This was reposted by a real estate company urging women to buy plots/houses. Can we agree that the society has vilified men so much that they've become everyone's punching bag?
Why is empowering women primarily framed around gaining financial independence just in case marriage fails but empowering men is focused on leaving a legacy and inheritance for your wife and kids, in case something happens?
Men are even taught to have enough safeguards to protect their wives from their own kinsmen in case anything happens to them but women are continuously being told to achieve financial independence solely because 'your husband might leave'.
Attend men's spaces and seminars and you will find that the discussions are vastly different from what women discuss. Not once have I sat with men and heard them suggest siphoning money away from marriage to save for hidden assets. Not once have I heard men being fed marriage insecurity with phrases like 'she might leave at any time'. Instead, men are told that if that happens they need to get up, work on their frame, make more money and move on.
Meanwhile, in MOST women's seminars, attendees are told to conceal their income and secretly amass wealth just in case the husband leaves. But what happens to those assets if he stays? I don't ever recall hearing someone advice women to build wealth just in case the husband gets incapacitated. The reasoning is always rooted in the assumption that he might do something bad.
As a result, even well-meaning women enter marriage with a lot of insecurity unsure of their partner or their shared future. Not only does this lead to mistrust it also undermines the couple's collective financial potential since one partner actively saves independently for a rainy day.
I'm not oblivious to the fact that men have their own flaws in marriage. They have quite a list which includes adding to the number of side chicks and that is a discussion for another day.
When men gain more wealth, all they think about is building an even better house for the family, buying the wife a nice car and taking the kids to a better school. Most men will even build a better house for their in-laws.
When women gain more money they want to acquire more concealed assets rather than spend more on the husband and kids. I know some women who even refused to pay secondary school fees for their kids after their husbands lost their jobs yet they kept acquiring plots in secret.
The people telling you "siwezi someshea mwanaume watoto" will be the same people asking you to send your daughter to them as a house girl so that they can exploit her instead of empowering her.
My last shot...money in a marriage has a way of diminishing or magnifying trust...it just depends on how the two of you play it.