Nigerian women rising above marriage pressure

It’s a calm Saturday morning in Jalingo, the capital city of Taraba State, one of Nigeria’s yet-to-be harnessed states. The day is also a work-free day for members of the nation’s Youth Service Corp; a mandatory one-year national service programme for graduates of tertiary institutions in the country and diaspora.

One of the newly sworn-in Corp Members, Amarachi Anuchie is seated at a mini library of the housing facility which harbours some of the Catholic Corp members in the state capital.

Before she is a small jotter where she wrote down notes for a presentation she is scheduled to deliver at the sensitisation programme organised by her Community Development Service (CDS) group.

Lost in her thoughts, Amarachi suddenly turned and heaved a sigh of relief when she noticed a tap on her shoulder.

She recently returned from  visiting her parents in Borno State, and had to run back to Taraba where she is currently posted for her Youth Service Programme.

She has been avoiding her parent’s house for a very long time owing to the severe pressure to get married. Her mother constantly reminds her that a woman is like a flower whose beauty continues to fade with each passing day.

A week earlier, she got a call from her mum who advised her to try and get a man to marry her before the end of her youth service scheduled for the first quarter of 2023.

In a typical Nigerian society, there’s a serious double standard for men and women when it comes to marriage. Men are often told to wait until they feel ready, mature, financially secure, established in their careers and comfortable with themselves before they consider getting married. But the case is different for women.

In the case of 26-year-old Amarachi, the pressure to get married did not start today but at the age of 18 when she just concluded her secondary education.

Being the first child in the family and coupled with the fact that her mother got married before clocking 20 years made matters worse for Amarachi.

“I’ve heard stories of women who got married after secondary school with the agreement that their husbands will sponsor their education. These women end up getting pregnant after marriage and they keep postponing their education until they’re overwhelmed and finally lose the zeal to further their studies. I didn’t want that to be my case and so I refused to get married at that stage,” Amarachi told AWiM News.

According to findings from a 2020 research study by Oyafunke-Omoniyi C. O and Adewusi A.O on the marriage pressures and perception of singlehood among 24 women in Ibadan metropolis, a city in Southwest Nigeria, there are two categories of marriage pressures experienced by single women: the direct pressure whereby the message is sent deliberately to single women reminding them of the need to get married.

Existing examples of this type of pressure are those experienced by parents and close family members. Indirect marriage pressure however is an implicit message used to emphasize the need to get married in certain social gatherings with family, friends, and co-workers.

For Amarachi, the pressure was more of a direct one coming from her parents and siblings who utilize every opportunity to remind her that her time as a woman is very limited hence the need the get married before her time elapses.

“My younger male siblings now tell me that I’ve overstayed my welcome as a female child in the house. They no longer have respect for me and they feel like I’ve already grown past the age of marriage,” Amarachi adds, “This is because of how my mum normally talks to me in their presence. When I was 24, my younger brother told me I have just two years to get out of my father’s house.”

Earlier this month, a popular Nigerian Disk Jockey, Florence Otedola, better known as Cuppy was told by a troll to get herself a man as she will soon be 40.

The fact that Cuppy is the daughter of one of Africa’s richest men and also a master’s student at Oxford University goes to show that it does not matter how influential or hardworking a woman is in her career or life achievements, her entire life is summed up by her ability to get herself a man that will marry her.  Inability to do this is synonymous with failure and a perfect description of an unfulfilled life.

This also works to affirm the disapproval of being single in typical African society, particularly in Nigeria where women are ultimately prepared from birth to teenager for life as a wife and mother. Women are constantly reminded that marriage is the crowning glory of a woman’s life in this society and one major way the society rates ladies and “judges” them is by their marital status. The African society generally showers more honour on married women than single women.

According to UNICEF’s 2017 international ranking, Nigeria has the third-highest absolute number of child brides in the world with 18 per cent of children in Nigeria married by age 15 and 44  per cent married by the age of 18. This aptly explains the experience and condition of a typical Nigerian woman nearing age 30 without a husband.

As a result of this, most women are pressurised into marrying the wrong men or men they do not love for fear of staying single for life. This ultimately results in a high rate of divorce and sometimes, domestic violence.

Amarachi’s life took a different dimension during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when schools were shut down and she was forced to stay at home for a long time enduring the pressures from her mother who made the house a ‘living hell’ for her.

“They blamed me for every little mistake and constantly reminded me that I could have been in my husband’s house if I had married after secondary school.

“I was dating someone I loved but I wasn’t patient enough to wait until he is ready due to the undue pressure and frustration I got from my parents. If I had to pass through all that because of lockdown, I wondered what would be my fate when I graduate from school without a husband. Where will I go to?” She recounted.

“As soon as schools reopened, I wrote my final exams and got married to the then available man who proposed within two months after we met.  I didn’t have the opportunity to know this guy as much as I should but because the pressure was too much on me, I quickly accepted the proposal. Not because I loved him but because I needed to leave my parent’s house which had turned from being a home to a living hell.

“I settled with this man but before long, I realized my goals did not align with his in any way,” she says.

“The height of it all was when I complained to my mum and she told me that my duty as a wife is to do whatever my husband wants even if he wants me dead or alive.”

After realising how different their opinions were and struggling to make the marriage work Amarachi left the marriage within a year of tying the knot traditionally even though her parents did not approve of the separation.

Similarly, Adonu Ifeanyi, a 28-year-old civil servant narrated to AWiM News that her parents were willing to sacrifice her education in her late teens for marriage. However, she objected to it and they didn’t force her to go against her wish, hence, she’s a graduate today.

“My parents didn’t mind if I had to stop school to get married in my late teens but my ideal age for marriage is between 26 and 28 when I have gotten a good job, business or a booming career. That way, I am financially independent and ready to settle down,” she said.

Society has since succeeded in conditioning the minds of youngest girls to think that marriage is the highest achievement any woman can have. But young women are beginning to speak up and stand up for their rights and choices despite the pressure and perceived stigma attached to going against social norms and popular opinion.

“Africans have failed to understand that the world has evolved and women are beginning to desire a better life for themselves, hence the idea that marriage is the highest achievement any woman can make no longer holds water for most women,” says Dr Diane Ezeh Aruah, a Nigerian women’s rights activist based in Texas, United States.
Dr Ezeh Aruah while speaking to AWiM News pointed out that one of the major effects of this pressure is the increase in low self-esteem, depression and desperation among young women who now see themselves as only fit for marriage and their inability to achieve that changes so much about them.
“Secondly, this pressure contributes to gender economic imbalance (more poor women and more rich men). When a woman is pressurised into getting married without achieving her set goals, she becomes engrossed with childbearing and other house chores which deters her from taking on big projects and pursuing her career.”

She also stated that women who were pressurised into getting married are more likely to get divorced because they were not mentally prepared for that marriage.

“Times are changing and women now tend to walk away when they realise that marriage is not all they need to validate themselves like society made them believe before marriage. On the other hand, it could lead to domestic violence which ultimately leads to death,” the lobbyist concluded.