6.How Much Does Your Daughter Cost? Ambivalence of Bride Price!

17/12/2017 by Evans Chama Leave a Comment

Tackling issues of gender at times demands revisiting some of the time-honoured practices most of whose underlying principles were, once upon a time, viable and meaningful yet now have melted away leaving such practices baseless, if not completely irrational, in modern society. Most of them remain mere tools of oppression. Here is a testimony. “There has been a rise in the materialistic way of life across India and dowry demands have risen to become more extravagant in line with these Materialistic needs….It is one thing to give and take dowry. But what is really obnoxious is the torture women undergo because the dowry is less than expected.”^[1] It means some practices may survive out of popularity or as sheer tradition or for gain, while they remain void of meaning. Payment of bride price could be just one of those practices.

How much does she cost? What a pity!

Bride price can be discriminatory

Although, it is a gain to the bride’s family, we cannot however ignore the discriminatory connotation against a woman vis-à-vis a man. It means those practices might as well be vehicles through which the discrimination against women is perpetuated through generations. This is reason enough to reconsider them and not simply settle at: it is our tradition! Yes, it is your tradition, but whatever your tradition is, it is not a gospel truth. It is not perfect. It needs purification. In fact, no one of our forefathers thought of establishing tradition for later generations rather they did their best to adopt a way of doing things as a response to their time, place, and understanding. And all these factors change. This is not to be understood in terms of relativism but a simple acknowledgement that while there are things that last there are also many things that change, and ought to change.

Why not change?

So, we cannot make any pretence about it. We cannot raise what is changeable to the level of infiniteness. What we call tradition often are modalities of expression of concepts or truths. We are obliged to keep the truth, we may cherish a concept if it passes the test of today’s advance in knowledge but we should be free to adopt our own way of expressing such truth and concepts using our own resources of our time and place. We may keep a tradition, observe it as a guide of life, if it still speaks to what we want to say; if it is good, that is, if it expresses the message not contrary to what we know as true. It is in this sense we can soberly approach tradition. Otherwise, the silliest thing can be that you hold on to a practice that expresses what you know is false or simply does not work as the tradition purports. Unfortunately it happens.

This is a kind of approach we took when we looked at the question of the bride price in order to be conscious of its place, if at all it has, in the marriages of today. Bride price: is it a practice that is realistic today or has it outlived its usefulness?

Bride price, not business transaction?

Bride price, to explain literally, is the payment made to the family of the girl by the family of the man marrying her. Is this not buying? Whatever it is, this is nonetheless a process of trade; sell and buy. What do you pay for in a woman that you do not pay for in a man? I’m convinced this is not a stupid question. Do you really pay for something and not in some way become its owner? The question of bride price, no matter how best one can try to explain or give sense to it –outside the olden times – remains an ambiguous affair to many people today, especially the young. Perhaps, this is already a sign of the need for some adaptation, to say the least. Why should it be paid, in the first place?

Can you believe this?

People give a lot of answers. Not wrong answers, but really not part of the traditional ones on which this practice should be founded. Yes, it struggles to find its place today. The many things that are said why this payment is made include: for the upbringing of the girl, for her virginity, for the children she bears for the man, as compensation since she is taken away from her family…, so the list goes on. Yet, all these hardly give a satisfactory answer other than beg more questions.

Where is that man who has been brought up at no cost of any kind exactly like a girl? But then what makes the upbringing of a girl special?

Virginity! Why should only women be required to be “virgins” and not men too? Is virginity the only thing of wealth a girl can keep and finally bring to her man and if she has lost it she is a finished good? Is she? Even then, that is nothing. The question is how many men have been obliged to pay, and are still paying, millions of kwacha for virginity of girls who have no notion whatsoever what that animal called virginity is?

Yes, our daughter has been to secondary school and to college –a lot has been spent on her, some parents would say. This is to imply that she has therefore become more expensive than her rural friend who works in a cassava field. Yet, given the general situation of women in Zambia today, the man who wants to marry that woman is often of a superior education and job. In that case, is he not, if you we can spare time for such simplistic reasoning, more expensive than your daughter?

Strange logic of human reproduction

Other parents would demand that a man pay bride price since their daughter is going to bear children for him, irrespective of the fact that they are in the matrilineal family set up where children trace lineage from the mother’s side, in case of the Bemba for instance. Yet, some people will still speak of a woman bearing children for a man. Hence, you pay for fertility. Then, you get the impression that bearing children appears to be solely a woman’s job and a man has nothing to do with it. I’m not really up to date with such “virginal conception” that appears to be implied here. In this manner man’s fertility is ignored, or is so insignificant that it is not worth paying for. But then if a girl gets pregnant out of wedlock – the all burden is on a man. He is responsible, he has made the girl pregnant. I would think the two are responsible for the pregnancy.

Linked to fertility is also this notion of leaving. Our daughter will be taken away from our family to come and look after your home. But where is that married man who in a normal marriage set-up does not leave his own family in order to make a new family with his wife and children? Why should the woman’s leaving be so pronounced?

How was it practised in the past?

In the past, items like axes, hoes, and ornaments were demanded as bride price among the Bemba. Though these may appear cheap with the availability of metal today it might not have been that easy to acquire them in those days. One had to depend on a blacksmith. Because marriage is a social institution, and was made out of an alliance of friendship between two families, what was asked for was merely symbolic. By no means could there be any exaggeration since the initiative of marriage came from the agreement and mutual appreciation of the two families. Hence, that bride price could not be left to block the union of the two families.

Some other ethnic groups especially pastoralists paid cows or goats. The understanding was that the payment legitimized the union and the children born out of it. And that gave authority to the man over his wife and children. In the patrilineal family setup, a woman was perceived as going to perpetuate her husband’s lineage. Hence, the girl’s family was to be somewhat compensated. The payment was also a test of the man’s seriousness and ability to look after his wife; it was a check on his commitment, some people would say.

Practice devoid of its cultural meaning

But what is surprising is that this practice of bride price continues even when those cultural bases may mean nothing to the people today. For young people, marriage is not just a social function in the sense of uniting their two families. The focus is the love between a boy and a girl who want to spend their life together. So, consequently, their two families too are brought into some relationship. Hence, love, attraction to each other and the desire to live together are coming first. It is not so much the case that a man looks at children as his alone, and the wife has nothing to do with them apart from giving birth to them. Here is something positive we can acknowledge especially in the Zambian urban society that there is more and more a shared responsibility in the relationship and friendship of couples who want to spend their lives together despite other problems that may be surrounding their marriage.

Many are growing in this spirit of making decisions about the affairs of their home, on the size of the family and both man and woman have equal sense of ownership of children. Neither is bearing children for the other nor the other’s family. Whether patrilineal or matrilineal that counts little; the decision concerning children lies heavily on the couple themselves. There is hardly a man playing a role of hired bull or a woman as mere mould. Hence, no one should receive rental for reproducing for the other.

