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Widowhood In Nigeria. by Nobody: 8:20am On Jul 07, 2015 |
The widow is a veritable specimen of suffering. She depicts clearly the male-dominated society in which we all live and man's inhumanity to woman. She is buffeted on all sides, first by her grief which she is not allowed to suffer silently, then by the society who decree that she is a leaf in the wind, all on her own. In some Nigerians societies, the widow is not as tormented as in others. Among the Yorubas, the tradition is not very harsh on her. Just wear the mandatory black, sit on the floor for as long as one year, don't go to the market and other such restrictions. Then at the end of the mourning period, she can resume her life once again. But the story, even among the Yoruba, is not always that smooth. Because she is often seen as a chattel, her late husband's property to be shared along with farmlands and furniture, her troubles may start as soon as her husband is buried. The widow is the first suspect when causes of her husband's death are being considered. How can she be innocent? Was she not the last person he saw? Did he not sleep with her, eat her food? All types of implausible reasons are strung together to crucify the widow. She must be a witch. She comes from a family of witchdoctors, or don't you remember? The relatives conduct the autopsy in their heads and pronounce her guilty even when the deceased had a prolonged history of diabetes or even cancer. Oftentimes, when there is financial gain involved, the most successful tool used by greedy in-laws is to accuse the new widow of killing her husband. That way, she is forcibly ejected from the only home she has lived in for probably the better part of her life, out into cold uncertainty. The children are sometimes pushed out after her so that the empire can be adequately shared by the miserable vultures. Of course, a Yoruba widow is lucky if she gets the support and consolation of her in-laws. In some parts of Edo State, according to Mrs Nkem Izuako, a seasoned member of the bench, a widow is made to sit on the floor, near naked with a fire to keep her warm for seven days. During this period, she is not allowed to bath. Se must wail and howl her loss at intervals while her relatives keep vigil with her. After the seven days, she howls and laments all the way to the stream near naked but her mourning is for a whole year. I remember vividly the paper titled Culture and Widowhood, at a workshop on "The Nigerian Widow - Her Plight in The 21st Century organized by Abia State Women Association in conjunction with PROJECT HEALTH, some years ago, delivered by Mrs Izuako on the horrors widows are made to go through in most of Igboland, not all. If the submissions had not been made by a learned woman, born in Igbo land and married to an Igbo man, I would have found the instances cited unbelievable. The stories were so pathetic that I wondered if the said Igbo societies do not deserve the civilization that is just being preached to the naked inhabitants of Koma Hills. This in the same society where woman can't own land and 60 year old women have to call their four-year-old grandsons to break Kola. The Kola that is supposed to symbolize life cannot be broken by a woman who carries pregnancy for nine months to give life to that four-year-old boy and the all the men in that society! A woman who tills as much land as (if not more than) the man cannot own land unless she buys it in the name of a small boy she trained with her money. And before any Igbo men (or Igbo women who rationalizes being treated as thrash as) start to curse me, let them start their rejoinders by honestly narrating how widows are treated in their villages (not in Lagos) and how they'd want their wives to be treated if they slump and die today. I know that the punishing and humiliating rites of widowhood do not take place in all Igbo societies but if widows are treated shabbily in your place, why don't you do something instead of picking holes in this piece. Try, this for size, as told by Mrs Izuako. In one Igbo society, it is an abomination for a woman to see her late husband's corpse. As soon as the man is pronounced dead, the widow is expected to flee home with her children. That is according to tradition but the reality is that while she's on 'exile', her in-laws can plunder the deceased's properties. There was this widow who refused to run away. She stood her ground. The whole village shouted abomination. Her brother-in-law refused to be part of the burial. The widow being a member of the Charismatic Renewal Movement was rescued by the sect who buried the rejected body. To show his 'powers', the brother-in-law came late and exhumed the corpse and left it in the open. Could somebody tell me the rationale behind the tradition that forbids the departed to rest in peace? A custom that forbids a woman who has fed, lived and slept with a man from seeing his body is illogical. Exhuming a brother's corpse in the name of tradition is sickening. I remember a widow from the Enugu/Agidi Community whose brother-in-law wanted to 'inherit' narrating her experience. The brother-in-law was rich, quite so that everybody felt there was no reason why the widow and her children had to suffer. But suffer they did. The children were sent home from school for unpaid fees. The landlord threatened the distressed and hungry family with ejection. Yet the brother-in-law didn't lift a finger to help. When the desperate widow sought him out, he made his amorous intentions known. The widow was shocked. "How could you even think of sleeping with me?" she tearfully asked. Smirking, the brother-in-law told her: " you cannot work at railway and collect money at NEPA". And that was the end of all help she could hope to get. Is the Igbo widow's problem still being compounded by the Umuada (daughters of the land) whose mean mentality of the oppressed make laws that make life horrible for the widow? Or things are different now? Do they converge to enforce all types of obnoxious laws? If that attitude still obtains, one hopes they know that it is an attitude born of jealousy and lack of self worth. Do we still have bush people who confine to a corner where she must wail and weep? She acknowledges sympathizers nodding, as she must not speak. Gifts for her are dropped on the floor. She sits there almost naked (especially around Nsukka area) clad in black mourning clothes for between six months to one year. She is not allowed to have more than one change of cloth. The Umuada shaves her head and other parts of her body. Her food is prepared outside the home. She can't use washed plates and cannot eat with 'normal' people except widows like her. In some societies, she is locked up with the corpse. In other climes, she is whipped by terrifying poison-carrying masquerades. She cannot hug or be hugged. She can't shake hands or go to the market. And after the one-year mourning period, she is taken to the river for the Aja-ani ritual during which the aja-ani priest 'rapes' her. In some societies, according to Mrs Izuako, the widow is raped by 10 men. To cleanse her and make her available for other men! Lord have mercy! www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-5636.html 1 Like |
Re: Widowhood In Nigeria. by adorablepepple(f): 8:26am On Jul 07, 2015 |
widowhood in Naija is very devastating |
Re: Widowhood In Nigeria. by amnesty7: 8:40am On Jul 07, 2015 |
"Widowhood in the southern states of Nigeria" should have been the title. The OP should do more research before giving it the initial title. |
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