Ladies, are you wife material?

December is fast approaching and all the ‘wife materials’ will be whisked to their matrimonial homes to go and bond with their in-laws while 'the other materials,' as they are lately known, will be hopping from one town to another trying to end the year in style. I am and will always belong to ‘the other materials’ because I was once bitten, now I am thirty two times shy.

I also hate being whisked to the same place every other festive season without my consent unless I am being paid. Yes, I love money that much, who doesn’t anyway? For that matter, where is the party this year, the other materials?

I, daughter of David Itindi the Great of the one and only Abamuri clan and Alice Itindi of That Place Where People Are Not Allowed to Progress will never let anyone call me wife material again! I warn you my fellow women! That title comes with unbearable responsibilities.

Responsibilities such as saying, "Yes" even when your heart says, "No" and vice versa and putting a smile on your face even when your heart is in pain and you are wailing internally. In short, the people in our current generation who have decided to brand some women ‘wife material’ are silent bullies. They want to hold your happiness in their own hands such that they decide when you smile, frown or even wail.

When they call you wife material, they expect you to put their needs before your needs any day. They expect you to pay almost all the bills in the house and not complain because they are sailing on the ‘gender equality’ ship that I believe stalled at some point in the middle of nowhere after the coxswain jumped in the sea and drowned.

They will go against all the marriage vows but expect you to sit pretty and paint a good picture of your marriage while, in real sense, your marriage is in the ICU waiting to be resuscitated.

This title ‘wife material’ is denying most women a happy life. Women are sacrificing their happiness just so they can be referred to as wife material. I refuse to be called wife material if it will make me stop being crazy and start acting normal. I am comfortable being the other material because unlike the wife material, it has no manual so people will expect nothing from you.

You call me the other material because I sleep until 10am? What if I have nowhere to go? You want me to wake up and break my back with heavy duties to get your title? You want me to sit pretty and not get worried when you are out late because I am wife material and should understand that you are out with ‘the boys’? That I will not do. I will bombard your cellphone every hour if you are out late, not because I am the other material, but because I love and care for you.

I will go out and have fun responsibly when I feel like doing so because just like you, I am human. I will conceive when we are both ready, not just you, because I want us both to be happy.

So next time, please, do not call me wife material if you are going to tag the title with responsibilities from your dream world. If that is the case, let me be the other material in peace. Do not wake me up at 4am in vain; I do not come from a night running family.