by Grace Efezokhae

In an interview with City People magazine, Nollywood screen legend Joke Silva talked about her lack of cooking skills and other ways she takes care of her husband, screen legend, Olu Jacobs.

 “I have never lied about this, I have never been ‘a doing the cooking kind of woman’. When my husband met me, he knew. He was the one who used to do the cooking because he is good at it. I used to do the cooking when I felt like. Sometimes, it comes out to be a huge success and sometimes a failure. Some years ago, I cooked vegetables and it was terrible and my husband is such a gem, he ate it like that. It is not as if my mum didn’t teach me. For my husband, cooking is a therapy and for me it is a chore and yet he will always tell you that I look after him so much, I do that in other ways. We have somebody who does the cooking. I have taught them to cook the way I like and we have people who do the general cleaning.”

I came across this statement on Linda Ikeji’s blog and I was really amazed. Olu Jacobs is certainly not the typical African man. In Africa, we have grown up to be told that women are meant to be naturally homemakers. A woman who can’t cook has discounted her bride price. You hear stuffs like “you are going to be a woman someday, you better know how to cook and clean the house and all of that”.

What works for Joke Silva will certainly not work for Abike Silver. Let’s focus on the 80-20 rule, what if your intended wife has all the good qualities you have ever wanted but she just can’t cook? Would you now ignore every other good qualities she has?

A woman who cooks a variety of tasty meals is a potentially good “wife material” in African parlance. Should cooking now be a criteria for the measurement of the “wife material” yardstick. There are so many other qualities one should look out for, whether she can cook or not should not be an 80% or even a 100% requirement.

What works for Joke Silva will certainly not work for Abike Silver. Let’s focus on the 80-20 rule, what if your intended wife has all the good qualities you have ever wanted but she just can’t cook? Would you now ignore every other good qualities she has?

If she has told you she can’t cook before getting married and how cooking is not just her hobby, don’t expect her to change after getting married. Don’t get it twisted when someone tells you what they can and can’t do, believe them. Whatever compromise the couple reaches on the lady cooking or not or the other options of getting a cook or eating out is fine so long as they are happy with it. Cooking alone doesn’t keep a man, many men have left the best cooks as wives for another woman who can’t even boil an egg.

Inasmuch as I love to cook and try out new stuffs, pounding yam is just an issue for me. For goodness sake, there is wheat, poundo flour, semovita, semolina and even eba, pounding yam with pestle and mortar is not just my thing. Biko, my waist is very tiny and my future hubby should note that love endures all things, if he badly loves pounded yam, he should endure semo for my sake…..lol!

To each his own. Oh well, knowing how to cook as a female or a male is surely a good thing. I love a man who loves to cook *double wink*

Should whether she can cook or not be a criteria for a good wife?

Is there really any big deal if cooking is not just her thing?

——————–

Grace Efezokhae blogs from www.Graciemama.com

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija