Okay so we were all focusing on the pensions tension and the Lab here especially was going to continue taking through some logical laboratory tests,  Haruna Iddrisu’s comment “If you can’t trust the government, then who can you trust’.

Until some sharp, sharp sarcastic jab from Ghanaian actress Lydia Forson at Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams on marriage created a social media storm – and stopped us here in our tracks.

Archbishop Duncan-William’s reported comment and actress Lydia Forson’s published response have taken significant youthful attention from the pension tension which is only beginning to warm up.

For the youth, any talk about marriage is the greatest single motivation to dampen already damp posture toward pensions.

Pensioners are not very happy with Lydia Forson. They just want her to just “Shhhhhh keep it quiet please, how do you expect us to get money to buy those blue pills you were talking about if we can’t get our pensions money, euh?”

And holes?  E-Lab checked the dictionary and apart from potholes which we are trying to get government to fix and black holes which space scientist are trying to understand, we have no idea what the actress is talking about. Really, absolutely no idea.

Okay, so let’s do a quick check on the claims made by the man of God and the woman of the screens.

Duncan-Williams: There are not enough men for women to marry.

Well, actually the Bible puts it 7:1. And since the two are all Christians, the Lab here doesn’t think this is debatable, right? If you have been to the Korle-Bu children’s ward you would be shocked how many girls are popping out and how many boys are chickening out. A nurse told me, in a day they could do several deliveries with not a single boy. You think it hard to be a man? It’s even harder to come out as a boy. So yeah, the Bishop is right.

Lydia Forson: Women don’t need men to feel validated. And too much abuse women suffer in marriage makes it hardly enviable to call marriage an act of validation or privilege.

True, the abuse is too much – way too much. And marriage is not a privilege a man confers on a woman, it is a privilege God confers on both. Eve was Adam’s need, but until then, she was in God’s dream. 

Because men often actually take the initiative, it could give men a false sense of being the chancellor of the University of Ghana conferring marriage degrees on desperate women.

So yeah Lydia has a point. But the Archbishop in a full video qualified his statement: He said if you get a good man - a good man, do everything to keep him.

Yeah true. Men are not vice-chancellors to confer 'marriage' degrees on women. But if charlie, Lydia - if you wanna take an Africa Movie Academy's Most Promising Actor award into a marriage, well, your reward could be shocking.

You can accuse the archbishop of taking a convenient position because he didn't talk about what good women go through in the hands of bad men.

The truth is everybody took a very convenient position – a masculine position and a feminist counter position.

Two convenient positions create – an inconvenience. So how do we reconcile the two? How do we take a position that can’t be guilty of being a third convenient position?

This is going to be very very very sensitive. So  give the Lab here some two-hour break. Lemme me watch that award-winning movie for the 15th time.

Fireproof.

Okay. Back. Let’s do this.

The real thrust of Lydia Forson's sarcasm is that how do you respond to a marriage that is abusive? Why should anybody stay in a marriage that is terribly abusive?

Women are the most abused species so much that the fact that they are not extinct – is I don’t know – the ninth wonder of the world?

If there were a women’s council in heaven approving the gender of babies, they would have put an embargo on sending women, the same way the west is trying to put an embargo on travelling from West Africa.

People say, it’s a man’s world but really it is not. The world is a man’s mess. A great institution has become a fearful institution although for the record – it's always the woman smiling on wedding day.

So for award winning actress, women lawyers and women with five degrees from five different continents, marriage is the same as a log about to go through those logging machines. You enter in huge and accomplished – you come out thin and battered.

So why do we still hold on to this institution like the way Cristiano Ronaldo is trying to hold on to the Ballon D’or?

Why can’t we treat marriage the same way like Zlantan Ibrahimovic treats the Ballon D’or by still claiming he doesn’t need a Ballon D’or because three important people have already awarded him World player of the year every year?

And by the way - those three are  - Ego, and plain ego and really, really plain ego.

Zlatan: I don't need Ballon d'Or to know I'm the best

For the record, the most abused person in a marriage is not the woman.

It is Jesus Christ.

Shocked?

People say come on don’t bring faith to work. Don’t bring God here too. Yet they are the same people who will be shocked if their wives come to work without wearing their wedding ring which is stuck in the wardrobe.

You think marriage is your idea? Good luck with that.

He is the most abused partner in this arrangement. And the worst thing is He created marriage. It was his idea – not Darwin or Darkwins, or Brad Pitt. No.

When He chose to stay faithful to a depraved, deranged, degenerated, disgraced, defaced partner called humanity He knew it was definitely going to be for the worst, but ultimately for the better.

And immediately He declared his vow to love man before Herod and later Pontius Pilate, blows, slaps, pit and hiss came flying in like.

And his first honeymoon was not in Dubai – but a hard cross and he was dressed in His own blood.

The night before his wedding, which we guys call bachelor party – he spent it alone, crying till his tears turned blood asking his Father to please ‘take this cup away from me.’

But.

Not my will, let your will be done.

And because of that painful confession, that excruciating death to self – today Lydia Forson, Archbishop Duncan-Williams and myself stand the greatest chance to live forever.

E-Lab is reading a book ‘Power of a praying husband’. Lydia while we understand the pain of an abusive mentally deranged husband, E-Lab recommends reading ‘Power of a praying wife’.

Maybe we could all later go see the Archbishop with ‘power of a praying Archbishop.

And very quickly –Prayer is not a blue pill for a quick fix like Viagra. It is hard, long, tasking, exercise.

And that is why the man who suffers the worst abuse, still wants to help us out with it.

Marriage according to another bishop – Dag-Heward Mills –is a trap. And E-Lab here sees it that way too.

It is God’s designed attempt not really to make us happy like what the salesman said about Red Bull Energy drink giving us wings.

No. It is to make us egoless. It is a serious ego deflating exercise. And one thing most men don’t want dead is their ego – although men end up dying earlier than women anyway.

And when you are a very accomplished woman, you most likely have a lot of egos to die too. When you are a man, your whole being is an ego even without a third-class degree.

But here is the point – despite being a crazy guy, God through Jesus is still  married to me – and unless you have been such a perfect woman – God is still married to you.

And that’s a validation. That’s a privilege.

E-Lab here is in no position to pontificate about enduring a difficult marriage. The Lab has no idea how difficult it could be. But I hope even with quivering lips, to say ‘let your will be done’.

The question is – will you be able to say the same too?