By Viscount K’Owuor
All women who are thriving should take advantage of their success and start a family. Women empowerment should not undermine the family as a basic economic and social unit. Instead, it should contribute towards its vitality .
One mistake that empowered women imagine is that the moment you become economically independent you don’t need a man as a requisite variable to founding a family. Accordingly, a national census of women who are financially independent will also reveal a common negative attitude towards marriage, because financial independence is construed as freedom from a man’s authority. Yet you will realize that there is no absolute freedom, instead every freedom comes with responsibility, and the greater the freedom, the greater the responsibility.
Within the societal system, system in this context meaning an entity with interrelated parts working to achieve some common goals, there are five social institutions, namely; the Family, the Government, the Economy, Education and Religion. These five social institutions are mutually reinforcing;the success of one contributes to the success of the other. Accordingly, a vibrant economy raises the living standards of the family. The Family as a reproductive unit manufactures human resource and provides the population without which there would be no economy or government. The economy administers over the production and distribution of goods and services without which there would be no population to rule, or the motive for establishing government. Religion helps Government to maintain social order and control, as Education transmits such values, knowledge , skills and attitude for socioeconomic growth and development.
Unlike women, the moment a man finds a job and becomes financially independent the first thing that comes to his mind is founding a family. This effectively corrects a wrong folk psychology that when a man is empowered, an individual is empowered, but when a woman is empowered, a community is empowered. You cannot empower the community when you undermine marriage and the family.
Unfortunately, as an aspect of Social Change, which is the significant alteration to the social structure, social structure meaning power relations and role differentiation, women empowerment is irreversible. It will continue until roughly all women will be able to possess such capacities as to enable them access material and intellectual resources. But the beauty of it is that they will get used to it, as opposed to contemporary times when they are confused and mesmerized by power. Only when they shall have attained power for a sustained period of time will they realize that the possession of power and founding a family are not mutually exclusive,instead they are mutually reinforcing; an empowered woman should make a successful wife and mother. But it takes a great deal of wisdom to realize that. That is why up to when a woman reaches 35, she is dazed by power, but when she approaches 40 she begins to realize that all is vanity; the only true power is having a trusted life partner and adorable children to give pupose in life and as a source of social security.
The purpose of this article is to help a young empowered woman reaffirm the value of relationships. Lyne Njoroge has just been used as a prototype.
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