Single Husbands
This book is a work of fiction. Certain real locations and public figures are mentioned. However, all other names, characters,
places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Mary B. Morrison
Excerpt from
Who’s Loving You
by Mary B. Morrison published by arrangement with Dafina Books, a division of Kensington Publishing Corp. Copyright © 2008
by Mary B. Morrison.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
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ISBN: 978-0-446-54441-2
Contents
WARNING!
Adult Fiction
Sexually Exquisite
If you are not eighteen or older, do not, seriously, do not read this book.
Also by
New York Times
Bestselling Author,
Mary B. Morrison, aka HoneyB
Who’s Loving You
Sexcapades
Sweeter Than Honey
When Somebody Loves You Back
Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This
Somebody’s Gotta Be on Top
He’s Just a Friend
Never Again Once More
Soul Mates Dissipate
Who’s Making Love
Justice Just Us Just Me
Coauthored with Carl Weber
She Ain’t the One
Presented by Mary B. Morrison
Diverse Stories: From the Imaginations of Sixth Graders
,
an anthology written by thirty-three sixth graders
Before you say, “I do,” I’d like to say to you . . .
Date:
Given To:
Given By:
Personal Message:
Dedicated to the women who will not marry single husbands.
There may be a shortage of men, but there is no shortage of SEX.
Instant Message From the HoneyB
I’m asking ALL adults to support me on sharing this very important message:
Educate, Don’t Procreate
There is no reason ANY teenage girl should have a baby. None. We have too many teenagers getting pregnant—for all the wrong
reasons. It’s time for adults to stop undereducating young females and start empowering them. I’m most concerned with the
females because most of the males are not accepting responsibility for their actions.
I understand that most African-American women suffer from postslavery sexual trauma. Whether it was our parents misinforming
or undereducating us, our being molested and raped, battered and abused, and our being taught that sex out of wedlock is sinful,
it’s time for a monumental epiphany in the way women of all nationalities view sex and our bodies. As a woman who is comfortable
with her own sexuality, I want to spark an empowering sexual movement for other women.
Young girls should be educated about their bodies and their hormones. They need to know safe sex practices. They need to know
they are in control, not the guys.
I hope you join me in imparting this very important message to our young girls.
Sexual Knowledge Is Powerful
Is there a loophole in marriage vows?
What wedding vows did you, or will you, exchange? Do, or will, these words sound
somewhat
familiar to you?
In the presence of God, our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health,
in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow, forsaking all others, keeping only unto you for as long as we both
shall live. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you
and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.
I encourage you to re-read the aforementioned paragraph verbatim—but don’t stop there. Read the vows you exchanged or are
about to exchange at the altar, then read all the marriage vows you can find and e-mail me any preexisting marriage vows where
it states, “I promise to exclusively have sex with you,” or any vows that explicitly include fidelity. I have yet to find
vows that state married couples shall not or will not have sex outside of their marriage.
I can imagine that most, if not all, of you are clinging to the words “Forsaking all others, keeping only unto you.” Forsaking
means to renounce or turn away from entirely. All includes your family, friends, coworkers, pastors, exes, strangers, etc.
It is humanly impossible to forsake
all
others and keep only unto one person for the rest of your life. The vagueness implies one is to keep unto one, but it doesn’t
clarify in what capacity? Sounds nice, but I implore you to think twice about the true implications. Wedding vows are so obscure,
they are essentially left to one’s interpretation.
Moving along… There was a woman on
Oprah
who sued her husband’s mistress and was awarded a monetary judgment, I believe, in the amount of $500,000 against the mistress
but settled for $50,000. I believe in that case the mistress constantly pursued the woman’s husband, knowing he was married,
and I believe the husband did not act or respond favorably to the mistress’s countless written and verbal solicitations.
In any case, even if a married person faced with similar circumstances would have engaged in sexual intercourse, I pose these
questions: “What do you feel should happen to a married individual who engages in sex outside of his or her marriage? Why?”
Should a married person go to jail for emotional and/or sexual infidelity? How would one measure such a crime? By the number
of wet dreams, orgasms, or partners? What if the sex was bad? What if the woman outside of the marriage gets pregnant?
Your marriage is your commitment. If you choose to quote words or phrases such as “vow to be faithful,” I ask that you first
seek the definition of the word “faithful,” then pay close attention to how the word “faithful” is being used in conjunction
with other words in the vows.
