I came across an interesting article the other day. It was about a nasty trend in the USA whereby African immigrants were taking law into their own hands rather than seek the help of the land in which they live to settle domestic feud.
This article focussed more on Nigerian men killing their wives – gives about six examples with similar circumstances before wives were killed by their husbands – few of which were:
– The women went to join husbands in the States and husbands support during educational/career pursuits.
– All were Registered Nurse in the States
– All changed attitudes as soon as their financial status improved.
– Husbands of all felt wives were ‘disrespectful’ as this is not our ‘tradition’ so killed wives to rid of insults in their lives.
There are many success stories of Nigerians in diaspora, but when tragedies follows certain pattern then attention is paid more than usual.
Comments on this article were as interesting as the incidence itself. One thing that initially attracted me to reading through was when I read the attitude is usually common with village women – oh well, villagers are always the butt of all jokes.
Nigeria is a patriarchal society, we do this shamelessly even when it is detrimental to our progress.
I think it is a misconception to think marrying from ‘home’ is a gateway to imbecile wives who would work to keep the family afloat and at the same time on call 24/7 at the service of the husband all in the name of tradition.
For those who have been away from home for a long time – well, things are changing. We still have long way to go giving women deserved respect for their contribution in our society but now you have many more women playing equal parts to raising their families and father need not feel belittled by that even when women tightened their purse strings.
I remember at one point when my sisters and I were in secondary school, it got to a point that my parents divided responsibilities – my dad to pay school fees and books while mother was in charge of food, clothing, house rent and all that was in-between.
My father didn’t have time to dwell on anyone being disrespectful to him or that Moomi earns more money, his goal was that no matter what the cocoa or kola nut prices was he must earn enough for our tuition which he did or finds a way to be adult about it and get his wife to foot the bill.
People at home are embracing positive trends from around the world, one part of it is women owing up to their contribution and getting fathers to play their parts too.
With more girls’ education being promoted, this will only continue to benefit our larger society.
Not sure why folks are under illusion that adhering to tradition is synonymous to taking advantage of your spouse.
RIP to the victims.
I only hope folks would learn from these atrocities when it comes to joining their spouses overseas.
Folakemi 