EveryWoman

It’s not about who dies first

A social media posting making rounds caught my eye. It talked about the reluctance by some women to, say, for example, dispose of property towards a family emergency. This would be a house or a piece of land to cater for a need such as school fees or medical expenses to save a financial deficit the family maybe reeling from. The women’s apparent responses are along the line: “We cannot sell anything because me and the children will have nothing to cushion us against the financial elements when you die”.

Now, a debate ensued in several quarters triggered by this. Men wondered why women always assume they would depart this world earlier. I came across several men who had similar encounters with their wives and I have my take.

Understandably, there have been researches before that have purported that men usually die earlier than women. The health.harvard.edu gives several reasons men may die faster than women. Men: Take bigger risks: The frontal lobe of the brain — the part that controls judgment and consideration of an action’s consequences — develops more slowly in boys and young men than in their female counterparts. This may contribute to the fact that far more boys and men die in accidents or due to violence than girls and women. Examples include biking, driving drunk, and homicide; have more dangerous jobs: Men far outnumber women in some of the riskiest occupations, including military combat, firefighting, and working at construction sites; die of heart disease more often and at a younger age; men are 50 percent more likely than women to die of heart disease. Commit suicide more often than women.  Avoid doctors: According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, men are far more likely to skip routine health screens and far less likely than women to have seen a doctor of any kind during the previous year.

I believe running families must be couple’s responsibility and if wealth has been accumulated in the long run, nobody must wish the other to die first so they get to keep the property. Why should one lay in wait to see their loved one to go first? And if a family has an emergency and no means to cater for it, is it a crime to sell a property to go towards it rather than accumulating debt? Should property or material come first than the lives of a family members who may be sentence to death because of a treatable illness? Should one languish in jail when he/she can be bailed out from a mere sale of a property? Should children be deprived of education in cases where money is scarce because of a job loss or business failures?

I am only trying to bring reason here. If indeed women assume properties are meant to care for them and their children when their husbands die earlier, it is a misconception that needs to be erased. Work together as couples and be ready to make exceptions.

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