What African Women Suffer In Marriages

By Emeka Esogbue

Most African women, married to African men live with horrible taboos that are hard to surmount. Sadly, many of the enslaving taboos are only discovered in the middle of married life or sometimes when marriage has ended but they leave a wide gap of inequality between husbands and wives. In most parts of Africa, the groom’s mother wields an ungainly but tough influence which determines whether her son should consider marrying a particular woman of his choice or not. As a result of this, the lucky woman proposed to by a man has the first task of praying to be accepted by a mother-in-law to be. If the marriage goes through, then begins an entirely new life of societal laws that the woman will learn to live with all the days of her married life.

To start with, the journey to a successful marriage ceremony can be very knotty, tenaciously made so by the elders in the village who will show interest in monetary gains. There are elders whose lives depend on finance and drinks generated by marriage and funeral ceremonies. These people always want to make something substantial from marriage thus their insistence on pricing brides very high. When this happens, bargaining power of the groom’s family is not only tested but elastically stretched to a breakable point. Marriage ceremonies have sometimes stretched to night because of lack of compromise over amounts of money required from the groom’s family.

In some parts of Nigeria, especially among the Igbos of East and people of Akwa-Ibom and Cross River States, marriage list resembles a capacious text-book of requirements, the entire content of which the husband to be must provide before marriage is considered. Strangely, in Etinan, Akwa-Ibom State, introduction ceremony goes with a list of items before the final list is issued for the marriage proper. Many of these men eventually disappear soon after giving their agreement because of inability to bear the financial burden.    

In this sort of marriage, many women are made to go through hell but they must either tolerate or choose the more difficult and unnatural path of opting out which rarely occurs since the African woman is naturally trained to stay in marriage for the sake of her children. Just when the children are growing, the woman enters into another phase of problems still with no choice to opt out. In many African traditional societies, women are forbidden from joining their men folk in meetings on issues having to do with the society at large. Till date, town union meetings are patterned in such a way that women’s meetings are held differently from those of men. It would therefore seem that women decide for themselves while men decide for the community as a whole. In the end, the decisions taken by men remain overpoweringly ultimate. While it is difficult to have a man’s matter taken to women’s meeting, issues having to do with a woman are often brought before men’s meeting point to be thrashed and judgment is binding.     

Among the Idoma people of Benue State, Nigeria, a woman may be traditionally forbidden from opting out of marriage with her personal belongings since tradition recognizes that she came with nothing for the marriage, she must leave the marriage with nothing if the marriage ends. This situation makes it difficult for a woman to move out of the marriage with her personal plates and spoons. The tradition may have been put to discourage divorce among women as thought but the bad effect is the pitiable condition it invites for women who have worked so hard to procure a number of items but leave with nothing. These people of Idoma and Obolo communities in Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu commonly share the belief that sleeping around while still married has the implication of sudden madness for women and eventually death. However, the same is not applicable to the men so that married men with the habit of sleeping around constantly remind his wife of the traditional consequence of towing along the same line.

A lot of people allege that the people of Tiv in Benue State of Nigeria have the strange practice whereby a man could entertain his close male friend with wife in an unusual sexual act. Although, this act has been constantly denied by the people of this area, the rumour is commonly heard in the country. If this is true, it means that women are assumed as play-things in this part of the world. For the girl-child in northern Nigeria, her natural struggles begin with early marriage as her parents may just marry her off at infancy to an old man who apparently loved her in the womb. She then grows up for the man that must be her husband.

Once married, a woman’s right of inheritance almost ceases in her father’s house. Only in few societies notably those of Yoruba do females get equal share with their male counterparts. In Aniomaland as in most parts of Africa, a woman successfully bids her late parents’ properties farewell once she is married and loses any hope of returning to claim parents’ wealth. The people of Ibusa traditional share deceased properties according to the number of wives of he had while alive. This means that if for instance, a deceased person had three wives, upon his death, his properties are apportioned equally to each of his wives but the sad end is that the properties eventually go the children of each of the wives but not directly to any of the wives. The interpretation of marriage in this part of Nigeria is that once a woman is married, she becomes married to return no more to her father’s house.