With this, you wonder the reason for lobola –a man paying an amount in order to own and have access to his own children. But whether he pays or not the children are his anyway, and they will know him as their father. In fact, this is a custom that disadvantages the woman further. A man who has paid lobola will feel entitled to gather all the children to himself in case of divorce since he paid the “labourer”, the woman, who gave them birth. He has somewhat paid the ransom; redeeming his children. In this way, the woman is reduced to an object of reproduction.

She’s no one’s property

To comment on the view that justifies bride price as compensation for the woman taken away from the family, a woman remains always a member of her own family despite going out to found her own home with her husband, who also has to leave his family. In fact, a man receives the in-laws: brothers in-law, sisters in-law; not to mention his anxiety to do something special for his father and mother in-law. About the popular complaint, the woman wants only her relatives in the home and not the husband’s; it is a generalization that is not always true –but true in some cases nevertheless. Then, what other compensation does the woman’s family want to claim after all?

What is hard to believe is the extent to which this custom of bride price has fallen captive to capitalistic mentality. When you hear the amount demanded by the girl’s family it leaves no doubt, the man, even if he is not buying the woman to be his wife, at least, he is being loaned with full rights. A good number of modern girls are sensitive to this kind of “selling” and they are actually reacting against it.

Some young people react

For many young people elopement is one solution to this superfluous custom that transparently has outlived its relevance. They run away and get married leaving the parents with the custom. This is especially true when a girl who loves her man realises the inflated price or other cultural complications are likely to block or delay unnecessarily their marriage. At times also, parents are surprised by the pregnancy of their daughter so that they have no choice. They are the ones now to precipitate. They do not want to let the man go and leave their daughter reduced to the category of second hand goods. They rush to arrange something to save face and redeem the situation. If a man agrees to marry the daughter the price is often even reduced –it is like bargaining at the cattle market. In fact, they may even proceed with the marriage with the agreement that the payment will be done later. To say the truth, there are many marriages, happy marriages, where such payment has hardly been paid. They are no less marriages. Even the parents of the couple do not regret it at all.

Sharing the cost is another solution of the young people today. A girl working and earning a good salary will not mind to contribute money for the bride price especially if she does not want to lose the man. She will be on his side to encourage him. With all this, what remains of the show of commitment, payment for fertility, and as compensation that everyone wants to use religiously just to make some money on their daughter?

The fact that young people are fed up with this and want to do it in their own way makes it all seem ridiculous; everything crumbles without their parents realizing. It is a mockery. This is not to endorse whatever the youth do as being correct, but only to acknowledge that they also express and act against some serious concerns that deserve some consideration. Indeed, this is a sign that something has to be worked on regarding this custom. The time has changed and certain conceptions have improved the understanding of marriage, most importantly, the place of the two partners in the relationship.

Example: empty virginity talk

Today we talk of umwanakashi wa cisungu (virgin), for the Bemba, just to mean someone who has not yet given birth but not a virgin in the true sense of what the word used to mean. And yet a man marrying such a woman is expected to pay ulupiya lwacisungu (payment for virginity). It is quite unlikely that there is a man, certainly not a realistic man, going round expecting to find a virgin to marry. This is not pessimism but simply facing facts on the ground. Actually, today young people intending to marry even share about their past relationships in which it becomes clear their future spouse is not a virgin. And even if they do not share this, they are all the same likely to know the truth. Virginity is a very unlikely expectation.

Yet, how sheepishly do we submit to customs that only presuppose things that we know never exist at all? Besides, why should only a girl be required to be virgin? Why all this? No need to wonder.

Need for mental deconstruction

We are fixated in all that because of the gender bias in the organisation of our society in which our way of thinking, acting and relating has been trapped. The bride price may give only a false sense of value to a girl –that is why she is paid for –but actually, it exerts the air of being sold and bought. Even in cultures where it is a woman to pay the man –it is still the woman who suffers the consequent degradation.

Many women in the Indian cultures have plenty of stories with such testimony. Girl’s parents have to sweat to find money or assets valuable enough to attract a man to marry their daughter. And the girl is harassed by in-laws if her family is too poor to give a good sum. She is condemned to endure whatever lot is inflicted on her since married state is the only life for a woman or she would disgrace her parents. That results in suicides (dowry deaths) when she can bear it no longer. In 1987 there were 792 dowry deaths with 922 in 1988 according to official records.^[2] In 2005 more than 7 000 women died in India in the same way. A report in the International Herald Tribune of a case in New Delhi adds not just another story but also recent voice to the same women’s predicament.

“A new television and sofa were conspicuously displayed in the same room, so that every member of the party could see what was being offered from the bride’s family to the groom as a dowry. A full list of all the other items was copied out by hand and handed to five witnesses – itemizing all the pieces of furniture, kitchen equipment and jewellery that would be delivered in payment.

Unfortunately for Kamlesh, the 18-year-old bride…the payment from her father, Misrilal, was insufficient. Her new husband had expected a scooter; his parents had wanted more than the 51,000 rupees – about $1,100 – that they got. During three years of marriage, the requests for an extended dowry settlement began to be accompanied by worsening bouts of violence… he beat her over the head with a wooden stick, tied her up and locked her in the cow shed as she bled profusely….

An average of one dowry death is reported every 77 minutes according to the National Crime Record Bureau and victim support groups say complaints of dowry harassment are rising, fuelled by a rising climate of consumerism.

‘Everyone is becoming more and more westernized – they want expensive clothes, they want the consumer objects which are constantly advertised on television. A dowry is seen as an easy way to get them,’ said Varsha Jha, an official with the Delhi Commission for Women.

Although the giving and taking of dowry is banned here under legislation that threatens a five-year jail term, activists describe the law as ‘ornamental’ and point out that it is almost never imposed. Dowry negotiations remain an integral part of wedding arrangements, although, to avoid legal complications, the payments are often referred to as wedding gifts”.^[3]

It is evident from such experiences, and many others, that bride price is but just another point for gender issue. Hence, it is another field to walk and fight against discrimination. Resistance will be there just like in other areas from those who benefit from it, especially men who control or women who still feel valued by it or by those to whom the custom is a matter of eternal law. More importantly, it may be difficult for some women to see things differently as they are prisoners of the gender biased frame of thought. We discern easily how discriminatory this custom is by identifying the evils that are as a result of this practice.

Girls reduced to fragile objects

Girls are reduced to fragile objects to be handled with care because in case of any crack they lose something of their inherent value. Families are edgy about them. Hence, dispose of them quickly or they get damaged in their hands, to their loss. We know that second hand material does not fetch a good price, if anything at all.

However what is funny is that in towns where there are many marriages of couples from different cultural setups you end up paying even for those with children already. The argument, of course as mere pretext, is always that it is like that in our culture. For the Bemba when talking of marrying a woman with a child or who was one time married, they speak of wakutola, from the infinitive: ukutola which means to pick, as you would do for a fruit fallen from the tree lying on the ground. A second-hand woman is uwakutola (an object just picked) found with no one claiming ownership.

