Maureen has just lost her husband, no he didn’t die; he just packed his bags and left. She was left alone to cater for four children, the oldest being thirteen, the youngest being six. Jim, her husband had been having financial and mental health problems and felt the best solution was to leave the city and head back to the village. Maureen disagreed with him on this point. What would they go and be doing in the village? It wasn’t as if he had a job waiting for him there. They were not farmers. They had lived all their lives in the city since they got married. All their children were born in the city and were still in school. How would they continue their schooling? Would they go and be living in the one room shack his family was going to provide for them in the village? They had no one they could depend on. He had been the backbone of the family providing for his parents and siblings. Eventually, one day after all the arguments and fighting, he packed his bags and just left. He never looked back. Thirteen years was gone just like that.
Maureen had been educated to secondary school level and had stopped. While the going was good, she had never thought of setting up a business for herself. She had not educated herself beyond the secondary school level and had not acquired more skills. She had been what is popularly known as a house wife – a wife that stays at home, looks after the husband and the children on a full time basis. When she had to do something, without her and the children becoming destitute, she wound up with a phone call business selling recharge cards and making calls for people but how much could she make from that on a daily basis to take care of herself and her four children. She had to pay house rent, buy foodstuff, buy books for the children, buy clothes for them and such other basic life needs. She still had to depend eventually on handouts from her own and her husband’s family.
Recently at a church in Lagos, I overhead a group of young women in their thirties discussing; they were all married with children. What however got my attention was that all of them without exception when asked what they were doing for a living described themselves as ‘full time’ housewives. If I may ask, what exactly does that mean? Are there part time wives and mothers out there? Being a wife and a mother is a full time job but does not necessarily translate into not having a trade or business or a job. Does it mean that a woman cannot be a good wife and mother and not have a career, trade, business or volunteer work she is involved in?
Being a wife and a mother ain’t easy! But that does not mean our women should not be meaningfully engaged in career or business pursuits in addition to taking care of their husbands and children. Even if your husband is the world’s richest man, does that mean you should not develop yourself mentally, financially and be engaged in something outside of the home front. I am not even talking about having an 8-5 job. Being involved in a trade or volunteer work is also part of it. This has got nothing to do with women’s liberation. It’s about common sense and empowering our wives and mothers. Some of our mothers and grandmothers were not as educated as the present generation but they were involved in trades, businesses and developed skills outside of the home front.
In Africa, women still do not have access to their husbands’ properties, finances and such. Unlike in developed countries, where the woman favoured by the legal system and is taken care of financially in the case of a divorce; our women here in Africa are at the mercies of a legal and cultural system that encourages profligate men. While men are encouraged to take care of their wives and children’s financial responsibilities; women are being encouraged to develop themselves for themselves, not because they want to take over the responsibilities in the home, not because they want to flaunt their wealth, not because they want to walk away from their responsibilities as a wife and mother. It’s just because its good for them to do so. And in the event that the husband or father or brother dies or just deserts a woman, such a woman will be in position to move on in life without becoming destitute or over dependent on others.
