The story of Fafaye Ceesay of Pirang who passed off his girlfriend as his sister in order to carry on an affair with her right in his own matrimonial home is shocking. At another level, the escapade is ridiculous, especially when he is said to have two wives.

For a while Fafaye Ceesay played on the gullibility of his wives, telling each in turn that the lady in question was his sister. As such things go, they are never concealed forever. The wife who played hostess to the lover girl soon got wise up to her husband’s wiles and shown her dubious sister-in-law the door. Not chastened enough, the husband stretched his luck further by taking his ‘lover sister –in-law’ to the home of his other wife. Like all submissive wives, she accepted her husband’s imposition without question.

One thing led to another, and the cat was let out of the bag. According to the media report, both Fafaye Ceesay and his ‘lover sister’ were caught doing their thing right on the verandah. They must have thrown all caution to the wind, thinking that they would not be caught.

The whole drama smacks of disregard for the feelings and self-esteem of the wives. It would have been a lot more honourable for Fafaye Cessay to go for a third wife rather than play a hide-and-seek game with his wives. Worse still, he even threatened to divorce the wife when she caught him in the act with his lover-sister. It is like trying to correct one wrong with another wrong. It is an act of a bully desperate to cover up his mess through intimidation.

It is no longer the done thing to treat wives as door-mats to be used and then dumped as it suits the whims and caprices of their husbands. Their feelings also have to be taken into consideration in such matters. Men get it all wrong when they act as if fidelity in marriage is solely a feminine virtue; men too have a role to play. True happiness in marriage can only be achieved when both partners have mutual respect and consideration for each other’s feeling, especially about matters that affect the heart.

The head of the Kombo East District Tribunal Chief Alagie Jarjue acted justly when he threw out the divorce suit out of court and issued a warrant for the interloper to be sent back to her Jarra Bureng village.

Men should learn to respect their wives, as wives should equally respect their husband. To reduce one to the servitude is against the norm of contemporary society. We now live in a world of mutual interdependence in every way.

“Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad company”.

George Washington