Reaping the Rewards of Faithfulness

Reaping the Rewards of Faithfulness

Adultery is a habit that some women engage in for various reasons. Some involve themselves in the despicable act in sheer desperation to meet urgent financial needs at the home front, like feeding and children’s school requirements, when their spouses are financially handicapped. Others cheat on their spouses when those spouses are unable to satisfy their huge sexual appetite. Some also commit adultery when they discover that their spouses are sterile, and they need to have children of their own. Yet another group of adulterous women were forced into marrying men they did not love. And so, they sneak out from time to time to be with the men that their hearts desire. Then, some men are impotent, as a result of which their wives engage in infidelity to meet their sexual needs.

When women find themselves in any of the above circumstances, they ignore the vow they made to their spouses to be faithful to them till death, for better or for worse. Some of the women even rub their infidelity in their husbands’ faces, just to humiliate the men for failing in certain areas of their duties. Those ones have so lost respect for their husbands that they don’t hide the fact that they are seeing other men, and they continuously use their extra-marital affairs to nag their spouses for not being alive to their responsibilities.

Some other smart women, however, practise infidelity secretly, even though their spouses may begin to suspect their movements at some point. The men may not voice their suspicions for some time, and when they eventually do, the women would naturally deny. Such women would rather lie to cover up their ways than face the shame of exposure and the risk of being sent packing from their matrimonial homes.

The unusual thing that happened in the lives of a Nigerian couple based in London some time ago underscored the benefit of faithfulness to a spouse. They had given birth to a white blue-eyed blonde, and both father and mother had no white ancestry! Mr. & Mrs. Ben Ihegboro were as stunned as anyone hearing or reading their story would be when they saw the wonder baby, delivered through a caesarian section at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, not far from Woolwich, South London where they reside.

Doctors at the hospital told the parents that the baby was definitely no albino, even as the father said “she doesn’t look like an albino child any way – not like the ones I’ve seen back in Nigeria or in books. She just looks like a healthy white baby”. The 44-year-old dad said of their first reaction upon seeing the strange baby, “We both just sat there after the birth staring at her for ages – not saying anything”. Continuing, he said: “Actually, the first thing I did was to look at her and say, ‘What the flip?’” He even joked: “Is she MINE?” while his wife, 35-year-old Angela thought ‘What is this little doll?’ Their two-year-old daughter Dumebi was too young to understand what happened, but her four-year-old brother named Chisom kept coming to look at his new sister, then sitting down and looking puzzled. Explaining Chisom’s reaction, Ben said “we‘re a black family. Suddenly he has a white sister”. He continued: “Of course, we are baffled too and want to know what’s happened. But we understand life is very strange. All that matters is that she’s healthy and that we love her. She’s a proud British-Nigerian”.

When Mum Angela got over the shock, she said of her white baby named Nmachi, meaning “Beauty of God”, “She’s beautiful and I love her. Her colour doesn’t matter. She’s a miracle baby”.

Commenting on the issue, Prof. Bryan Sykes, Head of Human Genetics at Oxford University, who is also Britain’s leading expert, called the birth “extraordinary”, saying “the hair is extremely unusual. Even many blonde children don’t have blonde hair like this at birth”.

After all the bewilderment, Ben said something that not many men would say in the circumstance that he found himself. Speaking of the paternity of the white baby, he declared “Of course, she’s mine… My wife is true to me…!”

If this strange birth had occurred in Nigeria, the woman at the centre of it would have been thrown out of her matrimonial home. This was something that baffled genetics experts because neither the man nor his wife has any mixed race family history. But because of the environment they had lived in for five years, they had a more liberal perception of life, understanding that strange things do occur in life. And because they were far away from home (Eastern Nigeria), there was no undue interference by relatives of the man, who would most certainly have insinuated infidelity on the part of the wife, and even rejected that baby.

But most important is the fact that Ben trusted his wife. Her fidelity to him was not in doubt as he declared, ‘My wife is true to me’. How many men can say that of their wives if they are confronted with the same situation? Though he joked about the paternity earlier when he asked ‘Is she mine?’, but then he knew the baby had to be his because he knew his wife.

The lesson from this unusual incident is that women must beware of their traits. What kind of character do you exhibit or are you known for? Because this life is full of surprises. Anything can happen any day. If a black couple with no white ancestry could suddenly have a white baby that was not only white but also blonde, then, there is no telling what strange occurrence anyone can experience at any point in life. And then, one’s moral standing would be called to question. At such times, it is your character that would speak for you. Certain things can happen which would threaten a marriage and only the good character of the woman would bail her out. If Angela had been known for infidelity, or her husband had had cause to doubt her faithfulness, he would not have been able to vouch for her the way he did. And the strange birth would have marked the end of her marriage, coupled with the shame she would have suffered for engaging in extra-marital affairs.

This incident challenges every married woman to examine herself and ask the question: ‘If I were to find myself in Angela’s shoes, would my husband be able to say what Ben said: ‘Of course, the baby is mine; my wife is true to me’?

Faithfulness or fidelity is a virtue which doesn’t wait till the hereafter before yielding benefits. You begin to reap the rewards right here on earth. It exalts those who possess it and defends them in the day of trouble. It defended Angela even when medical experts thought it was strange for her to have such a baby. One Mrs. Tolani Abayomi, Clinic Manager of Nordics Fertility Centre, Lagos, while commenting on the development in a press interview, insisted the amazing birth was not possible unless one of the couple had cheated on the other. And of course, the one who would have cheated would be no other than the wife. This school of thought would normally be subscribed to by virtually everyone who hears the story for obvious reasons. But the baby’s father had no doubt in his mind about her paternity. Angela’s faithfulness spoke for her, and that virtue will speak for anyone who embraces it. In other words, it pays to be faithful.



By Nike Oluwole.