The alleged relationship between Dowry and victimization of women in some African Countries
Introduction:
In today’s world, it is still a fact that women face innumerable mistreatments resulting from their gender. Both as individuals and in groups, women again and again experience violence, starting in their homes, churches, schools, and even in public areas.
The forms of violence against women are of different types like physical, psychological, sexual, etc. Study related to this particular aspect revealed that women were victimized as a result of their weaker physical nature[1]. However, the social prescriptions have worst violent effect on the women throughout the world.
In Nigeria, women were victimized by their counterparts in the form of physical torture like harassment, rape, acid attraction, and molestation[2].
Unlike the rest of the world, African nations follow the bride price system. Violence as a consequence of such a system, which is nothing but the monetary considerations gained by the bride’s family over the personal merits of the bride, has started from several types of pressure tactics being implemented by the husbands or in-laws or both to even worse cases like bride burning.
Research explored that in Nigeria, it is quite frequent for the newlywed women’s family to achieve new social status based on the bride price. The girl’s parents consider their daughter as the source of income and consequently demand too much from the groom’s family[3].
On the other hand, as the groom’s family provides the bride price, they consider the bride property and behave accordingly. Considering the overwhelming negative consequences of the bride price system, it can be said that the issue deserves solemn concentration.
This present study thus aims to assess various dimensions of women’s victimization because of the bride price system in Nigeria and proposes ways to deal with such a serious issue.
The problem:
It is a fact that the responsibilities taken by a woman throughout her life cannot be exaggerated[4]. The family, which is considered as the basic social institution in the contemporary society, cannot be fulfilled in absent of women.
Still, they were victimized even before their birth. While consequences of dowry system prolong in various Asian nations, the adverse affects of such practices are receiving much more concern now a days in various African nations including Nigeria[5].
The history explored the fact that in several African nations like Nigeria, etc, the dowry is usually in the form of foodstuff, livestock along with cash and other factors. In this context, the study executed by Ilika pointed out that unlike dowry systems in Asian nations, various communities in Nigeria followed a specific custom[6].
As per this customer, the groom’s family paid the bride’s price to ensure that the future children belong to the groom’s family. Now, if the bride dies prior to the birth of their child, the bride’s family should return all or a certain portion of the bride’s price to the groom’s family.
Further, if the bride’s family fails to return or denies reverting the bride price, the bride family needs to take care of any children during the marriage. From a simpler perspective, it seems that in Nigeria, women receive greater social value than the practice of dowry in the rest of the world[7].
Nevertheless, the concept of bride price does not essentially support the Nigerian women or girls. In reality, it is quite similar to the harmful aspect of the dowry system followed by the rest of the world.
Bride price as a form of violence:
The current polygynous male dominated societies, bride price system is continuing, Nigerian women are progressively more talking out in opposition to the current practice[8].
Since the concept of bride price looks like buying a wife, the groom’s family has started to consider it a right to ownership. In this context, another important aspect that is common in Nigerian communities is child marriage[9].
The bride’s parents often seek to sell their daughter at a young age to an older man. The reason is that the older man usually provides a higher bride price. Now, such an arrangement of child marriage adversely affects the girl’s life.
It is a fact that girl’s education usually being stopped at an earlier age, as they have to take lots of responsibility for their new family at this age. Further, the child marriage has also explored that the early age child bearing lead them to innumerable reproductive health related impediments[10].
The worst part of this system is that even if the girls, who wanted to quit from this abusive marriage, evidence further violence not only from the groom’s family, but also from her natal family too.
When the groom’s family considered it the right to act like this, the natal family mainly did so because they had to return all or a portion of the bride price if the bride did not agree with the system[11].
Research related to this particular aspect has shown that in Nigeria, a husband believe that he has the right to scold her wife if she commits something wrong. Not only her husband, as a head of the family, the in laws of the bride also scolds her as they paid bride price[12].
It is also noted that as a woman, one would not have any right to exchange words with her husband on any issue. In Nigerian culture, if any women exchange words on any divisive with her husband, it means she is disobedience to her husband as well as challenges his manhood.
Even if, research also pointed out that this particular bride price system is unambiguously evident as well as glamorized in the due course of the marriage ceremony in Nigerian culture.
