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Woman and power

By AbduRafiu
31 March 2022   |   2:20 am
We can have a glimpse of the mystery of woman and her roles from what science seeks to elucidate despite its limitations. Science teaches us that two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen unite to give us water in the same way that sodium and chlorine, both splitting of a species, unite to form…

We can have a glimpse of the mystery of woman and her roles from what science seeks to elucidate despite its limitations. Science teaches us that two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen unite to give us water in the same way that sodium and chlorine, both splitting of a species, unite to form sodium chloride, the common table salt. I am not talking about the denatured salt but the typical one gotten from Himalaya Rocks or from the bed of the sea.

As I sought to explain last week, man and woman, like hydrogen and oxygen, are split species, each party seeking complementarity, for balance and harmonious swinging. For batteries in our vehicles to work we have positive and negative charges. What science has validated is a union of elements to give fuller value of existence. Since the same law pervades and governs the universe, man and woman also being split species—man factor, positive and woman factor, negative—they drift as if by a pull, towards each other for a union in their search for complementarity.

The spirit is magnetic. Because women are endowed with richer spiritual make-up, she does the pulling. In her power, and the man encircled in her grip, she gets the man to do whatever she wants. So is it that it looks strange and sounds unnatural to those the society today regards as old fashioned when the modern woman it is who woos the modern man! It is part of the sign of the collapse of these times. There is no man, it has been revealed in higher knowledge available on earth today, that can match a woman in love in terms of depth and breadth, and there is no man who can match a woman when she falls, manifesting in cruelty and acts of depravity.

It is the same power that uplifts her to the heights that presses her down to the depth when she falls. This, it is said, can be can be likened to the tragedy of a woman dropping from a 25-storey building and the man from the ground floor. While that of the woman can better be imagined than witnessed, the man merely bruises his knees, suffers some pain and he gets up. Such is the gap. Wrong doing pierces a woman like an arrow and she resists it in selfless love, with absolute disregard to personal consequences. The leading role of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti cannot be easily forgotten in the history of Abeokuta, of the Egbas, or in the defence of her son, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

The woman is a life-long educator, a moulder of character, the guide, the teacher, the nurse and the pace setter. She begins to educate her offspring from cradle, indeed from the womb until they are old enough and go their own way. Even then there is still a tie. Where she does it well, there is no anxiety later in life for her family and the entire community. We can’t but see that so much is contained in the common remarks that a woman is blamed for what a child does wrong, but the father is hailed for all he does right. When the child misbehaves in public, everyone asks: Who is his mother? The mother is censured. But when he does well, when he excels, the bystander-observers ask: Who is the father? When they are told, the chorus is usually: Oh, no wonder. What do you expect? The father is fantastic; he is a great man. Like father like son. That chap is the son of his father!

What lies behind this deep sensing? It is the woman who mostly attracts her child. The child is a gift special to her. It is the woman who sends out tones. Where an act of procreation has taken place, a soul and if they are two that we call twins, hover around the woman and follow-up the development in her womb and when the pregnancy has gone halfway the soul in accordance with the Law of Homogeneity with the mother, takes possession of the body that has been prepared for it by nature beings, through radiation threads connecting it and the prospective mother.

Nature beings prepare the body the soul inhabits, weaving as it were with materials of what the expectant mother eats—legumes, fruits and so on as may be prescribed by doctors or from her knowledge, perhaps of herbs.
As a store house of power which she draws from On High, she pulls men up and dispenses to them resultant pure currents, spreading beauty, ennobling the environment and directing affairs to a glorious end. We learn from higher knowledge that all women carry these abilities; they are not inherited or derived from marriage. The woman disperses dark currents swirling around the home or the community.

If the woman sets the right agenda and tone, her society will not go astray but prosper. Where a woman stands aright, the society has ennobling, uplifting practices and culture. In the Elizabethan Age, Great Britain reached the zenith of her cultural flourish; and in the time of Queen Victoria, it was the age of etiquette, propriety and prosperity. A nation is thus to be rightly judged by the quality of her womanhood. A depraved womanhood will lead its nation to decay and ruin, whereas a noble one will cause the nation to storm the high Heavens. Before an upright and worthy woman a man must bow—whoever he may be. Something makes him, unconsciously but joyfully, to open the door for her. This is prevalent in cultured societies. So overwhelming is the influence of a woman on man that a little girl, a young lady, can hold the world’s most powerful man in her hands and direct his life and affairs and manipulate him.

In gatherings, as soon as a woman approaches, all heads turn in her direction, and unconsciously, men try to adjust themselves, adjust their ties, or button up and comport themselves; many their caps to appear correct and approved by the woman. The woman or women in question may not even be aware there is so much fuss over their approach. Where she does not even utter a word, the men behave. In school, if you hit a girl, everyone is alarmed. Classmates and teachers will ask in indignation and pointedly: “Are you not ashamed?” No one wants to listen to any story. Everybody believes something must have gone wrong with you to hit a girl. It is just not done.

Because she is endowed with sensitivity that enables her to know the nature of right and the nature of wrong, woman is a better teacher and a better judge. She makes a better decision, too. According to the ordinance of the Creator, she is it who is to make decisions and man is to execute them. This places the man in a situation that he is the more visible while the woman is quiet and gentle. But this is what women are pressing to get reversed. Chief Obafemi Awolowo lifted the veil a little on the uniqueness of a woman in his last interview on earth granted to this newspaper, The Guardian, in 1987. In the interview by Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, he described his wife as “a jewel of inestimable value who is usually divinely guided.” What is being alluded to is the bridge women form through their richer spiritual make-up with the Throne of Grace and the outflowing power of God. I have observed that when reference is made to what Awolowo sensed and said about his wife, the most important part of the statement is often left out and that is “…who is usually divinely guided” by which was meant richness of his wife’s intuition. Didn’t the wife of one-time President of France, Charles de Gaulle, also say to her husband: “Charles, you rule France, but I rule this house, including you”?

