adminMonica Cheru-Mpambawashe Lifestyle Editor
They climb up the corporate ladder, in most cases with babies on the hip as they play supportive roles to their spouses’ own career advancement. They are the ones who generally ensure that standards at home are high as they try to keep up with or ahead of their friends, neighbours and in-laws.
Men like to think that they dominate them but in reality the less fair sex works flat out in order to impress them. Women rule the world, make no mistakes about that. The American men apparently realised it and set aside the third Sunday of September as the day to pay homage to the queens in their lives and the Wife Appreciation Day was born.
The origins are not quite agreed upon with some believing that it was a spin-off of the National Military Wives Appreciation Day which has since been amended with the replacement of wives with spouses to be more politically correct in a world where military personnel are males and females of differing sexual orientations.
Yet others believe that it is a commemoration that may have been started by or for a childless wife is not catered for by Mother’s Day. But whatever its origins, American wives have come to expect signs of appreciation from the significant others on this day.
As the world globalises, the culture has spread and a few people in Zimbabwe have cottoned onto the idea. Zimall, a local online shopping site is spreading the word urging men to show their wives how much they love them by surprising them with a present.
No other retailers that could be found had ever had of the day, but they are sure not to be caught on the wrong side again next year:
“It sounds like such a lovely idea and it would do wonders for many relationships. Next year I am definitely making sure that we start encouraging our clients to observe the day,” said a retailer in the CBD who refused to be identified.
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and serious retail business bonanzas with worldwide sales set in billions of sales for the occasions each year. They are not quite Christmas, but they certainly get the shops tills ringing. So it is only natural that most retail entrepreneurs will be happy to join the bandwagon and spread the word.
As with all special day, the commercialization sometimes seems to drown the original idea and many men may feel that this yet another ploy to empty their wallets for diminishing returns.
“I do Christmas. I do Valentine’s Day. I do Mother’s Day and I do her birthday. And now you are telling me that there is yet something else coming up? That is just too much and too expensive,” protested a 33 year old man who identified himself as Tawanda.
The Saturday Herald Lifestyle took a sample of the presents of choice for women by asking them what they would want to get from their husbands on that day. Special outings, perfumes and lingerie topped the list. Next were clothes and accessories and a premium mobile phone handset. A number of women said it would be enough for the guy to dedicate the day to spending time with her doing what she likes together instead of rushing off to watch the Barclays English Premier League with friends.
But wife appreciation day need not be about expensive presents. It might simply be a case of a man taking on the chores that are traditionally delegated to the female gender to feel what it takes to be a woman for just one day. After that he will surely appreciate his wife for the rest of the year!
Online Reporter