Widowhood: A life gone miserable?
All enduring marriages ultimately end with the death of either the husband or the wife or both. But the death of a spouse may be the most extreme life crisis because it severs some of the deepest emotional bonds established in a lifetime.
However, the traumatic experience which accompanies the death of husbands tends to be greater on women than men when they lose their wives. And whereas the wife immediately becomes the primary suspect for her husband’s death, the man is immediately offered an appropriate substitution to comfort him upon the loss of his wife. This is because from time immemorial, societies have always been male-dominated and are still so, all over the world. Women have always been relegated to the background, while some traditions and customs in Nigeria still clearly rob women of their rights and privileges.
Babatunde Ahosi, a sociologist, says the differentiation between men’s and women’s role in Nigeria, as with other societies, is one of the complementary and superior relationship in favour of the men. “This involves a hierarchy, where men are given greater leverage over decision-making and resources than women. The result is a cultural setting that invariably promotes male domination and female subordination.”
Thus, widowhood practices in the six zones of Nigeria present different incidents generally tampered by peculiarities of culture, religion and other social indices. In the southwest, Ondo State, when a husband dies, the widow goes into confinement for seven days. During this period she is not allowed to go out, even to the toilet or take a bath. On the seventh day, her head is shaved to sever the bond between her and the dead husband. She also keeps a vigil and appears very sorrowful by wailing and crying profusely. If she fails to mourn, it is believed that “she may become mentally deranged or forfeit the right to any benefit.” After this, she goes into mourning proper, which is for a period of three months.
The widow is not expected to court, leave the family, go away with the children or look in the mirror for fear of seeing the deceased. Until recently, she was not allowed to sit on the bed. This period is also used to ascertain whether the widow is pregnant or not. At the end of three months, she performs the outing ceremony. She is then free to remarry into the family.
A widow may however refuse to be inherited even if her late husband’s family wants it so, a man may equally refuse to inherit his late brother’s wife. In Ondo, as in other Yoruba land, property belongs to the wife/wives and children of the deceased. It is shared as Ori o ju ori, (i e. equally among the children including girls) or as idi igi, (i.e equally among the wives, where the man has more than one wife), although the eventual beneficiaries are the children. And where the widow has no child, she may not get anything from her husband’s property. It reverts back to his family.
In the southeast, Anambra State, specifically at Ogidi town, in idemili Local Government Area, the mourning period is one year, during which time the widow is restricted to the house where she sits on the bare floor for four weeks and her hair is scraped. Her attire is called ‘ogodo upa,’ that is, ‘mud cloth.’
After seven weeks, she removes the ‘mud cloth’ and wears ‘the ikpim,’ that is, a pitch black mourning dress for the rest of the year. Peculiar to this people is the ‘etum afa,’ that is ‘praise naming,’ which the widow performs (mandatory) for three times a day.
Also at Nanka town, Orumba Local Government Area, the only peculiarity of this people is that the widow is forbidden to see the corpse of her husband. Christianity or not, “… any widow who contravenes this customs laterality ceases to exist…. She neither buys from nor sells to any other member of the community. All men run away from her…. She is avoided like death…,” an indigene of the town stated.
Among the Idomas, the widow mourns for at least one year wearing sackcloth. She performs the cleansing/outing ceremony with the help of her age grade (peers) at the end of the mourning period. This done, she is free to remarry either within or outside of the family. In idoma land, the late man’s property belongs to his relations.
Most widows have no share in his property neither do his children, if they are still very young. If however, the children are adults, the property is shared between them and their father’s relations.
Meanwhile, in the northwest, Kano State, inheritance issues are according to Islamic injunctions. The widow observes the Takaba, i.e a four-month, 10-day mourning period in seclusion; however, there are accounts of widows who are barred from leaving the room where the corpse was laid: sleeping on a comfortable bed, taking a normal route to the toilet, observing personal hygiene, wearing long hair, moving about, seeing the inside of the grave.
After the mourning, a widow is free to remarry within or outside the family. On the issue of inheritance, the manner in which the property of the deceased is shared is explicitly stated in the Qu’ran. However, human factors, especially the relationship of the widow to her in-laws, education of the apportioning parties and cultural learning have brought about injustices in property sharing.
These are the problems most women face after the death of their beloved husbands that is why various non-governmental organisations are rising up to fight the course of widows in Nigeria. Women in such a situation described above should however consult a legal adviser because there are some new laws against such practices against women in Nigeria. Widows and their girl child should be able to live fulfilled lives after the death of their husbands.
Taiwo Adeyefa is the president and founder of Widows In Need Initiative. RC32749; an organisation that works tirelessly on different initiatives of putting an end to discrimination and stigmatisation against widows and their children in Nigeria and other African countries.