In the same language, they would say tamwaba bene there is no owner; to mean she is not married –you can pick her, you can enter, you can marry her. You can see how a woman is not only portrayed as an object but also the loss of value she must suffer after the break-up of her first marriage. She somehow becomes a cheap object to possess. Yet, people inside this culture, both men and women, will use these words without any consciousness whatsoever of their degrading connotation. In fact, that makes it difficult for people to appreciate something is not correct and thus, they hardly see the need for change.

How is bride price a gender issue?

Bride price is a matter of gender issue as it plays very much on the position of a woman in marriage, on the relationship between husband and wife. Having paid money, a man has a sense of ownership, as master over a woman instead of relationship of friends who are equal. It is somewhat a “title deed” he acquires. The money he has paid makes him feel it is his duty to discipline the members of his family –wife included in the way he likes. In Papua New Guinea the payment of bride price legitimized even man’s force over the wife.

Because of this sense of ownership, when a married woman is raped –it is the husband who will demand compensation; the rape is an attack not on the woman but the owner. It is a pity that some women will even respond to this custom in a way that empowers a man to do with them as he wants just because he paid for them; Wilanguma, finshi wapela batata (don’t beat me, what have you given to my father?). It implies, she would somehow submit to the abuse because he has paid, and it means she will only react if he has not paid full price and therefore he does not have the full right.

The bride price was shared by many members of the family, although much less today, and while they were interested in the well being of the marriage, often family members encouraged the girl to go on enduring even when such a marriage had no life giving or happiness left. This is because if a woman moved away from the marriage then the money paid would have to be returned, something those who shared the money would not like to see happen. Here the focus of marriage is well displaced. Bride price becomes the fibre of marriage. Even in the traditional conception: alliance, fertility, legitimacy are the cords that bind the marriage; there is nothing of relationship of love that the young might be looking for.

Another thing to revisit

There are other things concerning girls that require reflection and reconsideration. The case of pregnancy outside marriage is one. We speak of damages. What damages? It is not one person’s affair; it takes two persons –a boy and a girl. Owing to the passive position attributed to a girl, even if she may not always be that passive in such a relationship, the whole burden is shouldered by the boy who is forced to pay. But who does not know of the many cases where, in reality, a girl is the initiator?

She is the one taking herself to a man because she wants him. She wants to have a child with him or she wants to get married to him. In case of rape, one can understand it differently; but the pregnancy that results from some relationship needs some pause and thought. We cannot afford going on living unreflectively, mechanically as if we are prisoners of the way things have been. Indeed, it is an insult to our intelligence considering the resources available before us today in terms of knowledge and understanding of things.

Bride price is, intentionally or not, a tool, a vehicle of discrimination and oppression against women. It must be an area of interest for those addressing issues of gender. Look again at this Chinese proverb: A wife married, is like a pony bought, I’ll ride her and whip her as I like. Is that the way we want to proceed with marriage?

See previous posts:

Why would you marry a woman Like Mum?

A Woman Like Mum: 4. Why raising a girl child is gender issue?

A Woman Like Mum: 3 Woman’s Work, how much is it worth?

A Woman Like Mum: 2. Gender equality in Marriage! How possible?

A Woman like Mum: 1. What Would Gender Equality Mean?

A Woman Like Mum. Introduction -Wind of Change

[1] International Herald Tribune online, 22 October 2006.

[2]Cf Sakuntala Narasimhan, “India: From Sati to Sex-Determination Tests”, in Miranda, Women and Violence, p. 45.

[3] International Herald Tribune online, 22 October, 2006.

5. Why would you marry a woman Like Mum?

22/01/2017 by Evans Chama Leave a Comment

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I will marry a woman like mum, is it because she’s a kind of woman for whom you want to sacrifice yourself or is it because she’s a dutiful wife that the book of Proverbs presents?

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When one finds a worthy wife,

her value is far beyond pearls.

Her husband, entrusting his heart to her,

 has an unfailing prize.

She brings him good, and not evil,

all the days of her life.

She obtains wool and flax and makes cloth

 with skilful hands.

Like merchant ships,

she secures her provisions from afar.

She rises while it is still night,

 and distributes food to her household.

She picks out a field to purchase;

 out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She is girt about with strength,

 and sturdy are her arms.

She enjoys the success of her dealings;

 at night her lamp is undimmed.

She puts her hands to the distaff,

and her fingers ply the spindle.

She reaches out her hands to the poor,

and extends her arms to the needy.

She fears not the snow for her household;

all her charges are doubly clothed.

She makes her own coverlets;

fine linen and purple are her clothing.

Her husband is prominent at the city gates

 as he sits with the elders of the land.

She makes garments and sells them,

and stocks the merchants with belts.

She is clothed with strength and dignity,

and she laughs at the days to come.

She opens her mouth in wisdom,

 and on her tongue is kindly counsel.

She watches the conduct of her household,

 and eats not her food in idleness.

Her children rise up and praise her;

her husband, too, extols her:

"Many are the women of proven worth,

 but you have excelled them all."

Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting;

the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

Give her a reward of her labors,

and let her works praise her at the city gates.

(Proverbs 31:10-31).

It’s a Bemba saying

I will marry a woman like mum is just one of the popular sayings in my language, Bemba. But why would one want to marry a woman like his mother? Is it because one judges his mother as the model of beauty? If not, why then? Isn’t that just another way of perpetuating women’s servitude?

Naikuta no kupa kwanshi or nokupwa kwanshi! (I’m satisfied, for what use is marrying!), often, a boy or girl would also say. One is satisfied and wants nothing more –no need even to marry. Or if he still wants to marry then she should be a woman like his mother. Yet, you hardly hear of a girl speaking of marrying a man like her father. One does not have to be a special woman or mother to be affective to her children. A mother sacrifices her time, her interests, and her sleep. Her own life is stirred up by what is going on with the child. The intimacy between them is so great that the mother’s life and that of her baby are like one.

A child is mainly on the receiving end

He/she is there and the mother does everything for him/her: she does the washing, the cooking, throws a glance at where he/she is playing to make sure he/she is secure. And if he/she has gone to school, she is busy by the stove preparing something to eat for her dear one. You may remember those days when you arrived home from school, only to be greeted by some treat that your mother had lovingly prepared for you in your absence. Or you may remember your boarding school days when your father gave you enough money but often for strictly necessary things like transport, boarding fees, groceries, stationeries… With your mum it might have been different. When bidding her farewell she affectionately placed some notes in your pocket “it’s for your drink.” She went beyond necessities to take care also for the softer aspects of life –she would take care of those needs that soothed the rough boarding life. With that experience, and if some women are like that¸ wouldn’t a boy be foolish if he did not look for a woman to marry who is like his mum? Surely, who cannot but wish for a wife so caring – a woman like mum?

