15 Features of Commercial Sex Marriage

 I’ve hesitated to write on this topic because of the obvious – I’m single and the New Year had only recently arrived. But you know it… knock, knock, knock. It’s only less than a month away before Valentine’s Day and people (men?) are likely to pop the question. Hahaha? So what do I have to write about an issue that concerns me little or am I in luck and in time? I’m not sure why anybody wouldn’t say so but I do know that commercial sex marriages are a social problem. Why? They lead to conflict and social dissonance. I have heard talks of open marriages. These marriages are akin to the American styled open relationships or marriages but they are a little different. This is because there’s no agreement between the couples on how to conduct their marriage in a sane and rational way. But there’s the unspoken agreement on who’s to cheat or who’s to lose in the case of a divorce. Promiscuity is rife in this type of marriage. It’s possibly a common sex marriage, common sense union or make-believe but I call it a commercial sex marriage because it appears to be very lucrative means of livelihood. This marriage is unfortunately among Christians in Nigeria, making me wonder what has become of the commandment: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. Many of them proceed from patronage but not all. Many involved expensive wedding ceremonies. What’s going on? Anyway, I’ve thought of several reasons for or features of this phenomenon called Commercial Sex Marriage or Make Believe. Here are 15 of them:

1. Dishonesty: These marriages aren’t honest or responsible to the mankind. They are career marriages or career-minded marriages. Lying got many people into such marriage relationships. They even lie against each other and have superiors mandate a union that often last to perpetuity. Liars discredit one’s efforts and shame one’s achievements. But people have succumbed to blackmail or threat and gone ahead to contract such marriages. Many whose lives or careers were at stake have had to find a way to compromise with endorsing the relationship and eventually a marriage. Beware of people who must cheat to win an argument; children of Beelzebub. People in this marriage are chronic and pathological liars. They don’t ever change as it’s said; a leopard cannot change its spots. In marriage, they are cheats and there’s no ending the delusion. They pride in deceiving the whole world into believing that a marriage is taking place. Who’s deceiving who? Visa or green card marriages are in this categorization. 
2. Promiscuity/Prostitution: The women in these marriages are nearly dressed as college or university kids. Before I got into the university in 1999, it was unheard of that a young woman would walk around the Aba Park area in trousers. It was taboo. She would be so shamed of her lousy dressing that it would be insufferable for her. Today, 2022 it’s not uncommon for husbands to buy bum shorts, knickers, trousers, slacks and all sorts of lewd dresses for their wives. These ‘wives’ have also bought such wears or attire for themselves without husbands raising an eyebrow. However, the older generation hasn’t found this trend funny and it could cause trouble between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. My point is that harlotry has become the order of the day due to changing times but must it remain so? When a girl who was used to dressing like a slut gets married to a ‘Yahoo’ boy, what has changed? Her surname in many instances never her character of attitude. So, their marriages are in name only and she engages in her previous behavior if her spouse doesn’t mind. The men may keep many other girls and women outside the home leading to waywardness of all parties concerned. Should acceptance and/or forgiveness of a spouse’s past lead or encourage indulgence in the marriage?
3. Standards Deviation: The world is changing, the climate and all. Standards have changed. Men are hardly the bread winners of most homes. Why? I dunno. I do know that many societies have empowered women without giving them a conscience. I don’t know why anybody would like to live the street life in a home. Why live at home? Why not dine with the club girls or the Yahoo Plus men in the pubs? Marriage is called ‘settling down’ for a reason. But who settles down these days. People who engage in commercial sex marriages deviate from the affirmed traditional standards of marriage where a woman is given to a man in marriage usually without any baggage. The men also deviate from Christian standards of marriage that allows one woman for one man. The baby mama syndrome or trend in recent years has only exacerbated the problem. What do we do?
4. Covetousness: The couple is hardly faithful to each other. This is often the marriage or civil union between a prostitute (the man) and a harlot (the woman) and has no loyalty. They want what belongs to everybody else. Their union is mere understanding or acceptance of achievement. Your phone belongs to them as everybody in your contact list is a friend of theirs. Chances are they have contacted all your friends in order to build their NETWORK of deceitful allies. 
5. Connivance: Commercial sex marriages often happen because people are cheats, liars and traitors. Your best friend meets your boyfriend and the rest is history. You’re gone and out of luck because your friend has gone to tell a secret about you to your lover. You hardly would know because he’s like her. They are birds of a feather – they gossip about you and other people. She has probably lied about being a virgin whom he would discover only after the marriage that she’s the mother of grown up children. Lol. Before you would say Jack, they were already getting married because he was promised one juicy contract or lifestyle or her virginity! The Godfathers and Godmothers are always part of the conspiracy. But like all things evil, these marriages hardly last or hang on as long as their enemy, ‘you’ are single and supposedly unhappy. That’s all they have achieved – a secret combination. Who needed a fair feather friend? Was that a best friend? Was that a boyfriend?
6. Americanism/Modernism: Commercial sex partners want to live in the Unites States of America or Europe. They mimic the American styled open marriages that have oral or written prenuptial agreements. They have stars as their mentors and are all trying to be celebrity or are stars in their own right. Modern media especially social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and the rest of them have made it easy for marriages to build castles in the air. They have aided the constitution and contract of such marriages or unions. They have also aided in their dissolution. There are also influences from musicians both local and foreign whose wayward lifestyles are mimicked by their fans. 
7. Infidelity: This is the norm of they are in commercial sex marriages or ‘jobbed’ marriages. They have known or believable marriage partners but nobody truly owns them. This is because they are in the business of being open to consensual sex with other partners. They are sexually promiscuous. 