The Yoruba tradition accords equivalent sharing right to the children of a deceased person whether a man or woman, a very rare culture in today’s African society. The Yorubas accommodate the belief that a child is a child no matter the sex and are therefore entitled to the inheritance of deceased parents’ properties. The Yorubas that rank high in this particular area may not be fortunate enough to score a high mark in other areas that concern women. For instance, by Yoruba tradition, a woman may never directly inherit her husband’s properties while the deceased person in question is blessed with children. Instead, the children become direct beneficiaries.

One unfortunate thing about women is that rarely do late husband will personal estates to them. Statistics show that in Africa biological children especially first sons are mostly favoured by will deposed to by deceased persons. While the ownership of personal belongings of a deceased woman immediately after death goes to her husband as African customs demand, the reverse is the case for women. Divorce could leave horrendous impacts on the life of a woman. Life after divorce does not augur well for the African woman in relation to her ex husband and children. It is for this reason that African women despite clear signs that their marriage has irretrievably broken down never easily permit that bride price put on their head be returned. As noted earlier, the traditional consequences that follow this can be unbearable for the woman.

In many traditions, once the bride price is returned, she is forbidden from sharing or eating from the same pot and plates with her first son. The beginning of her trauma is that tradition will forbid her from walking into the home of her ex husband to visit her children and in most cases she will be expected to stand in front of the house to relate with her children before returning. What is also bad about it is that formal divorce at the court of law may not necessary end the marriage if bride price is not returned. This means that with certificate of divorce, if a considered ex husband dies, tradition will require the family to mourn the man because bride price is considered intact.   

If a woman dies, the man’s family fetches him another small girl from the neighbourhood or nearby village as a new wife. The old man must begin to learn how to care and love again. The case of women is treated differently; a woman in some customs is expected to mourn for as much as one year, wearing particular clothes of dark colour, disallowed from visiting other people and when the mourning is over, she is compelled to take up another husband, who in this case may just be her late husband’s brother. Failure to accept this condition spells doom for her as she gets constantly hunted by all means until she submits. In Ibusa, the escape route is choosing one’s male child. In this way, the woman is assured of a place in the society.

Generally, women’s burial in various traditions appears more expensive than those of men. The reason for this traditional requirement may have become lost but it is known to be so. Some societies may require that at least two live cows be produced at the burial of a woman with several “Ankara fabrics”. In Ihiala, Anambra State, cows and “Ankara fabrics” are major traditional requirements for the burial of an elderly woman. The fabrics will then be shared among the children and cloths relations of the deceased woman. If an Ibusa woman dies, it is customary that a live cow or its cash equivalence be presented to her family by birth by her husband. This is usually done at the first burial, the second burial, which is much more expensive, is called “Ikpu Nnu”. This rite requires salt and big fishes to hold. Due to the expensiveness of this second burial, it is often left undone and only held when the children of the deceased are fairly well-off.

As usual, there are implications attached to inability to conduct the second burial. The first of this implication is that tradition discourages the female children of the deceased from partaking or even attending the funeral ceremony of another woman. If the first burial was not done, her children will not attend the first burial ceremony of another mother, if second burial, the children will be forbidden from attending the second burial of another woman. Such is the condition for woman that finds herself in the dreadful situation.

There are many chieftaincy titles that women are compelled to assume without their consent but because a married man is expected to take it with his wife. Thus, any woman who refuses to play along with her husband, the interested candidate is asking her husband to take another wife. To make matters worse, some of these traditional titles are purely against the fate or religious view of the women concerned but against their will, they become involved to keep their marriage intact. Many marriages have broken because of blatant refusal by the women to take up the traditional titles. When this happens, the society blames the situation on the women because a woman is expected to be submissive to her husband no matter the situation she finds herself.  

There have been some few cases where children also compel their mother to act against her wish simply because the man may be compelled to hurriedly marry another wife. The children may think they are working for the marriage to remain intact but in the end their mother has acted against her will. Some of these titles conditionally entail that once taken, the hosts must observe some native ceremonies on annual basis and in some cases they are not expected to travel out of their immediate community. Implications can be high on violations of these age-long traditions. Above all, the society looks down on the holders of some of these core traditional titles as non-Christians. So for these reason, woman do all they can to avoid them but only compelled to accept when marriage is threatened.          

Interestingly, most women are conditioned to live a life of struggle, providing for the family at all cost right from the day of marriage; constantly praying and looking up to God for mercy. Luckily, some divinely get it, others do not but they must all live to accept their fate. Such is the life of an African woman in marriage.