Let’s give the broke dudes a break

By Brenda Kageni

Iknow several men, who from the sound of it, are headed to the village to get a woman because they believe that Nairobi women are high-cost and high maintenance, whose only interest in a man is how much they can suck out of his wallet.

"Nairobi women just want to suck you dry then leave you," one of them said to me. As opposed to other times, I did not rise to our defence because I knew for the greatest part we were guilty as charged. When another young man last weekend asked me if a girl can love a man who has no money, I knew someone needed to talk. Although I told him that there are girls who don’t care so much for money, I didn’t know how many women I could vouch for on that. You see I am coming to believe that all those jokes we hear about women marrying men for their money could have more credibility than we dare imagine. Let’s face it — a majority of us will not even look twice at a broke dude. Money makes men terribly sexy. I know that doesn’t make Warren Buffet the sexiest man in the world but we have to agree many of us would be wiling to look beyond his 78 or so years and his frugality if only to become part of the game.

I do not understand why it is so important to women that their man is able to support them financially, even when they are making more money. A girlfriend swore the other day; she would never marry a man who earned less than her. "What is the use of a man who will not help me become better than he found me? No matter how much I earn, I still want a man who can take care of me better than my parents did or than I am doing."

I pointed out that marriage is not just about finances but knew my advice was lost on her. More recently another girlfriend said to me, "God help me, but I cannot love a poor man."

Perhaps it is all that stuff about the man being the leader and all because I have heard some men say they shelve dating and marriage until they have the money to take care of a family. "Dating is an expensive game. I know times I felt like taking a loan to treat a girl out," a colleague said to me.

Tradition

Of course tradition has set the men up. They are called the breadwinners; they are expected to pick the tab — at least for the first three dates — and to take care of the major family investments like buying a home, even when the wife has more financial clout.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the up and coming woman has her sights firmly fixed on a man’s bank statements and his net worth. Social research shows that women are more likely to marry up the financial ladder than men. Almost always, a woman views marriage as an improvement to her financial status and not just because of the economies of scale.

Socialite Paris Hilton puts it like this: "A woman should have four pets in her life — a mink in her closet, a jaguar in her garage, a tiger in her bed, and a jackass who pays for everything."

Author and family counsellor Willard Harley in one of his books says research shows that women need to spend their money as they see fit, while their husbands earn the money for necessities. He found out that women were irritated if their income had to pay for basic living expenses unless it was for a short period of time for instance, while a man looked for a job, or went to school.

Nonetheless, I think we should give our dear men a break. We always say that we look at men with the eyes of potential — who says he will be a broke dude forever? Life is not about him buying us a baby pink Vitz and paying our Sh40,000 rent which we could never afford on our own. Most times, all a woman wants is to have someone to go home to and to grow old with.