Hence, a boy is on a look out for mum

This is the woman the boy has known and he may go out to look for her for marriage. No doubt, there could be love as primary motive but this relationship or choice will be very much influenced by those qualities appreciated in the mother. This is true especially for those marriages still very much traditional. So, a young man looks for someone to serve him, to wash for him –to take care of his needs. And the marriage remains much less inspired by mutual love and friendship. If she does not fulfil those duties: but why did I marry you? would be the most likely question. When a woman responds to such expectations, true in many cases, she becomes a Martha: cooking, washing, bearing children for the man. In so doing, the marriage dilutes to a master-servant relationship with little love, if it is not completely pushed to the background. There is no mutual respect and sensitivity to the needs of the other. Unfortunately, in many marriages this is rather the kind of set-up or programming that both husband and wife grow to accept as normal –things are to be like that.

However, there could be another way of looking at I will marry a woman like mum. Indeed, I have no intention of doing away with this saying. I cannot manage, besides, it is not even necessary. People will continue using it, yet, we can broaden its perspective and make it more altruistic.

Humanising the saying

At first sight, marrying a woman like mum may appear easy, simple, selfish, and self-indulgent; no doubt it is often motivated by this unconscious selfishness. Yet, just with a bit of reflection from the practical side of life this, in fact, calls for a certain amount of responsibility not often appreciated or embraced by those who go by the ‘Woman like mum’ kind of thinking. Things may not always be as sweet as honey as one may deceive oneself in one’s way of perceiving things. A caring, protecting mother is but only one side of reality. She may not able to do it throughout her life however willing she might be. The same mother may arrive, and so often happens, at the point when things turn just the opposite. Despite herself, she moves from serving to being served; protecting to being protected. Circumstances of life such as sickness or age might bring her to that. This is an experience of life lived by many people. The ideal woman, your mother, becomes dependent. Some may end up in situations that no one would wish neither for his mother nor wife. Then at this point you may perhaps come back to the question, a woman like mum; still the type of woman I want to marry?

Yet, this is the experience some people have to face later in their marriage that may have had a bright and rosy beginning. A woman once beautiful but only to be disfigured by illness, accident or things of the like; an industrious wife is incapacitated. That is why it becomes important to ask the question just for the sake of reflection: how many men are ready to live with this development in the life of their spouse? It would not work, certainly not for a man who has always seen a servant in his wife, someone to bear him children and to look after his home. When a servant can longer deliver, you fire him and take another one. A great pity but not surprisingly such cases abound in many marriages today in Zambian society.

It happens

There are many stories, some still holding true as I write these lines. Ifi mulelwala kuti cawama mwaya kuli bamayo bamisungako (now that you are sick you had better go to your mother so that she can take good care of you). This is a clear testimony of how many men find it hard to negotiate the times when their spouses fall sick. They are not trained; therefore, they are often not used to nor ready to serve. They do not know how to react, in the situation, indeed they are completely lost. The easy excuse, of course, is that they are busy at work. On the contrary, if it is the man who is sick a woman becomes tethered to his sickbed. She would quickly obtain a leave of absence from work in order to attend to him. Women are really often available in the manner rare among men. Well, he would buy apples, bananas; yes, he would spend the money but when it comes to the human touch, for many, it would often be at a level that leaves a lot to be desired.

This reminds me of a comment made by an Arab friend when we were visiting in one of the historical mosques of Cairo. There we saw a European couple, a woman visibly sick and leaning on the man who gently walked with her. Seeing that, my friend was fascinated. “Look at that!” She drew our attention, “if it’s an Arab woman who is sick the man will slap her for bothering him and wasting his time”. Though this is not to be taken literally, however, it is quite a revealing comment.

Yes, a woman like your mum if it’s a woman you want to take care of

Well, if one still asserts I want to marry a woman like my mother then he should as well be ready for those unforeseen but often probable circumstances. This will demand not only a change of conception about marriage but also the readiness to serve and sacrifice for the other as well; not only receiving but being ready to give. In this way, you can wish to marry a woman like your mum but altruistically and not just selfishly. Unfortunately, people who use this saying are often just thinking about their own needs. It is in this sense that something that sounds of praise to the mother or woman is a matter of a gender issue as it betrays a mentality where men lord it over women as their beasts of burden for their own comfort. Hence, this is an invitation to be on the lookout for those subtle means in which discrimination and violence against women are perpetuated.

A Woman Like Mum: 4. Why raising a girl child is gender issue?

17/12/2016 by Evans Chama Leave a Comment

What does raising a girl have to do with gender? A girl child is born into the world, country, town or family that is gendered; she is conceived and raised in a gendered relationship of her gendered parents. All this will colour the kind of training she receives regarding what being a girl or a woman means. In this way, insight in the way a girl is raised allows us to understand a woman and her position in society by tracing her roots. In short, a girl child, like any other person, is shaped by society. We have an echo here.

Societal thinking in girl child

‘It is society which thinks in me….a person, an individual and unique experience…it is in large part made up of common elements’ [quoted from Karl Marx]. The social institutions that we enter as individuals, from our arrival in our families at birth, through our education, youth culture, and into the worlds of work and leisure, marriage…give us clear messages about how ‘normal’ people behave, according to their gender. We learn the options open to us.[1]

Certainly, plunging into the kind of upbringing a girl child receives helps us already to identify the gender imbalance or discrimination being passed on, albeit in good faith. There we have the opportunity to address the issue in the bud.

Raising girl child, generational conflict

In our discussion, we narrowed this topic to how much a girl should be left free to relate, especially with boys. The question was: Should a girl mix freely with boys? This is a relevant gender question as far as traditional social arrangement and mentality are concerned. Again, this is equally an attempt to address the problem in its early manifestations. There were mixed reactions to the question by the women; some influenced by their own age, others out of need to keep to traditional instructions; and those a bit younger, because of the need to adapt to modern times. Religion too was influential.

Those who said yes argued that a girl is human like any other person who should be left free to relate. She should mix freely and be a friend to any person she wants. Being with a boy in class is profitable –they can exchange ideas and help each other. Some girls said they would prefer to have a boy for a friend, and they would trust him more than a girl.

Those who said “no” dwelt mostly on the negative consequences and their tone was very traditional. For them traditional arrangement that teaches to separate girls from boys is the standard of how things should be. They touched on the issues of AIDS and unwanted pregnancy, especially before marriage. Indeed, these are real problems in Zambia that one cannot just ignore when addressing issues as this one.

