RELATIONSHIPS: ORDAINED?

“Without relationships, we are either dead to the world – or dead”

RICHARD KOCH

There are relationships and there are relationships. And I’m not saying about the ones we had with family (we didn’t choose them) or the ones with friends (we love to think that we chose ours even though events and circumstances are to be blamed). I’m talking about romantic relationships with the opposite sex, of course. Subsequently, the question pops up: are our romantic relationships (supposed to be) ordained or pre-destined.

Like any other non-rhetorical question that starts with ‘are’, the answering options are limited to offensive or defensive, positive or negative, yes or no (except maybe the infamous ‘are you asleep?’). Also like any one of those silly questions that change the course of history, there are always two schools of thought, usually and most naturally, opposite. Let’s call ours the YES and NO schools of thought.

The YES school of thought is mainly composed of moralists and many are found in the church. Don’t get it tangled – being moralist doesn’t mean one is a Christian or vice-versa. The yesies, singular yesy, believe that an infinite being, in this case God, created a woman for every man (meaning our polygamous brothers should be charged for theft). An example, as always, is taken from the bible. The first woman, Eve, was made from one of the ribs of Adam, the first man. Interestingly, the yesies believe women were not created, they were made. This debunks the argument of the various ‘what-ifs’. What if the woman is not forthcoming or basically does not like her ordained man? What if by some unfortunate situation, the man dies as a young boy before they meet? Or is already married when they do meet? God in his unusual mercy, the yesies believe, would make another woman for the man or create another man for the woman. There are more spiritual connotations to all these than physical – the man and women do not have to be birthed; destinies change and a chain reaction ensues.

The nolites from the NO school of thought believe otherwise. They are definitely not disputing the a-woman-for-a-man ideology as some, to a degree, are moralists and church goers. Their main argument is that Adam was created a man, so a woman would have been his helper not a girl. Woman was made for man, not girl for boy. The nolites claim the yesies are too concerned about marriage and they tend to forget every other romantic relationship the man or woman were involved in before they got together. A remarkable insight is that if one’s first romantic relationship culminates in marriage, one tends to be eternally grateful to the spouse which can have unhealthy consequences. Marriage cannot occur unless the boy becomes the man and the girl, a woman (except for those on a craze to enter the Guinness book of records by marrying their babies or even unconceptualised foetus). A girl must be emotionally matured to marry and some of the maturity has to come with coping with various past and present relationships, be it family, friends, or boyfriends.

If my opinion is of any interest to you, here it is: I’m a nolite to the bone. The problem is, when you support anything to the bone, you tend to forget the skin, muscle and blood of the matter. Bones don’t make us humans - they make us skeletons. I understand that we nolites want to have fun before we settle down for marriage but I also understand that the yesies are coming from the standpoint that God is the author and finisher of our destinies, the beginning and the end. But that’s the point. The beginning (he created us and ordained us to our families) and the end (heaven or hell) is all that is beyond us. We have a choice to which end we go to depending on our action and reactions. Similarly, the end (or beginning) of your marital bliss is one that is sanctioned by God, but you still have a choice decorated with consequences.

This is not a gather-your-arms-and-shoot-your-son-become-he-is-a-nolite war; rather it is more like an intellectual war, an educative war that needs more lights illuminating the numerous dark alleys.

I’m of hope that a compromise between the yesies and the nolites is obtainable (a closer look and there are some signs) if disciples and egos don’t get in the way.