By: O. Valentine

''As he was speaking the boy returned, followed by Akueke, his half-sister, carrying a wooden dish with three kola nuts and alligator pepper....She was about sixteen and just ripe for marriage. Her suitor and his relatives surveyed her young body with expert eyes as if to assure themselves that she was beautiful and ripe.'' -- (Chapter 8, Page 47 paragraph 6. Things Fall Apart 1958.)

Having exhausted my library of political fictions, castic boredom had sought my soul and the antidote was a neverending fortification through the engagement of whetever fictions. I just needed to read something!

This inexplicably led me to the covers of Chinua Achebe's masterpiece and forerunner of Africa's socio-cultural narrative Things Fall Apart. I had set out to read for pleasure (Yes I may have read this novel a thousand times before without a stretch of weariness) until I flipped into page 49 - until I exhumed the concealed and supposed shamful heritage of child marriage of the Biafrans just like the pedophialic unrepentant Nomads of Northern Nigeria.

Sometimes had we not been too obsessed with the travails or trivings of those at the Otherside, we would have spotted the failings on our own foundations and perhaps realised we are deficient in moral justification to flagellate child marriage as luxuriated by those at the Otherside.

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I was in calabar few days ago and stumbled upon a very ridiculous culture.
The culture of killing children aged between 4-13 on suspicion of being witches and wizards, The children are actually killed by their parents and relatives. I never knew such barbaric practices existed from that part of Nigeria. It was an NYSC friend of mine who works with a foreign NGO that takes care of the survivors of this practices, I even met a few of the children and when they tell you there story you would be in tears.
The NGO shot a video of a pastor boasting he has killedoveer 1200 children ( accused witches and wizards), he said he tried to cleans their souls but it didn't work so the only alternative was to kill the children.
If somebody had told me this I wouldn't believe but i guess seeing is believing.
The Point i am trying to make is, A lot of barbaric practise take place all over NIgeria and this is 2015 . How do we develop when we still believe in things has ridiculous has children being witches and actually killing them.

I dont think if child marriage had existed in Igboland, what Achebe wrote was not the encyclopedia of Igbo cultures, customs and tradition.
Igboland is distinct and dynamic so as you move around various Igbo communities you will discover different cultures as well.
Some Igbo communities celebrate masquarade but in some other communities its a taboo, some have Ozo title holders while some doesnt.

My dad married at 21 while my mum was 16 then at 1968 but now my cousin is 20 and the parents said she isnt yet ripe for marriage.

Besides why do you single Igbos and Hausas out in your diatribe??

Is 16 not better than 9,10,11,12,13 they do in the north?
And things fall apart used a precolonial setting.
Currently, it is rare to find Igbo girls marry at 16 even in the villages.
So, it's gross comparing what igbos did precolonially to what others do in the 21st century.
The idea behind civilization is the weeding out of bad practices and replacing them with safer ones.
So, the thread is unnecessary

Just in case no one knew, the marriageable age for women in Medieval and Early Modern Europe was 12. It remained so well into the so-called Enlightenment Period (17th and 18th centuries) and in some places persisted into the 19th century.

When the OP mentioned 'child marriage', I thought maybe six or seven years old; twelve at best. Then I asked myself, where in the Igbo ethno-linguistic region does that exist. A practice that obscure would have to have been documented somewhere and would most definitely have been found in scholarly works. But no, sixteen. Sixteen is 'child marriage'.

Also, what sort of role does something as frail and as subjective as morality have in all this?

16 ...child marriage.


Then using works of fiction to elaborate makes me wonder ...WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!!

The name Biafra and people of biafra has to be rubbished at all cost whether fable, facts or fiction...it doesn't matter.........that's the new mantra

Mtcheew! Attention seeking at its peak.

So 16 years is too young for marriage at that time?!... . i can bet your mum gave birth to you at age 11nhalf. nonsense!

In many cultures, marriage at a young age was not unusual. I'm African American and that practice was normal up until recent times. For example, my great aunt (who is still alive) married her husband when she was 15 years old. This was in the American South, and it wasn't seen as taboo. My great great Grandmother, already had 9 kids by the time that she was 28, so I can only assume that she married when she was a teen as well.

Just sharing a thought from a different culture/experience.