Morality of boundary

In general Zambian traditional teaching, drawn from the position of different ethnic groups, discourages any uncontrolled boy/girl relationship which is considered as dangerous. That is why there were demarcations. Although today owing to modern influences a boy and a girl go to the same school, sit at the same desk and work together; however, for many it is still intolerable that a girl has a boy for a friend whom she would visit and go out with as she likes. Even though it actually happens but then that is not taken as any ordinary relationship. The comparisons used when talking of boy/girl relationship show how this is considered as a delicate matter. Boy and girl are likened to fire and flammable material; goat and grass or grain; rat and nuts. In all these cases a girl is the vulnerable one, the prey that needs to be protected. And so the society was structured and organised taking into account all that. For the Bemba, we can speak of Cibwanse, a place for women where girls stayed around mature, married women for apprenticeship in the things of the woman’s world. On the other hand, boys were at Nsaka; there they got the training in man’s world. The crossing of borders of that single sex organisation was simply unimaginable. Yes, these were considered the good olden days but how far can we go with such organization?

Cage approach has no backing

Today such demarcation seems almost impossible. In some cases, the mixing is inevitable through school, church, work, sports, and cinema. Even though one may try to keep within certain limits it is really hard to organise any sense of demarcation in the manner that would function as in the past. What is the way forward then? Certainly, we cannot insist on separation; it is simply not the realistic approach today. The question is no longer how to keep a boy and a girl separate; that we know we are not able to do but rather how to face the interaction that we cannot avoid. The pre-occupation should be to prepare the young girl into this new set up; to help her on how best she can decently, maturely and responsibly mix with boys. In fact, it is the same for boys. There we have the problem. How many parents are ready for this? How many are doing it?

Some parents hold on to the shadows of gone system

Here many parents are stuck, even somewhat lost, and so they have to insist on traditional strategies even though they know it is well nigh impractical. They seek refuge in traditions whose structures have collapsed. Why insist in this way? Most parents know their fear, if not their failure. They are shy to discuss sexuality, for instance, with their children. But the consequence often is regrettable. Obviously forcing their position, don’t mix with boys, does not instruct the daughter nor does their force provide the structure for what they are proposing. It only instils fear. With modern families, in the urban areas especially, there is not only a significant break from an extended to a small nuclear family in mentality but also physical isolation from other family members. There is no aunt, uncle, grandmother or grandfather to assume the role of instructor as in the past. In the end, the victim is the child and the consequences can be terrible. The child is abandoned to the “non-certified” instruction on the street from peers. Among the many good things that she may benefit from such a situation there are also many undesirable elements. The consequence is that often exactly what parents fear and strive to prevent happens; the girl contracts a disease or there is an unwanted pregnancy. Doesn’t this, then, just confirm that boy/girl interaction is bad and hence to be avoided?

Face the change with creativity

But we simply cannot avoid such interaction in today’s society. We need to do our job to prepare a child for the society of today and not of the past. Parents themselves need to be active and take the role of instructing their children even in matters that were in the past left to some members of the extended family. Certainly, it may not be that easy for some parents but they have to do it.

No matter what culture may demand, it is also good to remember that a girl is not merely obliged to respond to cultural definition but also to her nature –she is human. She is a social being. The need to associate must be taken care of. It is not to be stopped but managed. Hence, even in this manner we can have recourse to sociology. The analogy in primary and secondary socialization may be helpful in understanding how this interaction is a tool to growth, indeed to the maturity of a girl. When we are born, the family and all that we experience there is the only world we know. The family is everything; it is the world. And our world-view up to this level depends on the types of exposure we have had. This is primary socialization. It is important yet narrow and very limited. We need to go beyond it. When a child grows older, she discovers friends in the neighbourhood, she goes to church, goes to school; there she discovers the world is actually bigger or wider than the home. And her experience in the family is not the only one there is. This is second socialization.

From negative to positive thinking

We can apply this analogically to the growing boy or girl. To be a girl or a boy is a particular experience that may need the enrichment from the other sex. The gendered education on how to be a girl or a boy may not be all there but it must seen as integral for the full development of a person bearing in mind especially the kind of training given based on gender bias. The interaction will facilitate to discover another way of being, as well as broadening one’s aspirations and dreams. Life is no longer just about being wife and mother. We can also argue psychologically, this interaction can be a means for human development. Our training has often emphasised exclusively what we know as our sex: boy or girl. Drawing from Carl Jung, in each person there is something of a man and also something of a woman at play. A girl needs a boy to help her develop the man in her (Animus) as much as a boy needs a girl to develop the woman (Anima) in him. That is why this interaction is very much a matter of mutual interdependence for growth.

The fuss about a girl child, what is it all about?

There is, indeed, one vital pertinent question to the whole issue of gender equality. What is the basis of this delicacy associated with raising a girl; a sign of preciousness? The instructions and the anxiety surrounding a mature girl child can be quite revealing.

Among the Touregs of Mali

In the north of Mali, among the Touregs, especially those who live in camps in the desert, girls are married off while still quite young. In fact, parents would not want to send them to school. And for that they battle with the government ministry of education. I discussed with Madame Irène who works for the Ministry of Education in Mali especially for the promotion of female child education. She works in Kidal among the Touregs. Early marriage is the most prevalent problem she has to combat. Parents are in the hurry to marry off their daughters since girls get “spoiled” easily. If they become pregnant before getting married they bring shame to the family. No wonder even before a girl matures she will have her husband already picked for her. Hence, parents marry daughters off quickly and they are at peace once they manage to dispose of them to some man in marriage according to their custom. Such anxiety shared also in some other cultures and places, especially the Muslim world, goes on even to influence family planning which would no longer be only the question of how many children but also which sex.

Among the Turkana of Kenya

The rituals surrounding childbirth among the Turkana people of northern Kenya are quite illustrative.

…. But a second daughter was a second disappointment, even for the mid wife. She would only get Ks10 for the delivery, instead of the Ks 20 paid after the delivery of a boy even though…it takes the same amount of work.

….if the baby is a boy, the cord may be cut with a spear and four goats slaughtered for the women to have a feast…four days after her delivery, the spear is taken out first and used to kill a bull, which both the woman and her husband eat as sign that he will now have someone to help care for the animals. But if the baby is a girl, a knife is used to cut the cord, only one goat is slaughtered, and there is no feasting.[2]

Hindu perspective

The Hindu culture is never short of similar illustrations. Here is the blessing of the bride at the wedding: May you have a hundred sons. Sons have economic, cultural and religious value. Thousands of women will terminate the pregnancy because the foetus is female. In Mahashtra, Western India, out of 8,000 abortions, 7999 were female –the one exception was that of a Jewish woman who wanted a daughter. “…Daughters are perceived as economic and social burdens and, in addition, the cultural preference for sons is strong for religious as well as economic reasons…. A daughter is seen as a liability, a burden.”[3] Apparently, it is better or cheaper to dispose the foetus than later dispose a girl to some man at an exorbitant price. And an Indian proverb does not go round the matter: “Raising a daughter is like watering a shady tree in someone else’s courtyard.”[4]

Arab perspective

For Arabs, daughters represent their kin and what they do affects the entire family. The sexual conduct of a girl will bring honour or shame to the family. This does not apply to a boy who may go on with his affairs unbothered by anyone. So a girl is to be closely monitored, making the raising of a girl demanding and a sensitive business. Male relatives have such a responsibility. They prove themselves heroes when they go as far as killing the female relative who threatens the family’s reputation. This is called honour killing. Despite the on-going activism in this regard such barbaric murders remain the most prevalent sources of death for girls and women in Arabic-Muslim countries like Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq to name but just a few. In fact, as I am striking the keyboard Israel is bombarding Gaza leaving hundreds of Arabs dead. Yet, that is not the only war. There is another one that we hardly hear about. Today, in a settlement only a few kilometres away from Jerusalem, an Arab boy proved himself hero by killing his sister – a so-called ‘honour killing.’

