We are marriage counsellors for the week and we will be deliberating on the issue of finance management in the home
As husband and wife, you must really sit down to linetune things about your finances. Many people believe that the man is the head of the house and as such he must provide the money while the woman manages it.
Well, it should be like this where the man like lioness looks out for the daily bread and the wife like the lion sit at home and take care of the children. You see -it is the opposite when related to lives of lion.
But experience shows that because the man carries financial responsibility, he buys over the will of others in which case all including the wife become dependants and subject to the man. The man tells everyone what they should do and as the “head” as he is called, he is in absolute control and the wife is nothing but an employee and a mere incubator.
In our world today, we still find in marriages where men make their wives mere housewives. In a normal situation that is how it should be The work of the man is to provide money for the food, shelter and clothing and the woman to manage it to suit that purpose.
In fact, the work of the woman is in the kitchen as it was believed. Even in the case of the wife who is working, she still believes in collecting money for everything; doing what with her salaries?
It is a fact of life that no condition is permanent and as such the water can run dry. The man can die or lose his job. In that case, what happens to that family? Suffering sets in and problem of humiliation from the members of the man’s family begins.
I want to strongly advise that both the husband and the wife be financially responsible for the home-keep and the care of the children.
And if that be the case, they need to sit down and plan their finances together. In this case, they become partners in the progress of the family and when one is dry the other can make him/her wet.
There is nothing bad in having a joint account in which case the two are signatories. By implication, this is a way to transparency and honesty that give rise to trust in the affairs and growth of the family.
Even where this is not practiced for certain reasons, there is nothing bad in the husband knowing the financial worth of his wife and vice versa -that helps a great deal.
And in a case that cannot happen, they should at least share the responsibilities in which case they both provide the shelter and all within it.
The man may take care of the feeding and education of the children while the woman takes care of the clothing of the children or as they may have agreed.
