fact that the young woman already had a mindset that her brother’s wife had to be warned at some point already says a lot. She should understand that warning her elder brother’s wife equally translates to warning her elder brother. And to think that after the warning she expects to live in peace in the same house, she must be kidding. The earlier she understands that there can’t be two captains in a ship, the better.”