Widowhood Practice in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE
PREAMBLE TO THE STUDY
Widowhood has also been defined as the state of mourning the loss of one’s husband or wife through death3. The stress of this phenomenon is as real as those of loneliness and divorce. Widowhood is thus seen as a life event with wide range of consequences. For instance, widowhood is known to be responsible for the poor health status of widows and widowers, with minimal long-term consequences and is also associated with intense grief and angry expressions, especially among more widows than the divorced (when) compared.4 This is possibly because of deprivation following loss of spousal intimacy through death. It can thus be concluded that widowhood by implication is a stressful life event demanding practicable support systems.
CHAPTER TWO
OVERVIEW OF WIDOWHOOD PRACTICES IN NIGERIA
The process of widowhood is believed to represent a life phase, which depicts one of the fundamental problems or loses which the aged and by extension, the young people experience. A widow from the perspective of her plight is viewed as a person who, by certain circumstances, is in distress. One who finds herself in the middle of the ocean of life, struggling to survive. Technically, a widow is a woman who survives her husband and has not remarried.
In the opinion of Goldman and Lord, mourning and widowhood are opposite sides of the same coin with wide range of implications for those affected. Gbenda has observed that widowhood is an issue that affects more women than men. Evidence, he noted, indicates that over the long-term, women are affected more severely than men financially, psychologically, sexually and socially. For instance issue of mourning and widowhood process in Nigeria is surrounded by a number of cultural expectations. It has been observed that widowhood in Nigeria is a sordid situation which merely allocates to the widow a position of societal scorn, disdain and permanent membership of the wretched of the earth.
CHAPTER THREE
HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF WIDOWHOOD PRACTICES
Apart from the degrading and dehumanizing effects of the customary law practices of widowhood, there are other effects that include:
Physical harm
Enforced persistent wailing. This practice is physically debilitating and disruptive. As a result of crying and rolling on the ground, many suffer physical symptoms like insomnia, shortness of breath and loss of appetite. Physical health problems associated with widowhood practices are quintessence of untidiness, hunger and starvation, brutality, physical pain or physical appearance.
Medical effects
The loss of a loved one is a source of intense emotional stress, yet the bereaved need to express and deal with their feelings of loss before they can reorganize their lives. A woman’s ordeal begins with the customs she must observe in the weeks following her husband’s death, which, coupled with the shock of bereavement, can undermine her health. Normal grief often follows a fairly predictable pattern. Social health problems such as neglect, abandonment, humiliation and marginalization were suffered by the widows.
CHAPTER FOUR
WIDOWS RIGHTS AND INHERITANCE
Customary Law
It is trite law that on the death intestate of a husband, whether his widow can inherit his property will depend on the customary law of her intestate husband’s locality. 37 Thus, where a person dies intestate leaving many heirs behind, his property will devolve on the heirs and will become a communal or family property of all the members of the family.
CHAPTER FIVE
The way forward
This paper recommends among other things that:
- Nigeria lawmakers should legislate against all oppressive, injurious and degrading widowhood practices.
- Government at the three tiers should endeavour to provide functional basic education to the citizens to adequately prepare them for meeting the challenges of bereavement.
- Government should establish a national commission for widow affairs as a way of fostering widows’ integration into the society.
- Younger widows i.e. those bereaved before the age of 35 years should be encouraged to remarry as a way of integrating them properly into the main stream of affairs in a socially-inclined society like Nigeria.
CONCLUSION
In many countries, while there is ad-hoc reform of laws and creation of interventions for the advancement of women and obnoxious widowhood practices, there does not seem to be a conscious application of CEDAW at the domestic level. CEDAW is not the basis of law or policy reform. There is also a lack of clarity on CEDAW as a human rights instrument. Nigeria has domesticated CEDAW principles but they are not directly applicable in the courts.
REFERENCES
- Sogunro Davies v. Sogunro & Ors (1992) N L R 79.
- B. Coker, (1958) Family Property Among the Yorubas, p.39. (1957) 12 FSC 33
- Unprinted (1959) Obovo District Court, suit no. 29159 and Nsukka country court of Appeal.
- Omiyi, Women and Children under Nigerian Law. “A Critical Appraisal of the Legal Status of Widow under the Nigeria Law” p.75.
- Note that s.55 of the Marriage Act specifically repeals the Marriage Ordinance provided that “said enactments shall continue to apply to every marriage contracted there under or validated thereby as if this Act had not been made. http://www.nigerianlawguru.com/articles/customary. accessed 22nd January 2011
