Hello Mi Neighbour | The true joys of marriage

Hello, mi neighbour! For 51 years Joseph and Janet worked relentlessly at changing each other to suit each other. However, their happiness in marriage was only experienced when both recognised that neither could change the other. On that, they lived happily ever after for 3 1/2 years.

Sadly, many married couples miss the pleasure of an enjoyable marriage because they mistakenly reject their personality differences instead of using them as ingredients packaged to nourish their relationship.

Never seen it that way? Give thanks for the eye-opener and begin to enjoy your marriage.

Speaking of marriage, the more senior Jamaicans would recall a period in our history when an unusual type of marriage was conducted across the island. It was a marriage motivated by the need for survival, especially among the poor. In many instances, the union was quite costly and inconvenient but a lot of misery was averted, including death by starvation.

Some may not wish to recall those days but for the young and curious, Jamaica was going through a political and economic crisis during the 1970s, which resulted in a very serious food shortage.

Supermarket shelves were almost empty, haberdasheries, shops and restaurants, etc, struggled to stay afloat.

At that time, the financial ability to purchase basic food items at the supermarket did not guarantee a full bag of groceries from any one supermarket: rice, sugar, flour, cornmeal, and cooking oil, etc, were rationed. A family of six was not allowed to purchase more than two pounds of rice, flour, etc, per week.

 

MARRIED GOODS

 

Informal entrepreneurs like 'higglers' became very creative in their business operations. One of their strategies was to marry goods. For example, if a customer wanted to purchase a pound of yam from a particular vendor, he/she would be required to add a pack of detergent or clothes pins to that purchase before the yam was released.

In the streets, sardines were married to sanitary napkins, a hand of bananas to a tube of toothpaste, flour married to toilet paper, and so on.

Many times, the item purchased in order to get the one wanted was not immediately needed, but such was the system. Unfortunate, but it worked for that period in our history.

However people may view or experience marriage, undeniably, it is pivotal to the stability of family life and the sustenance of humanity.

Among human beings, marriage:

- Lends itself to a companionship with oneness of spirit.

- Enables enjoyment of pleasure with self-control (multiple partners is too risky).

- Fosters a completeness found in no other relationship.

- Is widely embraced as the God-approved context in which procreation should occur.

- Is a place where partners 'interests are truly protected.

So whether it is food, people, situations or businesses that get married, it is designed to build and not destroy.

It is "to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health..."

Embrace it, understand it and help someone from the list below, and live happily ever after.

 

THANKS TO NEIGHBOURS

 

- Annmarie, St Andrew - for offering food to the needy.

- Neighbour, St Andrew - for clothing

- Neighbour, St Catherine - for clothing, etc.

 

OPPORTUNITIES TO HELP

 

- Single parent seeking help with food for children. Asking for neighbours' assistance to start selling snacks to help out with back-to-school purchases.

- Delores, St Thomas, her bread winner died. Her eldest child who took over also died. Asking neighbours for their prayers. Also asking for a refrigerator.

- Kevauhn, asking for a sewing machine for his unemployed mother to help make a living. A laptop, also, for himself to assist with his schoolwork.

- Neighbour asking for a proper bed for self and young child; wardrobe and chest of drawers also.

- Sister Gordon, St Catherine, asking for size 12 clothing to attend church.

To help, please call Silton Townsend @ 334-8165, 884-3866, or deposit to acct # 351 044 276 NCB (Bank routing #: JNCBJMKX) or send donations to HELLO NEIGHBOUR c/o 53 Half-Way Tree Road, Kingston 10; Paypal/credit card: email: zicron22@yahoo.com. Or contact email: helloneighbour@yahoo.com.

Mr Townsend exclusively manages the collections and distributions mentioned in this column and is neither an employee nor agent of The Gleaner.