Second wife
Silas, a technician who is married with one child, says he is on the verge of marrying a second wife because he does not like what his current wife wears.
Claims Silas: "When we were dating, and just when we married, she always wore classy stuff. It’s actually one of the reasons she drove me crazy. But as soon as we got married, everything changed. She no longer gives a damn."
What angers Silas is that she has a pretty good job, making him wonder why she insists on wearing cheap old things with a hole in them or this funny habit she has developed of buying second hand innerwear and bras.
"I frankly don’t understand why she would want to buy something another woman has worn for years and discarded, when new panties go for as little as Sh100 in the shop. It’s such a turn off," Silas says with a frown.
Embarrass
But asked why he just couldn’t walk into a clothing store and buy sexy underwear for his wife, Silas says he fears that would embarrass her.
"How do you honestly tell your wife that her underwear is bad? Besides, women are crazy. She might accuse me of having another woman. I mean, how would a man be expected to know the latest fashion trends for an item that he is only expected to see on his wife — especially if her taste is awful?" he poses.
Jeff, a hotelier, has no such qualms. "I studied the situation quietly and took charge. So every Valentine’s Day, I buy a handful of those things in the guise of ‘love’. But the truth is the situation was bad. You don’t want to know how embarrassed I got when she went into labour suddenly and had to be undressed by nurses in my presence."
Women, however, argue that it is men who are the biggest culprits because most of them only got to wear that garment for the first time when they joined secondary school.
From wearing dirty, tattered strings, most men — some who buy beer for their friends daily and drive nice cars — spend as little as Sh50 on underwear, yet they would never be caught dead wearing ‘cheap’ shoes or suits.
"Men never create time to buy underwear, hence the sorry rags they hide underneath their crisp suits," Rose, a marketing executive, notes, adding that men only style up when they get married.