8. Insolence: Commercial sex marriages are insolent in their practice and existence because they deviate from the norm. Their practitioners feel entitled to your private and public life and business for their sustenance. They are the champions of the ‘bed undefiled’ hypocrisy. You remember that bestie and your ex-boyfriend? They claimed you were a lesbian and you used hang out with her and asked her for sex. Chances are you never asked her for any sex but took her as a confidant and never a lover. He never asked your side of the story and married her secretly. If you knew you would have confronted her yourself. You knew of her former friends whom could have passed for her lesbian lovers. She was even the harlot but you didn’t know because you didn’t gossip for a living. Now, he has discovered her lie but who cares? It’s too late and she’s threatened his life if he dared to divorce her. There’s that Chief or Alhaji that he ‘assists’ to keep her happy too. Campus ‘frienemies,’ hi!
9. Short-lived Marriages: These marriages don’t last because they were contracted for the wrong reason, possibly to spite other people. Those who willfully contracted such marriage would happily pimp each other for financial considerations to their diverse networks. Once a marriage ends, they are on to the next, which had started while they were in the previous one. Most of them don't last beyond 5 years.
10. Call Boy/Girl: It is back to the chicken and the egg dilemma, which came first. Which started which? Did the cell phone occasion commercial sex marriage or vice versa? Ejikwa m ogu o. The cell phone is the main office, while the hotel is their make shift office. During my NYSC in Ibadan, a roommate borrowed my Sagem cell phone to talk to her boyfriend who lived in Jos while she had several of the military officers as lovers. I tried to be a roommate and not a judge. Of course, my phone was a gift from a married man, a Yoruba man, whom I met briefly while at work in Aba. That was the last time I saw or spoke to him after he bought me my first cell phone in Lagos. But tell me, which one got married: The one night stand in Enugu or the many nights in khaki knickers seeing several men for ‘Oga? in Ibadan/Ile Igbon?’ This woman named Theresa Agbugui borrowed my cell phone to talk to her fiancé one Tony Ameh because her own Tecno flip phone cell phone was bad. She probably got hold of all my contacts just because I was being kind to her. Or it was Peter Garba, how I wouldn’t even know. Military nonsense that didn’t know when Boko Haram struck them but peeped through one’s contact list. It helped to expand Tessy’s own network and client base. Nobody informed me that NYSC was prostitution, not even the Orientation Camp prepared me for such treachery. This was before I left for the USA in 2005. Beware of military ashewo. I asked her how she was comfortable to speak to her fiancé while in the bedrooms of her military lovers and she replied that it didn’t matter to her. That she carried on as if it didn’t matter to anybody. I didn’t believe her but I didn’t report her affairs to her fiancé whose number I never called and don’t have till date. I’m not sure she’s still married to the man in Jos but a marriage did take place for her because she brought in money. Commercial sex is all that marriage would fetch except for the deception. Did I say that my cell phone was misplaced on my way from the visa interview that took me abroad in 2005? And that phone number was trunked? So, nobody from the past could reach me. Haha… Beware of evil family, friends and associates.
11. Secret Society: Many of those marriages are contracted to satisfy secret societies and the occult, which include the Rosicrucian Order, freemasonry, or such fraternities and cults. They are controlled by creeds, tenets and promises for their success, which sometimes aren’t realistic.
12. Mystic/Sorcery: Most of those marriages are contracted with the aid of mystics, sorceries, pastors who are called Ndi Ekpere in Igboland, which is nearly everybody these days. They are patrons of and involved in mystical prostitution with its attendant blind compliance and obedience. 
13. Convenience: Those are marriages of convenience for people who have chosen to contract rather than delay or forego marriage. They are hardly contracted for real love. However, it’s possible that these unions are termed common sense marriages by their practitioners. But are they truly common sense? I doubt it.
14. Agents: Commercial sex marriage partners are spies, informants, agents and voodoo practitioners. Somebody in my family told me not to disclose any information about him to his spouse. I was surprised especially since he was supposedly married to her. Why would marry and live with somebody whom you prefer not to disclose things about yourself to. Anyway, it went to show that there was little trust between them or at least they felt that way about each other. I wasn’t on speaking terms with her so there was no reason to divulge any secrets and what secrets, by the way? Commercial sex marriages aren’t real and the partners play to the gallery because of their bottom power.
15. Osu Caste System: While there is no known reason for commercial sex marriages in Igboland in particular and Nigeria in general, I’ve wondered how the osu caste system has possibly impacted them. What I learnt of the Osu has me wondering if there’s sustained interest in being unlawful in daily interactions even in modern society. Is it considered unnecessary to keep to vows of fidelity in marriage? How did the Osu contract their marriage? Did they heed biblical injunction and traditional ethos or would they rather live the ‘modern’ way of life allowing freedom of association? In Igboland, marriage was between a man and a wife until he’s become a man of means and goes for more wives. This could also happen if the Igbo man is seeking an heir. Nowadays, many marriages are contracted after a man has gone around sowing his wild oats, often with many baby mamas. It’s a pity. So, it’s neither here nor there. I don’t think the problem is with the Osu as many a diala has gone ahead to mingle and all sorts have taken place. Maybe I’m the novice here – people have their lives sorted out. Hmm?

Commercial sex marriage is chronic social deviance. It leads to unhealthy marriage relations between partners, spousal abuse, child abuse and most times to divorce. Sex for Thank You is bad and misused gratitude for everybody involved. It cannot sustain a civil society in my opinion, because it’s fraught with difficulty. What do we want next? Move to the divorce court on commercial television when a commercial sex marriage or civil union fails? Hence, while it’s good news to get married bright and early I think that it’s safe to adjudge one’s motive for getting married. Don’t go asking like Tyler Perry: Why Did I get Married?