How is raising a girl child a gender issue?

From what we have seen in various different cultures we act, train and pass on discriminatory messages that can easily thwart the aspirations of girls. We learn to be men or women according to the school of our society. This is in fact a point of gender which “is a set of roles which, like costumes or masks in the theatre, communicate to the other people that we are feminine or masculine…”[5] Girl’s ambitions and aspirations are thwarted right there in the home where she is nourished by all what it means to be a woman, often the traditional, discriminative type. There she is often unwittingly indoctrinated, making her grow to believe she is a lowly and only when in her service of society and her man, on whom she should depend, does she make sense of her life.

What’s the way forward?

We need to become much more objective and look at someone as a human person of which gender should never be used as an excuse for discrimination. Any person can be of either sex. Not only is it unjust but also the hallmark of narrow mindedness to allow the fact of gender to be a limiting factor. We achieve nothing by such hard and fast boundaries except stifle the potentiality that a girl may have. Our sexuality is what moves us towards others in the adventure of life; by it we discover more, learn more –and thus develop. We grow. Hence, our sexuality expands us, giving us life. What a pity that we end up turning it into a growth arresting factor that threatens the full blossoming of life itself; smothering it under the shade of cultural definitions that are not only archaic but seemingly without much sense today. Parents should be aware of the many unconscious, but nonetheless gender discriminatory messages, they pass on to their children that, in the long run, have repercussions not only on the self-perception and aspiration of a girl child but goes on to influence as well the entire social structure and organisation of her environment. Therefore, a new way of education will be necessary not only for a female child but also for parents. Parents are to be educated in their role of raising children according to the evolution of the society today.

A Woman Like Mum: 3 Woman’s Work, how much is it worth?

09/11/2016 by Evans Chama Leave a Comment

Sometimes she is worn out, but who cares?

Have you ever reflected on a woman’s work? How worth is it? How far superior or inferior is it compared to that of a man? Come with me through this third chapiter of A Woman Like Mum perhaps together we can come up with some responses.

In our discussions of the women’s group, before talking about the image of woman’s work, we first spared some time to talk about the image of a woman herself. We found that how we looked at a woman determined also, in the large measure, the manner her work was valued.

Woman’s Image

Before going out of the house, the women unanimously agreed, often they look at themselves in the mirror; and they may change their clothes or put on some make-ups to look more “presentable” than they are when at home. Or when posing for photograph people sit or stand in a certain manner. Some would even want to appear in a certain dress. Why? They want to appear and so be seen and appreciated in a certain way. They want to present a certain image.

In this discussion on The Image of Women and their Work we aimed at exploring the way women and their work are viewed not just by the people out there, that is, how society in general considers them but also the way women look at themselves. Hence, the women brainstormed using a gender-blind approach, by trying to answer questions such as: what makes you feel content? What fulfils you? What are your aspirations? How would you like to be seen by others?

To be appreciated by men, to be beautiful, have good clothes, to be married to a “successful” man, have children, to be appreciated and liked by in-laws. These were some of the common echoes. And when answering what makes you feel less a woman? Most of the answers were just the opposite of what was given to the first question. So to be unable to have clothes in fashion, to be ignored by men, especially to remain unmarried and to be barren were some of the concerns expressed. Significantly, the women agreed that they would certainly go the extra mile to make themselves feel really a woman.

Society in general has its own way of presenting women. This can easily be discerned through media portrayal. In books cooking, cleaning and nursing babies have always been traditionally associated with a woman. This mentality has been extended even to toys. While a boy will be playing with a car or an aeroplane, a girl will be presented with a baby on the back or with a cooking pot or a sweeping broom. While women are getting more represented even in public functions, thanks to activism, the mentality that relegates a woman to domestic duties is still very strong.

In music, rumba videos for instance, in not just a few cases you see men dancing dressed like executives while women scantly cover their nakedness with transparent and flapping clothes that expose their bodies. They are virtually naked. Why all that? Who is to blame? In commerce, even to sell a tablet of soap, you find a presentation of a half naked girl, well chosen. A beautiful girl is an object for attraction. This confirms what I found out after talking to a number of barmaids in Balaka – a district town in Malawi; a possible practice in other countries too. Most of them were not ashamed to tell me what it was for them to be there. As for the qualification, you must be someone who can lure men. Men will therefore come to drink in a bar where they are beautiful girls in so doing promoting the business for their boss, leave alone the actual work they have to do. And that is not all. In these drinking places there are rooms where the same girls would literally be used as sex workers –more profit for the bar owner.

A woman is creative in her work

A woman must be beautiful, whatever that means, in order to find a job! Pity! Women are often valued by men based on the question: how beautiful? How sexy? Men who have the economic power set a woman in competition on beauty terms in order to win a man for survival. As a woman advances in age, the beauty declines. This may partly explain the high expense invested in maintaining beauty on which, apparently, depends her identity and her usefulness – or simply her humanity as a woman. What a pity! What a degradation of oneself! In this way, a woman’s behaviour is very much defined and controlled, unconsciously though, by such social expectation. This goes in the same line with fashions. Some women’s fashions, though popular and everyone wants to have them, leave you wondering what is the purpose of dressing at all. In some of those clothes women stroll in streets barely covering their nakedness or you see them struggling pulling a mini-skirt to cover themselves when sitting in public, especially on buses. You question what is running in their minds. But then you realise that behind all that there is some philosophy albeit an unconscious one. Men are still holding the reins dictating what would be good for a real woman. This is however not to say women have no freedom but it rather makes one appreciate that knowledge is power. And who is in control of this power? It can be expressed no better than the way Anne Leclerc puts it: “Nothing exists that has not been made by man –not thought, not language, not words. Even now there is nothing that has not been made by men, not even me; especially not me…”[1] The likely effect of this training or programming is that a girl grows to view herself as portrayed: waiting to see a man to put her in his care, in the name of love or marriage, where she will care for his home, bear and care for his children, cook for him… Instead of bathing and dressing for her own good or decency, she is instinctively chained to the compulsion to beautify, decorate herself not for herself, but for some man. And because her existence is aligned to some man she is to attract one. She ends up abandoning herself to the behaviour that compromises her human dignity, reducing herself to an object for sex.