There are beliefs rooted in Christianity like “Thou shall not commit adultery” and “Thou shall not covet his neighbor’s wife,”
but to my knowledge or lack thereof—correct me if I’m wrong—none of the Ten Commandments are quoted in marriage vows. And
even if they were, everyone is not a Christian. Some individuals are atheists. So I must ask you, the reader, because you
are intelligent, “Is there a loophole in wedding vows regarding fidelity?”
The three couples in
Single Husbands
made a commitment to one another, but somewhere along their journey after saying, “I do,” Herschel Henderson, Brian Flaw,
and Lexington Lewis took detours. Or did they? Now I want you to take a moment to think about whether people change after
they are married, and how. These three men didn’t honestly deviate from their premarital behavior. Most people don’t. What
had happened was that the women they married thought signing a marriage license would miraculously turn their unfaithful fiancés
into faithful husbands.
Have you ever thought about the definitions for “marriage” and “license”? Marriage is the state of being united to a person
of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship
recognized by law—
not by your girlfriend, your ex-man, your best man, your spouse, your mama, your daddy, or a stranger—by law.
There are no prerequisites to getting married. In reality, it doesn’t matter if the parties exchanging vows respect, love,
or hate one another. Who honestly cares? The law rules above all hearts. The law doesn’t care if one is under duress, secretly
miserable, constantly unhappy, or clearly unsure as he or she journeys down the aisle or stands before the altar. One’s credit
score, IQ, and bank account can collectively be below zero and in the red and he or she can still find someone to marry.
License means a permission granted by competent authority to engage in a business or occupation or in an activity otherwise
unlawful—a document, plate, or tag evidencing a license granted. Does this mean being single is unlawful? If having sex outside
of wedlock is unlawful, then 98 percent of adult Americans (which probably includes you and definitely includes me) and a
substantial number of teenagers need to be placed under house arrest. I find the concept of marriage ludicrous, because most
people, married or single, don’t have the decency to respect the person they’re in a relationship with. No stamp of approval
can successfully debate what I’m saying.
A license is a document. Every license—except a marriage license—must be renewed, can be revoked, suspended, or terminated
for failure to adhere to the laws under which the license was granted. A marriage license can either be annulled (reduced
to nothing) or dissolved (to become decomposed or to cause to disappear), which ends in divorce.
A marriage license is a façade. It’s a piece of paper granted not by the parties involved but by authority (the law) to the
parties who have no enforceable control over their spouse. In many cases, people are marrying strangers. What’s my point?
People who decide to get married are disillusioned because they believe they have entitlements, when in actuality they have
zero authority to hold the other person accountable to anything that the individual does not desire to commit to. You don’t
marry a piece of paper. What you commit to is marrying an imperfect being whom you somehow expect to become perfect when you
hear, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
Did you catch that “man and wife” part? What male chauvinists slipped that in on women? Not “husband and wife.” But “man and
wife.” What does that mean? Sounds to me like the individual conducting the marriage is saying, “Women are married to men
who are not married to them.” Actually, that’s about right. What are women signing up for when they etch their signatures
in permanent ink on a marriage license?
To me, a marriage license is synonymous with the enforcement rights of a birth certificate. It simply identifies a person’s
status as having a legal commitment, but the license does not, cannot, will not, shall not, make anyone whole, complete, secure,
or happy. If you get caught running a red light, you’ve got to pay. If you don’t pay, you get a warrant for your arrest. If
you get caught fucking around on your spouse, you get to stay married and fuck up again. But you can literally break all the
laws of marriage and never be penalized. Which brings me to, “What are the laws of marriage?”
Hit me up at
[email protected]
with your responses.
You can throw in the towel and cut your losses, but you cannot bring forth charges against a cheating spouse unless you’re
perhaps married or living in the state of Florida. I ain’t gon’ mention no names, but I wonder if the famous multimillionaire
couple—that once upon a time lived in Florida—if their double affairs suddenly became hush-hush when the man allegedly impregnated
a woman out of wedlock. Hmm? I’d better shut the shack up. I meant, shut the fuck up. Anywho, what good is a marriage license?
Now, if you marry the right person, a license may make you wealthy, but how much will it cost you emotionally? Will you lose
your self-identity? That’s assuming you took time to know yourself before getting married.