Global Hermeneutics? - International Voices in Biblical Studies ...

38 GLOBAL HERMENEUTICS?
The society in which these women find themselves is chiefly patriarchal. In
spite of the significant roles they play in their individual homes and in the society at
large, women are still considered as belonging to a weaker gender. A man usually
heads a family and a woman growing up in her father’s house naturally prepares
herself to leave the family and change her family name to that of her husband. This
is because when she marries she belongs fully to the family of her husband and
most often she inherits nothing from her paternal home. It is a society where an
unmarried woman receives little or no respect; therefore every woman wishes to
procure that honour, protection and respect which traditional marriage bestows on
every married woman. In the case of the dissolution of the marriage, the children
belong to their father. Although in our society today there is a strong presence of
women leaders in some sectors of public life, the leaders of society remain
predominantly men.
Some traditional laws evidently infringe on the rights of women. 6 In a difficult
situation where both genders are involved, men often emerge unscathed. Women
suffer even to the point of offering their lives. In the case of adultery, for instance,
those mothers who have been abandoned by their husbands lack words to express
their ordeal.
It is a society where widowers quickly take another life partner, while widows
suffer human degradation from men and most painfully from other women. 7 A
woman writing on the plight of widows articulates her view and observations as
follows:
A widower is free to marry as many times as he wishes, depending on how many
times he lost his wife, but in the case of a widow she is forced by the sanctions
imposed by the society to marry only a next-of-kin and in rare cases should she be
allowed to marry outside her late husband’s lineage. Whenever this situation of
marriage outside the kindred occurs, it always has no approval of the late
husband’s kindred. Ironically, if a woman loses two husbands then she never gets
another chance to marry because she is assumed to be a husband killer. 8
¤Some women, particularly those who read the Old Testament critically, aver that
these traditional laws are against the message of the Bible. See e.g. D. N. Nwachukwu, “The
Christian Widow in African Culture,” in The Will to Arise: Women, Tradition and the
Church in Africa (ed. M. A. Oduyoye and M. R. A. Kanyoro; New York: Orbis Books,
1992), 68.
¥Cf. M. C. Nwaturuocha, Widows in our Society (Onitsha: Snaap, 2000), 21, includes a
picture depicting some women, who are usually the close relations of a man, who were
taunting their widowed sister-in-law in the name of tradition.
¦C. U. Asogwa, Widowhood, Human Dignity and Social Justice in Nigeria: A Biblical-
Theological Study (Enugu: Director, Development Education Centre, 1993), 23. Another
work by the same author on the plight of women is Women’s struggle, Women’s work: A
Discussion Guide for Church Women’s Group (Ibadan: CARE-CAN Publishers, 1987).