What is unfortunate is that man takes advantage to see and treat a woman as an object. She is useful as long as she is beautiful –at least to him. You only understand then why, while a young lady would not mind to marry a “grandfather” so long he has money and a man well advanced in age, possibly will not go out to look for a woman of his age but a “real” woman: young, beautiful and attractive. This happens even if the man still has a wife of his age, he wants to go out with young girls because his wife has already done her days as a woman; she is finished –that is the impression you get. This may explain why some men will easily send their sick wife: Kabiyeni kuli Bamayo bakaye misungako –mukabwela ngamwapola (Go to your mother so that she can take care of you; come back when you are well again). There may be some truth in it; you are sick –not useful anymore. Go back to your mother and come back when you can be useful again; if you can excuse this exaggeration of an otherwise real case in many marriages.

Look at her generosity in her work!

Woman’s Work

‘Cooking roti and stew, collecting fodder and cutting it, removing cattle dung and making dung cakes, sweeping up…. Enough! I work the whole day – and even so my husband says ‘what do you do with yourself all day?’ [2] (Words of an Indian woman, Zubeida)

The same low regard for women, as subordinate to men, goes on to diminish also the value of women’s work. It is not respected as of equal importance with the man’s. The woman’s work is seen as working for and helping. And this mentality has consequences. No matter how much she will do, her work will remain what it is known to be: second grade and because it is for helping, it is for somebody else. It is only unsurprising that women will not be the first beneficiaries of their work. The Document at the Final Decade of Women Conference held in Nairobi –observed among others: two-thirds of world’s work is done by women, yet the same proportion of women live in poverty –whatever happens to their work! Their work is unpaid, underpaid or invisible.

On the contrary, man’s work is valued. A Bemba saying such as Akaume takacepa (a boy is never small) is not just in terms of his ability to do things; but small as he may be what he does is of value because he is man. Take note, not as a person but as a man – the manness he shares with others. A man belongs to a royal gender, a royal group: hence, he enjoys all the honour associated with gender and not necessarily that of individual merit. It means men may not have that power as individuals but by belonging to the social category [Ala umwaume mwaume, a man is a man]. They speak with the authority of their camp.

Isn’t she sometimes overloaded? Yet the traffic police seem to ignore completely

An ordinary woman’s work is invisible. A woman may be busy during her long hours doing domestic duties, beginning the day as early as 6 am, even including her work on the family garden but she will be described in Bemba as Tababomba (literally, she doesn’t work) just to contrast against the 8-hour work of man who is described as Balabomba (he works) just because he does paid work even when it might be doing exactly the same work as a woman in a home, or even less. Degrading women’s work is not limited to domestic work –but also their work on the public platform. In fact, women are seen as assistants, the second rate quality of their work in the home has been transferred to the public as well. They are teachers, as child carers or educators; nurses as helpers to the doctors; or they are secretaries as helpers to the managers. However, today women are in many other fields as well and also holding high positions, this is a positive development. But even in those positions, known to be “a man’s field” women who occupy them are taken as “men” or special women. Often they become targets of dirty jokes and prejudice. Their competence is not readily accepted or appreciated. But there is no problem for those in the traditional women’s jobs as their involvement on the public scene is an extension of the domestic roles. Here we have a portrayal of a traditional nurse before male nurses came on the scene.

… ‘God sent women to be ministering angels, to smooth the pillow, administer the palliative, whisper words of comfort to the tossing patient… Let that continue to be woman’s work! Leave the physician’s work task, the scientific lore, the iron wrist and the iron will to men’

[Nightingale spoke of a nurse as] ‘The skilled servant of medicine…it must involve strict obedience to the physician’s or surgeon’s power and knowledge’

[And nurses came to know themselves as:] ‘we nurses are and never will be anything but the servants of doctors and good faithful servants we should be, happy in our dependence which helps to accomplish great deeds’

[Doctors are satisfied that] ‘Woman as a nurse is the natural help of man as a doctor. Woman as a doctor is a conceit contradictory to nature.’[3]

Of course, this was said many years ago, however, it helps us to be on the alert. Seeing women in professional jobs, no matter how important, does not solve the problem of discrimination. Hence, we need certain finesse in addressing gender equality.

A woman seems to be good at everything, just give her a chance

How Women’s work and image are matters of gender issue?

They are a gender issue because the image the society has imposed on women and their work often has been so arranged so as to promote the interest of man; it is not the true image of who women are as human beings nor is it a true image of their work. Their gendered sex has become the filter of interpreting who a woman and her work are. That is not just. This is discrimination. For this reason it becomes necessary to revisit the notions by which we have been trained to perceive women and their work; those ideas are indeed just another field of gender activism. This invites other questions for reflection.

Can we really blame women for whatever it is that makes us look lowly upon their image and work? Are we justified when we judge women for some behaviour like prostitution and indecent dressing just because they are the ones seen physically in those acts while we ignore the context, environment, organization, mentality, knowledge and the consequent attitudes in which they live?

Without diminishing their responsibility, women are not in full control or better, what we see is the fruit of the society in which they have been brought up. Even our image of them and their work too are an outcome of societal organisation and knowledge that lead to a conditioned outlook. That is why it is not solely a matter for women, but rather the whole society is in need of self-evaluation.

Woman, educator of society

What could be the way forward?

Women taking advantage of the education and skills available like men can help to reduce the gulf. That can enhance self-confidence in them and widen their possibilities. That nevertheless in itself does not remove the stereotypes or prejudices. More is to be done. Women should be well organized so that they no longer accept any offer understood as given for anything less than their merit or qualification. They ought to be wary against political politeness such as ‘ladies first.’ Yes, there are men who honestly say that to give respect to a woman yet still many are the men who will profit of this refined way of speaking merely to say: “you may have it just because you are woman” –whatever their conception of a woman is. Why can’t a woman stand up and accept the same terms as men? Women will do well also to act against or boycott fashions which men subconsciously impose on them? In that way women will escape being soft clay in the hands of their creator man who is intent to make out of them whatever satisfies the pleasures of his whims. One can understand why women crowned a sheep in the 1968 Miss American beauty contest in protest against being used as commercial objects.

However, all that will not change much if the conceptions that inspire and justify such discrimination remain untouched. There is need for women themselves to correct the conception they have of themselves. This does not mean women merely defining for themselves what they want. That may sound like working on a partisan line, which would not help the situation at all. The idea is to work at the image that is not interest-vested but based on the truth of who women are. Hence, who defines it doesn’t matter but openness to the truth that will also inspire not only a new organisation of society but knowledge too. There must be a new definition of reality, in this case, a new definition who a woman is. This is a deep, true and honest cultural transformation, anything less will be mere appearance.

Believe it or not, it’s just true. Oh yes, she can!

