The Gender Battles In a Typical African Home
In my country Nigeria where I’m from, you see Woman struggling to have an heir I mean a male child just to sustain her stay In marriage because if it gets worse she might be thrown out of her home and lost her dignity in marriage. This happens a lot.
In most homes especially newly wedded couples they make plans to decide on which gender to come first or the gender they would prefer to have first and this can most likely turn into a debate or an argument. You would hear the man say he wants a girl to come first while the woman would say most often that she would prefer to have a male child but this is just to ensure having an heir.
In those days, especially in the rural communities where you get to see more of the polygamous family where the man has plenty children both male and female. The male children are sent to school in order to get educated, while the female children are told to stay at home to learn motherhood because it was believed that the male children gets to inherit their father’s legacies, name and everything he had lived for. And the female counterparts will end up in another man’s house, living her father’s name behind and embracing another.
source
And with these, so many women tend to have lost their confidence in their homes because of how the society painted it to be, that she has no say in the affair of a man, even in family gatherings she’s either meant to be in the kitchen or looking after the children. Every homes and generations lived by this mentality but thanks to civilization that came to shaped things and open the eyes of men.
source
Let me use this illustration as an example. This one was very common. You would see a woman who have several children, let’s say 4 girls and a boy and eventually she gets pregnant again hoping it to be a boy and immediately after delivery the next thing she would ask is “What is it” she was actually asking about the child gender because then there was no ultra-scan to reveal the child’s gender. She asked this question just to be sure of what awaits her and to be prepared of the consequences to face from her society, what they would label her to be, and if she should be rejoicing or not and these went on.
Again, let me use my family as an example. When my parents got married, my Mom had her first pregnancy and it was a girl, the second pregnancy came and it was also a girl and then tension began to arise from all corners like she said. She got pregnant again hopefully it would be a boy this time but it was a girl (And that was me, although she said I looked so much like a boy but I wasn’t able to be replaced LOL).
According to her, my Dad wasn’t bothered or complaining, he was happy with her but she wasn’t, she just wanted to secure her marriage with a male child. She got pregnant again and it was a boy but sadly my Dad died during the period of her pregnancy (that’s a story for another day) and he couldn’t witness the birth of his son. It was a big TRAGEDY. My Mom wasn’t kicked out of house like it is usually done if there’s no male child for the inheritance, but luckily for her she had some good in-laws who still sympathized with her but things wasn’t easy I must say. She fought through for her son and was able to secure some properties for herself because we were still very young.
source
In an African society like my country, when a man dies the female children do not partake in the sharing of the inheritance, it is only meant to be shared among the male children according to seniority. That happens if the man has more than one male child. I say again, thanks to modern civilization that has given room for Will Writing, an opportunity for a dying man to document down how he wish his properties are to be shared accordingly between his family and even non-relations sometimes as the case may be.
See you in my next post.