This business of pushing adults, who are co-existing happily, into taking those vows in church should stop.
Life is already difficult as it is, so when people are pushed into doing things that are said to be ‘proper’, something has to give, and it did last weekend in the Ugandan capital Kampala, in the southern suburb of Mutundwe.
A middle aged gentleman named Luzze must have succumbed to religious pressure to take his wife down the aisle to the altar, yet they have been living in stability. So he did, and down the aisle they went with ‘mama watoto’ to take their vows.
Presiding over the ceremony was not just an ordinary priest, but a whole Monsignor of the Catholic Church who had accepted to come to St Charles Lwanga Catholic Parish to help a few couples ‘set their houses in order’ by wedding their sweethearts.
So when the time came, the bride, named Nalubega, promised to love, to hold and to cherish Mr Luzze for all the time of her life until death do part them.
Then Mr Luzze also looked at Nalubega and solemnly promised to love, to hold and to cherish “Namukwaya” for the rest of his earthly life until death do them part.
“Wait a minute,” mumbled the Monsignor. “Your bride is called Nalubega and now you are promising to love and cherish Namukwaya for all your life?” It was not only the Monsignor who was confused.
Luzze’s strong voice had boomed loudly in the microphone for the entire congregation which included poor Nalubega’s parents, to hear.
And when the monsignor comes to the parish you know the church fills to the brim. So the faithful gasped, with almost all believing Namukwaya is his secret lover. The monsignor ordered the couple to step aside and he wedded the two other couples and then returned to Mr Luzze to check if he had made up his mind about which woman he wanted to enter Holy Matrimony with.
It seemed Luzze had finally got the identity of the person he was intending to spend the rest of his life with and said he was ready to take the vows again.
They repeated the process and now he promised to blah blah blan Nalubega, not Namukwaya. Nalubega’s family members sighed with relief and the monsignor pronounced the two man and wife. And they hopefully lived happily ever after in the one week which has since elapsed. At least there has been no report of Nalubega, now Mrs Luzze, scalding him with hot water or something worse.
As for the wedding itself, it got front page treatment on the national press, because of a man whose mind was on another woman as he was wedding another.
That is what happens when people follow the herd, that you must make the sister wear a white gown one afternoon in her life, even though your thoughts are elsewhere. Many who commented about the wedding of this couple blamed the man “for embarrassing his bride”.
But without the full story, who are they to judge?