The good husband

Everyone got married this August. Literally everyone. Even Tangeni – who videos himself washing his hands with Hennessy V.S.O.P Privilège in nightclubs – is now a whole husband.

He met his would-be wife at Pharaoh’s at 4 am, they fell into bed three hours later at his place. Formal introductions were only made after sunset, after they had already chowed each other.

But we’re happy that the one-night stand in December last year morphed into marriage this August. It is the exception rather than the rule. Most one-night stands remain one-night stands, as God and poor decision-making intended.

But marriage is a different beast. And the sooner both parties understand this, the more likely the hasty matrimony is to survive.

Because marriage requires a wholesale change in behaviour, personality and, in some cases, wardrobe.

Things that once impressed that girl suddenly irritate her. Remember how she used to find it cute when you washed your hands with that harmonious French cognac aged in oak barrels? Not anymore.

Now she looks at the same video and asks: “So this is how you waste money?” She even wants you to deactivate Instagram. Apparently it attracts baddies.

Suddenly there is a domestic curfew. As a rule, you must now watch NBC News in your sitting room. No more hanging around at the pub during prime time watching football with men who call each other ‘Grootman’ because they don’t know each other’s names.

And there’s church every Sunday. Every Sunday.

Apparently being a husband also means reducing your carwash sessions at Rands. “What kind of man are you that you cannot even wash your own car?” she asks.

This is a serious question about your masculinity, but you know damn well it is not the soap and sponge she is worried about. She spent years looking at promiscuity unravel at bloody carwashes.

And suddenly, her family is your liability too. If her nephew dies from suffocation after swallowing a marula fruit without chewing it, you can’t just send her off to the village and continue watching Arsenal.

You must go together. And when you get there – bushy beard intact, white T-shirt stretched over your beer belly – you don’t sit around looking important.

You get your hands dirty. Go chop firewood. Ask for an axe. Buy Punyapunya for the weeping uncle as consolation. Ask the cooking aunties if potatoes are enough. And announce the hymns to be sung during the memorial service. This is not an amapiano fest, Tangeni. Die situasie is nou ernstig.

Then there are mothers-in-law. Always watching your WhatsApp status updates.

If you post yourself watering your garden on a Sunday, your mother-in-law will refer you to the Old Testament, where God commanded Israel to rest on the seventh day. Apparently polishing your shoes on Sunday contradicts Exodus 20:8-10 and is punishable by fire.

If you post yourself at a nightclub, you have entered a theological debate. If you post a picture with a female colleague, you have entered a diplomatic crisis.

And if you post nothing at all, somehow that is suspicious too. “Why has he stopped posting?” Ah, mothers-in-law!

So, comrades, congratulations for walking that chick down the aisle. Enjoy the honeymoon in September. Enjoy the nyash. Enjoy the occasional breakfast in bed.

But understand that being a husband is a radical departure from anything you have known in relationships.

You are no longer merely somebody’s boyfriend. You are now a husband, son-in-law, emergency transport, weekend labourer, family representative, church attendee, financial institution and part-time woodcutter. Learn or perish.

And Tangeni, please delete that Hennessy video.