Proposal for wives to be paid goes against love

The story in Daily Monitor of November 26 that a group of lawyers want a law for husbands to pay their wives for the care services rendered to their families does not deserve to pass unanswered.

I have many times been consternated by the preposterous propositions made by some legal brains and I keep wondering the direction creation is taking. I know that some proponents of the bizarre idea profess some religions but for the obsession of the law, they have traded off regard for God their creator. No wonder the Bible in Genesis 6:6 refers to a time when God looked at people’s behaviour and he regretted why he made man.

The proponents of that school of thought should know that marriage, unlike other contracts is not founded on the doctrine of consideration of money or material or property.  Marriage is not a contract of service nor is it a contract for service. The relationship is not one of master-servant nor of hirer and worker. The foundation of marriage is love and like for a soul, there is no price for love in terms of money. The result of marriage is a family unlike in a company where those in it become employees.

No wonder, the Bible states that law is not love; so the lawyers are contemplating a law to be the basis of marriage and not love hence the demand for a pay to wives. Love fulfils the law; Roman 13:10

The relationship that results in marriage is so sacrosanct that it cannot be trivialised to consider a husband paying “salary” to a wife for the services of family care or carrying a baby for him. The law has always recognised this sacred relationship in that even courts of law cannot compel a wife (I intend to use wife for a spouse to suit the discourse) to give evidence against her husband in court. This gives cognizance of the unique nature of the resultant relationship in marriage. Similarly, a wife has precedence over any other person in respect of administration of the estate of a departed husband and does not even need approval of the administrator general.

All this point to a special relationship in marriage and indeed, in the unfortunate event of dissolution of marriage, jurisprudence has had regard to the property acquired by the husband when the marriage was subsisting as property for the family. At that point regard is given to the contribution of the wife even if she did not contribute financially; the reason being that the relationship no longer exists.

It is heartbreaking that some people argue that because wives carry babies ‘for the men’ they should be paid for that. They forget that being a mother is not a burden but an honour ordained by God. 

The imagination that the husband accumulates wealth while a wife is at home is simplistic. If a husband, from employment builds a house where wife also lives, should he monetise that as a benefit to the wife? What about the nice meals at home resulting from employment? What about where a husband takes a wife for shopping or vacation or buys her a car and goes ahead to fuel it, should such be regarded as benefits to the wife by the husband to take notice of? Such things become entitlements and they are not merely privileges to the wife; they are not earned but become part and parcel of the love in a marriage relationship. 

The so called civilised states where the proponents are getting the satanic proposals from, are places where marriage no longer means much; there, they can marry and then simply walk away after one week and such should not be embraced for the sake of the longevity of our family relationships.

If, however, they were referring to husbands who stop their wives from gainful employment to settle as housewives, probably their argument would deserve some credence.

Satan hates the institution of family so much and will do anything to destroyed it again as he has always fought from its beginning. I beg those peddling this idea not to give a foot hold to the devil to destroy the institution of marriage.

Kenneth Lubogo, Christian and former Member of Parliament