By CHUKWUNETA OBY
A story that trended recently showed a man weeping profusely after DNA test results revealed that none of his four children was his biological child.
When asked ‘why’ he carried out the DNA tests, he claimed that he had been suspecting the wife of “impure ways” and decided to carry out a DNA test on his first child.
When the result came back negative, he then decided to do same on the rest of his children and all came out negative.
When the wife was approached for her response, all she kept saying was “I don’t accept the result. I don’t accept it because I was not there when they took samples, and I don’t know which sample they took, so I don’t accept it. I can’t accept it because I know how I conceived those children.”
With the numerous DNA nightmare that is befalling men in marriage, is it not time for ‘know your fertility status before marriage’ campaign to kick off in earnest?
Without prompting, people find out their genotype before marriage.
So, why aren’t men subjecting themselves to necessary fertility tests before marriage?
It’s wrong for people to wait until after marriage to find out whether or not they are capable of having children. A lot of people don’t even get to know their fertility status until they have stayed in a childless marriage for many years.
Men, it is not a death sentence if you are unable to father a child.
Knowing your reality empowers you to make informed choices about your future.
Of all the blocks that such courageous efforts can get off your path, falling victim to a hopeless adulterer comes tops.
The lamentations from DNA nightmares are disturbingly getting louder but what I find ridiculous is that some of these wailing men actually know they can’t father a child and yet they married a hot-blooded young lady!
Hoping for a miracle, perhaps?
Life is not really as complicated as we sometimes make it.
Part of our problem is the penchant for running away from a reality that we should do well to face squarely.
Yet, the surest way to keep needless anxiety at bay is to find the courage to face your reality, whatever it is.
A reality that you are not willing to face does not work in your favour.
In times past, our culture made provisions for men who cannot father a child to take their destinies in their own hands.
Such men would willingly allow the wife to get pregnant outside and the children become theirs.
Culturally, any child that is raised under a man’s roof belongs to him.
If you can adopt a child that you know neither of the parents, why is it hard to embrace the child that your own spouse had with someone else?
There is just a lot that is worth reconsidering in our culture.
In her message to me some years back, a lady explained that she only got to know that her dad didn’t father her and her sibling, until the man’s demise.
According to her, it was during an afternoon of “just gisting” that her mother made the revelation to her.
The woman said she had stayed in the marriage for about 11 years without fruit of the womb, despite marrying at age 16.
It was her own mother that eventually arranged for their married family friend to get her pregnant and that was how she was able to birth the two daughters that became the apple of the man’s eyes.
To me, the man died a happy man, knowing that he had children but also not knowing that those children were not fathered by him biologically.
“Wisdom is profitable to direct”…says the Bible. And a lot of wisdom is embedded in some of our culture.
It’s just humane that our culture took cognisance of the fact that all grounds are not level.
