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I have been wondering what people tell their wives when asked about their salaries or wages. Till today, I have known no Ghanaian who, from the bottom of his heart, told his wife the exact sum he takes home. It is not in the character of the Ghanaian to be so candid. One will even say that only a fool tells his wife how much he earns. Others say it is cardinal sin. The mystery, however, is that wives eventually gets to know. How they get the information is something husbands have never figured out. Some will even come to the conclusion that their wives used magic or sourced divine intervention because they made very conscious efforts to keep away all pay-slips that will reveal how much they are worth at �moon die�. Well, the wife gets the pay-slip from the husband�s pocket by chance at laundry time and viola! The long and well-kept secret is let out of the bag. So if the husband is talking about no money for school fees and the like, the wife can do her own financial algebra and calculus and tell the husband that he is being �criminally� economically with the truth. A wife will admit to herself a margin of error in her financial speculations and peel off some zeros if she knows her husband drinks beer and an occasional gin or bandy. If he smokes, the woman is generous enough to also spare some decimals. After all, jot is not more than a Ghana cedi in smoke. As for the chain smokers, the margin can be given more elasticity, especially if the bloke is addicted. After all the latitude given to booze and jot and maybe gorro, the woman might reckon that her husband has still a lot to spare after dishing out chopmoney. So where does the extra money go? She starts fantasizing! The damn husband has a girlfriend and that is where the remainder is lodged! Wallah! Tofiakwa! It is for all these and other reasons that husbands will prefer to run their financial matters secretly, so long as they make sure the family is secured in all respects and the bills are paid on time. As to what they do with the rest of the money, it is their own wahala! After all, isn�t man free to do what he wants with his money? Well, the woman would want to be part of the spending of any spare cash, so she has to find where it is going. Is the destination of the extra cash legitimate or not? Is it marital or extra-marital? Some women cannot sleep unless they know. I have nosed around and got to find out that some husbands don�t want their wives to know even if they have a raise, because first, the wives will go for a very big calculator and start budgeting on it. Secondly, the women are, on their part, so secretive that even if you use voodoo divination, you can never know how much your wife is worth. So why should you tell her yours? It doesn�t make sense! I watched a television programme about two years ago where a savings expert was advising wives to be honest with their husbands as to how much they save, how much profit they make if they are in business, so that their husbands could offer their blessings. Of course, wives don�t need such blessings when they don�t want the men to know how much they make in profits. What blessings can they offer anyway? The savings expert said some women are so notoriously secretive that whenever they are at home and go off to attend to nature�s call, they in fact go to declare profits made away from the prying eyes of their husband. If they counted money in the living room, their husbands would know and that will not do. Husbands must not be privy to profits made less they decide to give and excuse and reduce the chopmoney, so the wives think. But the point the expert was making was simple. If husband and wife are prepared to be transparent, managing the home and business would be better done; ideas would be better shared all in the interest of the family. Unfortunately, the men do not see it that way and neither do the women. When it comes to personal ownership of cash, you can�t predict how a husband or wife will behave. In other jurisdictions, it is somewhat mandatory for the husband and wife to have a joint account. That means monies can be withdrawn only when the couple consent to do so. Both signatures must be appended and verified. No monkey business! When there is divorce, the wife gets away with almost half of the cash in alimony although she might have contributed less than a third to the pool. That, to me, is a crime against humanity. It is unfair to men, especially where women use chicanery to break their marriages solely for financial considerations; that is knowing they�d gain from the divorce. In some countries, the law has made marriage one of the biggest business concepts. A woman will deliberately target a wealthy man she doesn�t love, get him to marry her, stick to the relationship for a few years, misconduct herself to force the man to divorce her and the courts will grant her millions in alimony. She then goes away rich to live her own life with a waiting boyfriend. No sweat at all! But rich folks are getting the chord and have stopped being stupid. Some have actually ruled out marriage because they fear they�d be trapped and rooked. Well, a man will always be a fool. But the day he gets wise, the game is over. E-mail: [email protected] Website: merarialomele.com