If you want to know a woman’s true character, give her money

I know of two women, one aged 36 and the other 25. The 36-year-old has worked in the NGO sector for more than 10 years, rising through the ranks to the top, and now pockets more than a million shillings month in salary. She also travels around the world as if she owns it.

She is not married and I heard from the grapevine that she is depressed that no man is showing up.

The 25-year-old is on her first job with a global corporate behemoth. She earns at least half a million shillings every month. She has been having a problem finding a boyfriend or a prospective husband. Her dilemma, simply put is: ‘should I drop this insecure sucker or do I leave the job and settle with him and start a family?’

The two women, while separated by age, share a painfully familiar end: a likelihood of ending up single in life. Often, many women who start earning big bucks at a relatively young age have difficulty sustaining healthy relationships for a myriad of reasons. First, there are job-related demands. If you take home a fat paycheque, your job is likely to be too demanding, hence you will be physically and emotionally unavailable for a relationship or family.

Secondly, most men are cautious when dealing with women who earn huge salaries and gravitate towards fierce independence. Women also expect men to be open with their finances and investments, while they are so devilishly secretive about their incomes. Some women have claimed that men are insecure around women who earn more than them. But I tend to think that there must be something stinky in a woman’s character to drive a man away.

Thus, if at 25 a woman is off to a good start in her career and takes home a huge pay, what is being tested here is her character. The humble ones who still believe in the old institution of marriage will understand their societal obligations, humble themselves and settle into the role of good wife. They will let the man be head of the family, and if intelligent, will know it is just a titular designation. Women actually own and run our homes.

By and large, some get by just fine, of course with the usual marital problems like infidelity and other trust-related issues. Certainly, they will resolve the issues without much drama.

And then, we have women who are taken in by the corporate culture. To them, marriage and its attendant obligations is a painful inconvenience. They go through their 20s and 30s filtering useless freeloading men only to end up with even more useless, freeloading men at 37. Most of these women will elect a life of too much freedom, decadency and promiscuity, totally unaware that time is no friend of beauty.

It hits them that they are 36 and all they have is a healthy bank account and men who are only interested in sex and not marriage. It is worse for those with dreams of motherhood, especially when menopause beckons. So what happens? I will only say that if you are a woman with an envious salary, who has been used to attractive perks from the start of your career, remember that money is just one aspect of life. Learn how to deal with those around you. Whatever choices you make at the age of 27 will dictate the kind of life you will have in your 40s. Life is irreversible, let money not blind you from reality. They say that if you want to know the true character of a man, give him power. If you want to know the true character of a woman, give her money especially, at a young age.

If power corrupts Kenyan men to rape, loot the public coffers, grab public land including school playgrounds and cemeteries, money totally compromises the future of young women.