Former governor of Cross River State, the young and dashing Donald Duke spoke on the power and influence of women on men, particularly their spouses. In his words: “When I see public office holders misbehaving, I used to have this thought: ‘probably they do not have a good wife/husband or a good marriage.’ One day, as governor of Cross River State, he spoke harshly to his chief of protocol. Unfortunately for him his wife was present and she heard all that was said. In the nature of women, she did not talk. But on their getting home the wife, Onarie, said to Donald that he would not sleep in their house on that night except they drove to the chief of protocol’s house to apologise to him. “The way you would have done it was different, but he did not do a bad thing. He used his discretion. So what are you going to do? You have destroyed his self-esteem, Onarie said to her husband. “Tomorrow, he is not going to do anything discretionally. He would wait for orders and then you will get irritated at that. You have made him lose his self-confidence and that is wrong. You need to go and apologise to him. Why should you speak to someone like that? Because you are governor?” When Donald said he would do it the following day, his wife said, ‘’No. tonight. The man is not going to sleep well and so you do not have the right to sleep well when he is not sleeping well.”

Clearly defeated, said Donald Duke, “I got into the car and we drove to his house. His gateman froze when he discovered I was the one. In his confusion, he did not know how to properly open the gate till Onarie told him to take two deep breaths before attempting to open the door again! We were ushered into the living room by an equally confused maid who had to stumble over chairs.” The expression on the face of the wife of the chief Protocol was that of palpable fear: “Okay, you have come to fire my husband finally.” The guy himself came downstairs petrified as my wife and I walked into the private living room. The wife wanted to get up and leave. I told the guy that I came to apologise for my rude and harsh behaviour towards him and told him I am sorry. They all got emotional but I got relieved. It was like a heavy load had been taken off me. I still get upset with things going wrong, but I don’t get to a point I feel I am too big to say sorry. And I am learning to treat people better.”

It is generally known that the relationship between Professor Wole Soyinka and former President Olusegun Obasanjo could be combustible. Stella Obasanjo ensured that she kept far away any cigarette ends that could cause a conflagration. For the period Stella was in the flesh, she came between the two strong men to engender quiet and a harmonious relationship between them. Once she sensed any conflict brewing she would take steps to nib it in the bud.

If women have fallen and become oppressed, it is a consequence of lack of understanding of who women are and perversion of their own roles. Unaware of their heavy responsibility to their societies, women long for the executive activities of men. They forget that negative and positive charges of a battery are not interchangeable. So is it that women divert their energies to roles and tasks not allotted to them by Nature. They expend energies on wrong and harmful pursuits, such as footballing, weight lifting, wrestling, crane driving, flying planes, emulating men, excessive intellectual cultivation which block the outflowing of the prompting of their intuition. With the one-sided cultivation of the intellect the consequent exertion of the frontal brain interferes with the normal uniform and harmonious co-operation of individual links— solar plexus, the cerebellum, which is the spiritually receptive part of the brains for every human being and the cerebrum which transmits. Thus the hind brain is rendered small by the paralyzing influence of the cultivated large brain. The result today is that hardly do women receive warning about threats to their communities. In times past, the first sense of war was from the observation that women in different communities, tickled by their intuition, had bought up all the salt in all the markets. It is no longer so. Women have abandoned their roles.

There is the craving for political power whether as President, Governor, Minister, and legislators, manifesting today than ever before in cries for affirmation action to place women in governmental power and kindred executive activities that distort a woman’s nature, steeling it and repressing her womanliness, thus causing imbalance in the order of life. By moving to a different sphere of activities, her volition changes and the womanly nature becomes dulled…the bridge breaks and the natural structure collapses. Evidence of the creaking or collapsing structure which serious-minded people may wish to ponder is the gynecological difficulties more and more women encounter today.

Do we wonder? Once the volition changes and the fine womanly radiations turn coarse, why will the reproductive system, the hormonal orchestra, no longer maintained of fine radiations not respond accordingly? I have read the troubling observation of Phil Lawler the conclusion of which is “So a grossly disproportionate number of the people making decisions about Europe’s future have no direct stake in that future.” I have refrained from dabbling into the subject or naming the countries referred to because we do not know enough about individual decisions apart from the fact that sacred as motherhood is, it is not the primary task of a woman in life. Her tasks are by far higher and more sublime. (This is a subject for another day). What is certain is that paralyzing the feminity of a woman does grave harm to her. It can lead to distortion of soul such that in future reincarnation, she may come with masculine features. Where the distortion is not complete, she may come half a man, and partly a woman bearing reproductive organs of both genders. She gets confused as she is not welcome in the gathering of women nor is she warmly received in the circle of men.

All said, however, when a river deviates from its course, it ends up forming a stagnant lake, giving environmental filth and foul air. Eventually, it dries up, unable to reach the sea, its destination. Today Nature has abandoned women to their disobedience of the Laws that stipulate roles. The penalty for this includes confusion in homes, in the society, in the world at large, in individuals and in failure of men to achieve enduring really great things. The penalty shows in the abandonment of children on refuse dumps, on the streets and rail lines. It shows in the emergence of child soldiers and the unbelievable aberration we are all witnessing. It shows in brutalized man and lack of respect for women by men and for men by women! As I sought to conclude last week, whether pressing for 35 per cent UN Affirmative Action is compatible with the roles and high responsibility every woman bears, it is for each woman or man to decide.

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