By Charles Ighele

Submission is not a gift. It is an art and also an attitude that should be taught at the family level. Many men feel that to submit to their wives connotes losing their identity, authority and a reflection of weakness. This wrong understanding of what submission means has made a lot of men to be submissive.

From research, it has shown that many men who do not know how to submit to their wives were those who could not adequately submit to authority of parents and old relatives at home. Such men have always believed in self-dependence. To them the art of submission is all aimed at controlling them. As a result many could not submit to their parents and guardians.

Another category of men who do not know how to submit to their wives were those brought up to believe that women are under men and should always take orders from them.

And there is yet another category of such men who do not know how to submit to their wives, these are men who grew up in a home where the mother was only regarded as a child factory, cook and keeper at homes.

We should teach the art of submission to our sons and loved ones. If we fail to do so, our sons will be rascally husbands, bad husbands who will in turn produce insensitive sons who may also become uncaring husbands.

You may now end up having a lineage and leaving an inheritance of insensitive males. Parents, let us teach our male children that submission is for men too. It is not only for women. It takes two pilots to fly an aeroplane; it takes two engines to power the airplane. Your family and marriage life are more delicate. It takes two of you to pilot the relationship.

Submission makes you a real man. Submission makes our sons to be real husbands. Love you!

• Bishop Charles Ighele is the General Superintendent of Holy Spirit Mission, Lagos.