It is the dream of every girl to find her perfect man, her prince in shining amour and to, thereafter, live happily ever after and grow old together. These dreams may, however, be cut short by life’s events jolting married couples back to reality, a harsh reality that many are battling to live.
The intervention of death in life terminates lofty dreams, ambitions and aspirations and in a marriage situation, brings final separation leaving the living partner to carry on. When the living partner is a woman, death opens up a new phase of life in a her world and that is widowhood especially if she decides not to remarry.
When a woman or a man loses a spouse, they are meant to mourn their beloved as a mark of final respect which is considered a compulsory obligation own to the deceased. However, when it is a woman who is widowed especially in Africa, they are often subjected to many tragic customary and traditional practices which have far-reaching consequences on them, their children and the society. Some of these practices include cutting their hair, drinking of the remains of the bath water used in washing the husband’s corpses, denial of right of inheritance to husband’s properties, stopping her from taking her bath for days and outright confinement in a particular hut.
In some communities, when a man dies, the widow is required, albeit forcefully, to marry one of her brother-in-laws generating a lot of emotional trauma for the woman and also violating the woman’s Fundamental Human Rights. There are also some reported cases of maltreatment of widows ranging from denial of rights or privileges, physical assaults, seizure of husband’s properties, prompting the husband’s brother to forcefully collect car and house keys from the widow if she dares refuse any of their requests. In worse cases, she is ejected with her children from the house built by her husband.
There are also cases where the woman is forced to take an oath as the only means to claim innocence of accusations of being directly or indirectly responsible for her husband’s death. Widows are led to shrines including in some cases to embrace her husband’s corpse three times. It is assumed that such unscientific methods could deliver judgments such as death on the accused when found guilty.
During the period of mourning in some communities, widows are allowed to eat with only broken, old and unhygienic plates. She is not allowed to eat with, smile or talk to anybody. The spoon, plate, cup among her other cutlery are different from others. Women in areas where such practices are performed, usually undergo lots of assaults, physical, emotional and psychological trauma thus making them weak to train their children and face the life squarely. These and more practices push a lot of women praying to die before their husbands.
To end these obnoxious practices, governments at all levels must implement already enacted laws to curb such practices against widows. Non-governmental agencies should increase their interventions to protect the interest of these helpless widows who never chose the death for their husbands. Widows, on the other hand, should always speak out whenever they are maltreated during and after their mourning period. The church should also pilot these campaigns to all corners of the communities. Traditional rulers on their own part, should as a matter of necessity put a stop to some of these outrageous practices and seek the promotion of women’s welfare especially widows. The society should handle women and every human being with love and compassion while we observe traditions and customs.
Finally, there should be sensitization and empowerment of widows to improve their knowledge on how to avoid being victims of tradition as well as knowing when their rights are trampled upon.
Written by CHUKWUEBUKA OBINUGWU
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