The danger is always subtle. Women may be seen advancing to gender equality politically, that is on the public scene, but may be without much difference on the personal level. This can easily be seen how women in their private life are still prisoners to male definition through indiscriminate consumption of what a male dominated market displays for them. This would just be one indication of this lurking behind at the personal level. That is why dealing with revolutionary issues like this demands a great deal of conscientisation. Women must be aware there is a problem and appreciate the need for change; only then will they find sense in working for it. Indeed, women, perhaps the whole society at large, need to realise the importance to hatch themselves from the confining shells of patriarchal definitions; to hatch out of the land of their fathers to the land of full human expression that allows them full exploration of their potentiality. Yes, women need courage in order to dare move to an unknown land. Perhaps, they are slow to leave the oppressive but familiar, known and seemingly cosy patriarchal society. Thus, they need both an inventive and adventurous spirit.

[1] Sheila Rowbotham, Women in Movement: Feminism and Social Action, Routledge, London 1992 p. 287.

[2] Mosse, Half The World Half a Chance, p. 38.

[3] Harriet Bradley, Men’s Work, Women’s Work –A Sociological History of the Sexual Division of Labour in Employment, Polity Press, Oxford 1989, pp. 194-195.

If you have a point for discussion, feel free to propose it. We shall publish it here. We can also continue expressing our different views and contributions on the space for comments below.

A Woman Like Mum: 2. Gender equality in Marriage! How possible?

23/10/2016 by Evans Chama Leave a Comment

“A wife married, is like a pony bought, I’ll ride her and whip her as I like” (Chinese proverb). Then, how do we talk of equality in marriage?

Do husband and wife really stand on the same platform in marriage?

Mixed reactions about equality in marriage

Can there be gender equality in marriage? This is the question that was posed to the women for discussion in class. It is a question mostly directed at marriage in a traditional Zambian society. A resounding “No!” was the answer of the majority. What was important at this stage was not the correct answer, whether yes or no, but the reasons for the answer, which would be quite informative as regards how women viewed themselves in marriage relative to men. The following are some of the reasons given for “no”.

Man is man! And a woman cannot become man. No matter what a woman tries to do she cannot take the place of a man. He is not only the head of the family –the boss. He is the one who founds the home, therefore he is the owner; how can in that case a woman, just brought in, dare claim equality with him?

Some women argued also from a religious point of view that commanded a good bit of authority as all women were Christians though from different denominations. A woman was created from man’s own rib; a woman is a bone from his bone so the Bible says. Who can say or act against what is written in the Bible? Who can reconcile herself to the foolish claim of equality with her benefactor?

Who is a respected woman, if not the one who has a house –meaning a married one? That was another argument. Every girl aspires to have a house and so be respected. She is fulfilled when she is happily married. A man fulfils a woman’s dream, her aspiration. A woman looks forward to be taken by some man who makes her realise her dream. What equality then can we talk about if it is the man who so crowns a woman?

Is it not the man who marries the woman, pays for her and brings her into his house; what would be the basis of her claim for equality? This reasoning of women is similar to the Hindu tradition. Parents have to work hard to find money in order to lure a man for their daughter. How can one be equal with her little god? A woman has no existence outside that of her man. And her devotion to the service of her husband is so important that at times she is even exempted from some religious obligations. What equality can one advance in this case?

From these ways of looking at a man, what else is to be expected then if not a woman’s humble service and submission to her husband? This is logically correct, depending on a people’s conception of marriage. Well, this is not the only way everybody looks at it. Some people live it differently and that can perhaps inspire a different answer. If we take some distance from marriage as a mere social or political alliance, a search for someone to bear children for some man, someone to care for some man’s home, marriage between two clans or families; but when marriage is seen as a love relationship between a man and a woman who have the pleasure to spend life together as friends, certainly, all repressing, discriminatory, selfish and adulterated concepts of marriage begin to melt and fall to pieces.

Who marries who?

In the first place, it is no longer the man who marries the woman but they marry each other; both are active and the initiative is theirs. It is not the business of one person’s control neither is it only one person playing a vital role. Both take an essential part without which marriage will not be there. Hence, marriage becomes a relationship in which both feel responsible and have a sense of ownership and security. They are both in charge. And as a consequence to that a woman is not merely shoved on the man’s wagon. Together they found a home that belongs to the two, neither to man nor to his family alone. In this case, a woman is at home with a backbone to challenge the man in the relationship without insecurity of being shown a red card.

Marriage is no longer a limiting factor; neither is it man’s act of charity to a woman who has to pay for it with servitude. It is a union in which the two fulfil each other mutually for one simple reason: love creates. It is creative. What one chooses to do or not to do is no longer dictated by one’s position or gender in the marriage but is freely chosen according to one’s ability, commitment and responsibility to that relationship. That gives a complete different mentality even to aspects like who is the head of the family. The head of the family is no longer like the boss of a company who has a claim for higher remuneration, place of honour, the one with the voice to command and all others dance; but a responsible person sensitive to the needs of all others. This means also at times having to sacrifice oneself for the others. With this understanding of headship as service in the love relationship there is no longer a problem as who must or should be the head.

Besides, even for those to whom a “woman as created from man’s rib” is a literal biblical truth, still, there is another way of looking at it. Man and woman are of the same flesh, therefore, there is a good reason for equality –they share the same nature. Even should a man be selfish still for the love of his body, from which he thinks a woman came, would just be another motivation for respecting and treating her well. You do not abuse, oppress, discriminate what is so intimately you or yours.

Why would marriage be a gender issue? Marriage, a beautiful institution of love, has been hijacked. Instead of being creative and life giving it has been in many cases repressive, talent killing. In many traditions it has been arranged for the glory of a man. The consequence of such deliberate paternalistic understanding is the false impression that things have to be like that and no place for equality between man and woman in marriage.

How to arrive at equality in marriage?

There is need to rediscover marriage, to have a better understanding of it both on the religious and the human plane. This demands being open to the truth of who we are as human beings. Speaking about marriage with reference to only one person, no matter how powerful he might be, is simply nonsense. It requires two persons, each one equally important as an indispensable part. Marriage is not a mere social construction aimed at meeting societal needs but a fruit of existential hunger or thirst of persons. That of course, can also be channelled to some social good or utility but as secondary. Hence, if the relationship of marriage is a fruit and expression of whom we are, our very nature; then it helps us to express ourselves. It fulfils and recreates us and therefore perfects our nature. Then if death, repression, agony, is what women often yield from such a relationship it is not only a contradiction, it in fact defeats the very human hunger, attraction that leads to such relationship. It simply can no longer be termed marriage. In this sense, speaking about gender equality in marriage is no longer just a battle in favour of women but an attempt to restore sanity, the true meaning of marriage for the betterment of our existential self-fulfilment.

Yes, we can talk about gender equality in marriage. First, a woman ought to reclaim her rightful place in marriage that by no means is supposed to be subordinate to that of man. Marriage is not to be at the service of one person but a mutual relationship, neither should one be master over the other. The fact that in most of the traditional marriages there is no balance of power between couples and that women have a very active, servile life but hushed voice then the marriage is certainly a field for people addressing gender discrimination. Marriage is indeed a field for gender conscientisation and activism.