Meet the Parents

There are tribes in Nigeria that are mean to women marrying into their families by nature.

Their daughters are quite loud on X, and they always throw words like patriarchy, misogyny, etc, about even though the wickedness in their hearts is second to none.

They are the loudest voices when it comes to feminism. The reason they are feminists is not because they like the idea of it but because of the situation they found themselves in as a result of their tribe's approach to marriage and relationship issues.

It is the only way they can fight the tradition that surrounds their origin.

Other tribes have their issues too but with some tribes these issues are so prevalent and predominant, it has rendered many of their ladies husbandless (Not loverless).

I know a world-renowned Nigerian woman from that part of Nigeria whose younger brother or nephew brought in a fellow law graduate from the University of Abuja home for marriage.

While this woman was working at a very highly rated global establishment, her nephew and family members were still struggling to make ends meet in Nigeria.

The Nephew had a girlfriend who had supported him throughout his university days.

She paid for their accommodation, feeding, handouts, everything.

They lived together in her apartment because he couldn't afford to rent a place of his own.

When his aunt was made a minister in the Obasanjo cabinet at the time, the whole family rejoiced.

Finally, they had a beacon that was shining in the high places of power and influence in Nigeria.

They graduated from school, went to NYSC, and eventually, he decided he would bring this young lady home and introduce her to the family.

Family, here, especially means this aunt of his, his parents, and other relatives.

This aunt of his had become the head of the family automatically due to her influence and financial strength.

He targeted when this aunt of his would be home so that she could give her blessings to the union.

The aunt saw this young woman; her name was Sarah. Sarah is from Niger, I believe (Nupe) Tapa tribe.

This aunty, who was Harvard-educated and had lived abroad for several years, put this lady through the wringer. The lady washed clothes, ground pepper and beans on the traditional stone grinder, cooked and cleaned and laboured hard for a week. After the week, the aunty gave her nephew 20,000 Naira as he was leaving with Sarah. She told her nephew that if he married Sarah, she would never be of any help to him all his life. He was told to forget he had a family. She was the star of the family.

The one the whole family hung their hope on.

The guy broke up with Sarah after explaining that he dared not act against the interest and the wishes of his aunt.

His aunt had decided that he must pick a wife from their tribe and not a lady from another tribe who does not speak their language or understand their culture.

Her crime was neither being uneducated nor being rude or not knowing how to handle herself when it came to keeping a home.

Sarah is still alive and well. She lives in Abuja, and she told me this story herself.

She is happily married now to a Christian brother with three sons.

There is another tradition from this tribe that is very pronounced in the way they treat women.

The wife cannot inherit their husband's properties and all his belongings.

They keep all documents away from her and would rather marry her traditionally than in court so that she would not have access to the belongings of her husband.

The woman is always the outsider, and they believe that if she inherits their son's wealth after all the investment they have put into their son, she will carry everything and use it to help her own people.

One of them once argued with me on X that his brother is a businessman and very rich but if he dies, the property by right should come to him and not to his wife because he would then be able to take care of the wife and the late brother's children but if it goes to the wife, it means he will never be able to access his late brother's wealth and she can do anything she desires with it.

There is a third one, the way some of these tribes receive their wives to be...

When a man brings home a wife to introduce to the family, she immediately becomes everybody's errand girl.

They will pile clothes for her to wash (By they, I mean the brother's sisters and mother)

Sisters who are educated, of averagely the same age as her and with almost a similar level of exposure.

On X, they will be crying about Patriarchy, Misogyny, and woman abuse while, in reality, they are the chief abusers of their fellow women.

A lady once told me that she and her brother are sharing a room in Lagos.

Her brother pays the rent, and she sleeps on the small bed on the floor.

Then her brother got a girlfriend, and whenever he brought the lady home to have sex with, she would have to sleep in the passage.

When the brother then took the same lady to the village to introduce her to the family, she and her sisters plotted to punish the lady very well for how her brother treated her whenever she came to his apartment in Lagos.

The room they gave the lady to sleep in became their playpen.

They broke the door knob and could go into the room anytime to do anything they wanted just to make the lady's life difficult.

They gave her chores to do until one day she started crying in pain and they all started laughing for joy because they broke her spirit.

This same lady always complained when she met her boyfriend. She didn't want to be treated the same way she had treated others and was quick to say she could not take rubbish from his younger siblings and mother.

Her relationship failed several times and she is now one of the radical feminists online always preaching about men being mean to women.

There are so many things that just claiming patriarchy, misogyny, and other labels can't really cover.

I know a case where the wife-to-be who had been brought home to be introduced to the family cooked, served the dishes, packed plates, washed plates, cleaned the whole house and washed clothes for everybody just because she wanted to be married. And, this is not them being mean; this is their tradition, especially because her family will demand a humongous bride price, and their brother will have to cough out the money.

There are many tribes in Nigeria, and our cultures are diverse.

Going to meet your husband's parents and claiming you cannot dress up for the occasion is foolish.

We all watched the Royal Wedding in England recently, and we saw how all the celebrities usually would expose their bodies, wear tattoos, go about naked, dress very elegantly, and conduct themselves like nobility for the occasion.

If you have nose rings and tongue rings and piercings and tattoos everywhere and your man or woman has chosen to marry you, please, for the sake of his or your parent's sanity, sacrifice that one day to cover them up and not wear the rings.

If his or her family is highly religious, illiterate, conservative or closed-minded, you should not spit in their faces and insist they must bend to your whims and caprices.

Being respectful of other people's cultures and belief systems is important.

Partners should prepare their partners for the kind of parents they have and the kind of home they came from.

If you know your partner and his or her parents are not in good terms, you must try specially not to allow either side to use you to score cheap points.

Ask a lot of questions before you follow him or her home, and make sure the information you get will help you to put the right feet forward.

If you are marrying across tribes and languages, make sure you are open-minded and respectful.

How they do things somewhere may be an abomination elsewhere.

Make sure you avoid folks whose relatives are still very backward and have no enlightenment of modern life, especially if you are not village mentality inclined.

Our people from the village have a very different way of thinking and they may end up asking you to do things that you will find very ridiculous.

Modern parents are not so hard up.

A man in the city will wake up to his son saying, "Hi Dad or Good morning Dad"

A man in the village will wake up to his son prostrating and squatting to talk to him.

If you know you can't cope with "villageness", don't marry.

Brother Ike who happens to be the first university graduate and the first member of his family to come to Lagos ,You may love him but his family may never catch up to modern reality in your lifetime.

Love covers a multitude of faults.

If you love a man or a woman, no price is too hard or too much to pay for them.

If you don't love such a person you will find yourself gritting your teeth and forcing yourself to carry out the obligations even if it only requires you to drink water

-GSW-