- Are there Men out there who would really wait for sex?
- Is there really a difference between love and sex? Love and lust? Infatuation and love?
- All that a woman has to pay is her body?
- Why do men eventually leave when a lady says no sex till marriage?
- How free are the women of today?
- Has there really been a change?
Maybe not a change, but a different level, a different package.
All these are questions that plague my mind although they have been answered a million times yet I do not seem to be satisfied. I intended to write an article about the questions raised above but I found myself wanting to go back to the past, to see how love and sex worked and then this drama I would spend the rest of the lines writing popped up in my head.
In the olden days, the woman and the man often times loved from afar. They are not to be seen together always. They do not have enough time for physical display of affection. It is only on the wedding night that the girl sells her soul, her body and mind to the man.
The man is given a white bed sheet. It is believed that when a woman has sex for the first time, she sheds blood. Hence, the girl's blood is expected to stain the white bed sheet….
Let me continue this with a story below.
Virgin Bride
It is the night of Toromade's wedding. Friends and family are still seen around. Alao, the bride's groom is seen with his friends in a corner.
Ajao: I am certain that my Wife Toro is a virgin! No man has entered through her walls before.
Akanni: But my friend, women these days are turning into something else. They love to sniff what they should not eat.
Ajanni: Abomination! A woman should learn to close her legs tight! The days when Women will marry as non-virgins has not yet come.
Akanni: But tell me Ajao, are you a virgin?
(General laughter)
Ajao: Virgin you say? You talk as if you were a virgin when You married Bunmi, Bunmi, the daughter of the great fisherman.
Akanni: We are men. Life was made easy for us. That is why we do not come with two big oranges on our chest.
Ajao: Sad Oranges.
Akanni: The breast you see on the chest of women, they are burden! A heavy burden despite our seductive they are to we, the men of the world. May Olodumare not make me a woman when next I come to this world.
All: Amin… Amin…
Ajao: Two days ago, I practiced Sex using Asalewa
Akanni: Which of the Asalewa's?
Ajao: Which other one! I mean the one who dances like a snake!
Babajide: You disvirgirned her?
Ajao: Of course I met it opened! She said she lost A year ago to one of the white men. He promised marriage to her.
Akanni: Women are fools!
Babajide: It's such a shame and pity to be a woman. Ajao, we must bid you goodbye now! Your bride awaits you. It is almost time to perform your wedding ritual.
(11pm. Bedroom. Toromade weeps in a corner. Ajao, with a wrapper tied around his waist paces up and down.)
Ajao: Ife mi, eyin oju mi (My love, the apple of my eyes) I will be gentle. I will go into you very carefully. It will not hurt too much.
(Toromade weeps harder)
Toro: Look into my eyes and tell me you love me.
Ajao: I love you, your soul, your body.
Toromade: (admidst) Why did you marry me if I may ask.
Ajao: Because I cannot be with any other woman apart from you. You are beautiful, Ojuloge (Beauty lies in the eyes), Gbogbo ara loge. Apart from your beauty, oh! You are of a good behaviour.
Toromade: Tell me, what is the greatest offence that I can ever commit that will make you detest me.
Ajao: Toro! Why do you talk like this. You are the crown that sits on my unbefitting head. You can never offend me. You seem to me like the daughter of the river, the daughter of the earth and sky. Tell me, How can I raise a fight with this gods? What is it that grieves you?
Toromade: Olo mi, I am scared that this love that you pledge will fail you. Tell me that you love me once again.
(Toromade cups Ajao's Chin. She lifts his face closer to hers. She drops a kiss on his head)
Ajao: Take me down down the ocean where Iyemoja and her beautiful princesses dance. Take me there with the warmth of your love and your body.
(Ajao carries Toromade in his hands. He takes her to the bed)
Light dims. Silhouettes of Ajao and Toromade making love appears on the wall.
Light music accompanies the love making.
Few seconds later. Ajao screamed tragically. Toromade weeps soberly as she sleeps.
Full light is restored.
Ajao: (With the white bed sheet in his hands) Where is your blood? Where is your virgin blood!
(He begins to beat Toromade)
Toromade: You said you love me! You said I can never offend you.
Ajao: So you have been sleeping around with men! You have tasted all the men in this village!
Toromade: Listen to my tale! I am innocent Ajao.
Ajao: How can a woman who married as a non virgin be innocent.
(Toromade breaks away from his tight grip. She moves to a corner. She begins this sing a solemn song of love. She begins to dance, swirling disvirgined hands and legs in the air)
(Ajao listens. He becomes calm.)
Ajao: You should have told me you werent a virgin.
Toromade: have you forgiven me?
(Ajao moves to a cupboard. He returns with a blade. He tears his skin as Toromade weeps at the awful sight. Ajao pours few drops of his blood on the white cloth.
Ajao: I will show this cloth stained with blood to your families. We will say that you are a virgin. I will give them a full keg of palmwine, plenty tubers of yam. I will say I met you as a virgin.
(Light fades.)
Ext. Ajao's frontyard- Evening.
(Ajao is dressed in a beautiful attire to show that he is just returning from their families to tell them that He met Toromade as a virgin. He has with him a beautiful girl, much younger than Toromade.)
Toromade: My love, you have arrived.
Ajao: Did I meet you well?
Toromade: Yes, I haven’t seen this sister of yours.
(Ajao laughs)
Ajao: Sister? No, she is my new bride. Tomorrow I will marry her bestfriend.
(Tears stream down Toromade's face. Ajao and his new bride laugh inside)
They say Women are things, yes, Toromade became a thing in Ajao's house. He married more wives every day. She became a thing: Not to be touched, not to be spoken to.... Just there... Still, she was not allowed to ever leave his house. Else, Ajao would reveal to the whole village their little dirty secret.
What would she rather say that she got disvirgined be it rape or whatever, I do not want to know or she entered into a dirty wild game with a man?
Is she innocent? A victim or a fool?
Either ways, she has her hands tied behind her back by a Man! Almost for nothing.
It seems I just added even more problem to the questions I raised above!
Let's leave it like that.
Image Source: Google.