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Feminism As An Excuse To Hate Polygamy- A Feminist’s Response By Larai Hassan
In his recent article titled, “Feminism as an excuse to hate polygamy”, Abdulmumin Balogun raised interesting points that deserve careful analysis.
First, I’d like to tackle the “monster myth” evident in Balogun’s article and perverse in almost any discussion about polygamy. The myth is none but that absurd idea that women outnumber men in the society and by extension, the world. What nonsense! It doesn’t take much knowledge of biology and statistics to realize that the male -female ratio should be roughly equal. And it is so. The sex ratio for the entire world population is about 1.01, which means there are about 101 males for every 100 females.
Current data obtained from the UN and WHO indicates the approximate male/female ratio for Nigeria to be 1.02. Similar to most countries in the world, Nigeria has slightly more men than women in every age group except for the age group above 65 years old. The estimated male /female ratios are: 1.03 (at birth), 1.02 (under 15 years), 1.04 (15-65 years) and 0.91 (over 65 years). So, if sex ratio is the rationale for polygamy, then Nigerian men interested in polygamy should marry older women, specifically those over 65, because there are more than enough men for women in the country, except for women older than 65.
Now to Balogun’s article. Balogun declares “there will be no peace” if “all women and men stick strictly to monogamy”. By describing his encounter with a prostitute to defend his view, Balogun assumes monogamy breeds prostitution and that polygamy is panacea for the problem. How naïve to think that some polygamous men do not engage in prostitution! Marriage is one thing, fidelity certainly another. Prostitution is surely not a problem of bachelorhood, spinsterhood, widowhood or monogamy. Prostitution is a problem of self-control and it exists primarily because men, whether married or not, are willing to buy the “indecent wares” some women are willing to sell. How else could one sell what none would buy?
Balogun says, “marriage fulfils religious and traditional requirements in Nigeria”. I do not know to which religion Balogun alludes, but in the Islam I am familiar with, polygamy is NOT a religious requirement. Polygamy in Islam is a highly conditional OPTION that has since being abused by men. As for traditional “requirements”, tradition is not God’s law - anything traditional is man made and therefore amenable.
Balogun notes that with regard to polygamy, feminists do not point to “religion as a source of irritation..” That is indeed true because most feminists do not have a problem with polygamy if practiced as sanctioned by religion. What feminists have a problem with is the degrading subservience the culture requires a married woman, particularly a woman in a polygamous arrangement, to accept. And since feminists believe that women are human beings who must be treated as human beings, feminists reject culture-endorsed female bondage.
As expected, Balogun sounds the sinister warning that, there is “a certain age of marriage” and that a woman must be mindful of menopause – as if women are a can of milk with an expiry date, as if producing kids is all women are meant for, as if women are guaranteed having kids on getting married. As far as I know, not a single religion on this planet teaches that having a child or the prayer of one’s child is the passport to paradise. This can only mean one thing – that procreation is not as important as people make it seem.
In my view, marriage should be contracted for marriage sake – not for kids or a meal ticket. Balogun does not agree for he says “you MUST (emphasis mine), however, accept that where a woman is not lucky to have met the man of her dreams and the clock is ticking precariously in her disfavor, she should embrace polygamy once her faith accepts it”. Two things obvious in Balogun’s words are that, one, having children is the all-important goal of marriage and two, by marrying them, men are doing the supposedly “ageing” women a favor. Do you now see my point - that feminists shun polygamy, specifically because of the acutely inherent danger of injustice, frustration and disappointment in such marriage, more so if the man feels like the marriage is a favor on his part?
These days, polygamy in Nigeria boils down to: woman gets married, woman has a child or two, woman gets divorced by man who is scheming to “sample” another woman, then more often than not, woman discovers she has HIV. If men are indeed concerned about the well being of women, shouldn’t they rejoice that women desist from such “marriage”? Think about it - this polygamy that men try to threaten or lure us into, is it a “magnanimous” offer based on piety and concern or one ignited by lust?
Balogun says “the problem with many of our young ladies is that they are too deeply afraid of polygamy, because of the many stories they have heard”. I say, “young ladies resist polygamy not because of stories but because of the cruel reality of polygamy they see all the time”. And I’ll add that even though there are more men than women in Nigeria, there are less marriageable men than women for precisely this reason. Even then, the “great dilemma” as Balogun calls it, is not about the marriageable pool being smaller. The great dilemma is that Nigerian men generally want women they can control and discard at whim while Nigerian women increasingly want a man who sees and treats them not as a prospective uterus or a pair of breasts but as a full human being.
Balogun also links the inclusion of Ba’s novel in the secondary school curriculum to the growing reluctance of women to enter a polygamous arrangement. In my view, if there is any connection between Ba’s novel and current realities, it must be the enlightening view of polygamy the novel provides. Balogun notes that Ba was a victim of failed polygamy. There are certainly more victims of failed polygamy than not, so why not learn about their experiences?
I could not help but notice that Balogun failed to provide a clear-cut definition of feminism in his article, even though he claims some feminists “may not even know the definition of feminism”. For everyone’s sake, I will offer a definition that I believe captures the essence of feminism. According to Cheris Kramarae, feminism is “the radical notion that women are people”. The implications of Kramarae’s deceptively simple definition may not be immediately clear. I’ll make things clearer. Feminism is the notion that in no uncertain terms, women have a right to determine the course of their lives, which in no uncertain terms, includes but is not limited to the right to choose whether to stay single and the right to choose when to get married. Now that we have a working idea of feminism, I’ll end by responding to Balogun, who wonders - “why will a lady not get married to the man who makes the request and is serious? Frankly, it’s because a woman has a right to say NO to the so-called “serious” request, if she so wishes. It’s that simple. |