An odd thing happened to me this morning at about 3 am, I burst out of sleep, sweat dripping from me with a scream half on my lips, and a sense of disturbance in the air, I knew, I felt……. (Ok so was not at 3am, it was at about 6.30 when my alarm went off, I was dripping with sweat cus PHCN took light like that’s new, and the scream was real as well cus I realised it was morning) Either way my awakening brought with it a thought that had been in my mind for a while.
Why must women in Nigeria even at a 100 still live with their parents or ‘responsible married relative’ if they themselves are unmarried?
This is not the usual thought I have when I wake up in the morning, but since I was looking for an excuse not to leave my bed, I continued in thought.
I’ve found and still find the whole thing appalling (I say as I live in the BQ of my parents house….. at least I moved out of the main house and cook my meal, do my laundry etc) but the notion that as a ‘young unmarried woman’ you must be protected by the family to preserve your ‘propriety’, has always seemed a bit prehistoric to me. After all I have lived by myself for many years before my return to Nigeria, but to my parents the idea of living by myself is tantamount to running down the street naked.
When I was returning to Nigeria, other than the 2 week decision and dash to the airport to escape cold, black and grey and my friends who had gotten sick and tired of me trying to make my mind up, I had told my parents that I was not living with them. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents, but the idea of being in the same house with my parents, with them doing the nosy parents thing, was more than I could bear, in fact that brings on the shiver in a way snow, sleet and hale can never do. But life being life and circumstance being as it is, the decision was made for me (money no dey), and the 4 months I spent in the main house nearly ruined our relationship. They were their usual overbearing self, and I turned into an annoying, stroppy 14 year old (yes I have to admit I regressed, I don’t know how they do it, they just do), seeing that I love my parents and they love me, I thought it would be better to move to the BQ and get some form of my indepencence back.
You might wonder what this has to do with She Said…. He Said…., but I’m getting to it. Since my move out of the ‘big house’, I’ve been asking my friends (male and female) how they feel living with their parents, and their answers vary from alright to its stifling but I don’t have a choice, on the women’s side, to I would only marry a woman who comes from her parents house and women who live by themselves are loose from the men.
For women the convenience of having someone do their cleaning, cooking and the saving they make on rent is worth the small discomfort of having no privacy. For others they believe that they would have their ‘bride price’ reduced if they live by themselves, and for a third it’s the lesser of 2 evils, and nothing wards of unwanted and in some cases wanted attention like. ‘My parents are home’, ‘We have a really big gate/dog/gateman’, or the forever great, ‘I can’t go out after 10pm cus my parents would go mad’. The shame and embarrassment of it all.
For men, there seems to be a consensus that ‘men are dangerous’ and that women should be protected from them, so any woman who can ‘handle’ men must be a woman used to such dangers and not worthy of being wifey, but not missy.
What do you think?
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