However, from the very first day of their marriage, the women were treated as their personal wealth, and the groom’s family repeatedly expressed such ownership in front of everybody.
Here, the worst part is that the women are bound to be obeyed, pledge as well as surrender to her husband’s needs at every time.
In addition to this, research also pointed out that the traditional system also added further complexity into this process. It is noted that instead of a women if a man wanted to neglect his wife, then he must have to wait till then the woman getting marriage with another person[13].
He also cannot demand a refund of the bride’s price until this occasion. So, it seems that the culture of the Nigerian community discourages the concept of divorce.
Now, this will make the lives of abused women even nastier because, in most cases, the women have to carry such violent relations to avoid such complexity.
Further, in the context of dowry system in Nigeria, the research explored the fact that it is quite complex for the women to quit from marriage[14].
The reason is that if she wanted to quit, she would need enough support from her natal family prior to taking such a step. Unfortunately, there are rare examples of the women’s family providing support to their daughter.
The research study executed by Rothnie et al., explored that the Nigerian women considered the sexual coercion as the hide and seek game[15].
As a woman, she cannot refuse her husband’s advances because her husband already paid her natal family for this. If any point of time the bride returns back to her natal family provided that her family revert the bride price, still issues were there.
Schwalbach, Groenewald and Marfo quoted the interview observation in their study related to this particular aspect as, “if the women started to stay with her natal family, very soon she will start fighting with her brother’s wife. The reason is that her brother’s wife seems her as the burden of the family”[16].
Emerging issues related to the bride system in Nigeria:
The wide range of review of past literature explored certain issues that emerge from such a system followed by the Nigerian inhabitants.
It is a fact that while the traditional dowry system followed by several Asian nations has serious negative consequences, the bride system followed by African nations seems much more complicated and has an adverse effect on women’s independence[17].
Since the bride’s family paid a dowry to the groom’s family during their daughter’s marriage in several Asian nations, there is a ground where the woman can raise their voice against the system.
But, in the case of Nigeria, women did not even get such an opportunity to exchange their views for the same. In addition, if they tried to do this, the result would become much more negative towards them[18].
It is also the fact that like any other nations, in Nigeria, there are certain initiatives taken by the respective government for the abolition of such practices. Taken for example, during 2004, at the first international conference on bride price in Africa, the government drafted a bill, which stated bride price can be redefined as the optional marriage gifts.
However, given the current context, it is clear that considering legislative initiatives against the bride price will not be the proper solution for this particular problem. This is concluded because such initiatives have had a relatively lesser effect in developing nations like India[19].
The consequences emerging from developing nations regarding this particular aspect have shown a pathway that has to be exactly followed with the aim of removing such exposure from man’s life.
The prior step to remove the dowry issue, which will eventually reduce women’s victimization, is to set up alternative shelters for women who want to quit their abusive marriage life. In order to do so, there is requiring resources for the enforcement of law.
It is also the fact that right now, there is a huge supportive hand from the developed nations towards Nigeria, which provides both monetary as well as other support. What is needed is to utilize those supports in an appropriate way[20].
Now, this indicates that proper planning is required, which will show the place for future steps. When the alternative shelter is established, there is a requirement to provide opportunities to access further education so that those women become self-sufficient to earn their daily needs.
This will also require many strategic initiatives. Therefore, it is necessary to think before hand about what would be beneficial to eradicate this issue from its roots.
Conclusion:
So far, the study has explored various past research, which indicates that there is a significant relation between the dowry system and the victimization of women in Nigeria. In fact, in most of the scenarios, it is found that the victimization cases that have taken place are as a consequence of the dowry system or somehow started from this aspect.
The discussion reveals that there are two broad issues that women will be evidenced if they wanted to quit from their abused marriage life. First of all, they will face shelter problem as most of the time the natal family reject to return them into their life.
Secondly, the early age of marriage led them to stay illiterate. Therefore, the above two strategies are recommended. It is the fact that if the government took the initiative to provide shelter as well as proper education with the help of external support, it is not far when this particular issue will not affect the independence of women.
To get assignment help, please get in touch with our live chat adviser.