IGBOZURUOKE MEDIA

The social media has become a catalyst for the literate or barely literate to seek an easily access to publicity. Though, absurdity and in certain cases, near-madness have followed this opportunity, it remains a game changer as far as information gathering and accessing knowledge are concerned. Where the mainstream media have decline or fail to make an item public due to certain reasons, the social media come to the rescue—where the mainstream media edit an item or delay its publication due to ethical or other reasons the social media become an avenue. Therefore, a news item that has gone viral where a Canadian-based, young Igbo -married woman announced a crisis that arises due to her refusal to accept the advances of a man who virtually buried her husband is one of the gains of the advent of the social media; otherwise, such news may not have been heard and her ignorance as far as this matter is concerned would not have been pointed out.

In that viral report, she queried what gave the man the audacity to feel he had the right to become intimate with her because he contributed much towards the burial of her husband. She declared, she would rather quit the marriage than submit to the man’s amorous advances.

What made her fretting curious was that she admitted she and her late husband just got married and had no child before he died. In her submissions, she wanted the world to see how she was been victimized and vowed to fight on to the end what she considers to be one of Igbo atrocious culture and evil practices against Igbo women. According to her, she has reported the matter to an Anambra government department that is charge of such matters.

Besides what the Igbo culture may have stipulated on cases like this, the issue at hand is a social matter that is universally seen as harmless indulgence men feel entitled to, whenever they assist a female who they fancy. Men like sex and see nothing wrong to have it with a lady they fancy and had helped. Whether this is  morally right or wrong is a different matter.

In the same vein, most women get disappointed and even become depressed if a man they come in contact with and fancied turns to be a gentleman, especially, if he had rendered to them some favours. So, the case here may be an issue of the woman disliking this particular man. Nevertheless, the overtures the man had made to the woman is permissible under Igbo marriage system and doesn’t warrant the publicity stunt the woman was creating on the social media.

In Igbo life, the burial of a relation is strenuous and herculean. Unlike those from the Islamic faith whose burial are uncomplicated and undemanding, Igbo burial is a grueling affair and in some cases, may cause fatalities.  In the past, the act of burial goes beyond expenses and activities to put a corps under. In most Igbo burial, even if it involves a bishop or a general-overseer of the Christian faith, kinsmen do consult a clairvoyant before getting involved. They do this to ascertain whether their brethren departed honourably or ignominiously. If the latter is the case,  certain measures are usually taken to avoid the wrath of orikọ, a metaphysical ideology in which the Igbo tries to avoid unpleasant consequences due to non acknowledgement of wrong deeds or attempts to cover misdeeds in cases that involve a deity or deities.

Also, do you know that the burial of a spouse is not a guarantee that his wife and his children are liberated and enfranchised? After the death of a brother, it becomes the time for vicious kinsmen to take their ponds of flesh from the deceases’ wife and children who at this time would be vulnerable. So, if a man sticks out his neck to help an elder brother’s wife, he admires, and her children to survive these onslaughts, should he not be allowed to enjoy the fruit of his labour?

Ethically, since the Igbo culture does not permit an elder to appropriate the spouse of a younger kinsman, it becomes the entitlement of younger kinsmen who had played prominent roles in the burial of their brethren to have intimate access to such widows.

Of course, such Igbo females who think otherwise are entitled to their opinion, however, it would be better for them to instruct their parents to refund their bride price and vacate the vicinity or be ready to contend with the wrath of her husband’s kinsmen who will demand their entitlement as long as the woman lives among then unless she already has a grown up son or sons. In that case, the affair could be limited or secretive.  On the other hand, activities before a final burial is not done in one day and during this time, the interested kinsman and the widow would have been interacting towards the conclusion of the burial, if the widow doesn’t like the kinsman, it should be apt for her to makes this known to the man by her cues or raise objections to close relatives of her late husband. If these do not seem to work, she could consult her parents

Because, if a widow chooses to enjoy all the necessary assistance that made it possible for she to endure and survive the hard times during her spouses’ morning and burial, then turns round to spurn the fellow when everything has settled, the man will demand his reward and the ancestral spirits of that community will not forsake him. 

Boniface Alanwoko