The earliest recorded marriage was conducted in 2350 BC. Ever since, women and men have entered a contractual agreement backed by religion and society, they spend the rest of their lives and have children together.
In Nigeria and many parts of the world, children are considered the crowning achievement of women’s lives. A woman’s worth is often tied to her ability to have a home, a husband and children.
For about 50% of Northern Nigeria’s population, who practice Islam, it is considered Sunnah: the traditions and practices of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to be Married. Many hadiths refer to Muslim marriage as the completion of half of the practice of their religion. For Muslim women, there is the double pressure to be married from society and to fulfil an important tenet of their religion.
With feminism and the consciousness of the inequality of women in society. Women around the world have identified the oppression that exists within the institution of marriage and raising a child with a man.
“A partner is supposed to be a modern answer to the oppression of marriage, the terrible feeling of someone looming over you, head of a household to which you can only ever be the neck. Necks are vulnerable. The problem with a partner, however, is if you’re equal in all things, you compromise in all things. And men are too skilled at taking.”
This quote from an article by Grazie Sophia Christie in The Cut explains the new ways women are trying to rationalize and reduce this oppression albeit unsuccessfully. For women in Korea, their solution to this oppression is to boycott the entire institution with the 4b movement.
Nigerian women are also boycotting and removing marriage and childbirth from the list of their Ambitions.
Eve*, a final year Law student from Katsina. *Asmau, a writer from Kaduna and Oiza* a communications specialist from Kogi State. All believe that either marriage or childbirth is not for them.
For Eve*, the first time she began to abhor the thought of having a child is not clear but she told Document Women that she had panic attacks whenever she thought about it.
“Every single time I thought about it, I’d have panic attacks. I can’t phantom the idea of being responsible for how a whole person turns out to be in the future.” She said “I was vocal at first but then I learned to just keep it to myself. When I first started telling my friends about my decision to not have a child, I was always met with outrage and confusion by everyone. They couldn’t understand why any woman would say that. I got tired of having to explain myself and them still not understanding my decision, so I stopped saying it. Now if someone brings up the topic, I just smile and say “Allah knows best”
Her experience as a Northern Nigerian woman living in Northern Nigeria has not been favourable.
“It has been hell. But I have learned to keep my views and beliefs to myself because it has caused me a lot of problems with my family members. Our people always believe a woman is never complete until she becomes a mother and that couldn’t be even further from the truth. Motherhood doesn’t define a woman. I don’t believe it does. I have been shunned by so many people because of my decisions and views.”
Asmau* Never quite took to caring for children as easily as all her female friends and relatives did.
“Growing up I never thought that I wasn’t allowed to not want kids . Naturally, with books and movies making this the norm, it felt like there was no other option.”
She noticed at a certain age that she did not like to be around children for long periods.
“My sisters would willingly want to babysit just to be around kids and I didn’t understand it or want to be like that. I was a certain age and I realized I didn’t know how to put on diapers. I liked dolls I liked playing with them but then when it came to children I found them cute but I never wanted to be around them for too long”
For a long time, Asmau* would key into the concept of having children but as she grew older she realised that children besides relatives and friends would easily exhaust her.
“I would even write things like “what I would tell my future daughter”, but it wasn’t something I actively desired. For a long time, I would pretend that these were the things I wanted for myself because I didn’t want to look like a weirdo.”
Asmau* also grew up thinking she didn’t have an option about marriage either.
“The more I saw marriages around me and what they were like. The more I thought that it never sat well with me. Even before I articulate the way I felt something in me always held back. It’s customary in Northern Nigeria for women to save things, pots pans stuff like that some women around me start saving things as early as after secondary school. I have never saved even a broomstick for when I get it. My mum has been saving this set of plates for my sister and me when we get married and I told her to give me mine so I can start using it.”
Whenever the conversation came up and she gave away her true desires she mentioned that people would not take her serious and sometimes even pray that she got married and had children.
Oiza* is married with a 2-year-old son but wished that she had stayed single.
“I can’t exactly pinpoint the moment to a day or a minute, but it was somewhere after my child was born. First, I must say that while I was on the fence about marriage, I was not on the fence with children. I had raised children throughout my life. children of aunties and uncles. babysitting them made me realise I would not thrive with children. Or I should have only one or maybe two much later in life. I also knew that I didn’t want the sleepless nights and the day-to-day primary care work of children” Oiza mentioned.
She had spoken to her husband about her fears before they got married.
“These were things spoken about before the marriage. My partner had at the time convinced me, that he would be a very hands-on parent. I think that he also believed he could. He said all I had to do was breastfeed the children.”
But Oiza’s husband did not meet up with these promises.
“Fast forward to actually having the child and realising that everyone, including him, had come to expect me to just get in line and do my duties as a mother. First, that betrayal, especially from my partner, shattered my idea of marriage equality. If there was equality, he would not be able to go back on his word and make me the primary caregiver, right? Well, he did.
We eventually had help because I started to crack under the day-to-day caring of the child but that opened my eyes to the inequalities in the institution of marriage that I had refused to see in the past I started to see the ways I was diminishing, bending, compromising, and turning into someone I could not recognise. Worst still, there were demands and expectations to bend more.”
Oiza* had spoken about her thoughts on getting married and having a child clearly
“We were playing a couple’s card game sometime last year when we came across that question and I answered sincerely. If I could go back in time, I would not marry or have a child.
But no, I won’t do it again, at least not this early. I got married at 23. Had a child at 26. Now entering my 30s and realise that I haven’t done anything for myself in the past years. More horridly, I don’t even know what I like. When I said that I wouldn’t do marriage or childbirth again, he was shocked. We talked at length, he apologised for not holding up his part of the bargain. It doesn’t change anything. Since then, I’m still the only one taking time off when my son is sick.”
For Asmau, opting out of marriage comes from the realisation and belief that marriage does not benefit women.
“Marriage, the average marriage does not benefit women even for those who are feminist and very progressive eventually end up in traditional marriage cave into societal expectation especially when it comes to having children. And I don’t want children, I don’t think I have the natural maternal instincts that people say women have.”
Asmau talked about how she was earlier not sure of her reasons until after turning 28 and reaching an age when most women “crave” marriage.
“I let a lot of people speak my desires for me and thats one thing that women should be careful of living your life with desires that are not your own.”
Oiza* talked about giving so much and not getting anything in return as one of the reasons why she would have opted out of marriage and childbirth
“I suddenly realised that everyone was talking and draining me but no one was giving me. I could not even make a simple decision without having to justify it. I had to serve a husband, serve in-laws, cater to my child, and also, because the economy is terrible, pump in my finances to ensure my child has everything he needs.” She said regarding her reasons.
“So I am giving my time, energy, youth, and money into marriage and wondering what I am getting in return. I realised that I was right from the beginning and that the discussions my partner and I had were just talks meant to lure me into the institution.
Again, I do not think that he didn’t mean those words at the time. But there’s something the institution of marriage does to you, it makes you fall in line if both partners aren’t working hard to check themselves and hold themselves accountable. Marriage favours men. I suppose it is natural that he got into the institution, figured out how much power it gave him and then decided to wield it. It’s that power that made him go back on his word, leave me with the child care and expect me to be okay with it, despite the cost to my sleep, career and overall well-being.”
