COUNTLESS accusations have been levelled against African culture for domestic violence, gender violence, forced marriages, treating women as objects of men and allowing men to beat their wives and daughters for challenging men’s decisions.
Feminist activists, stage regular demonstrations demanding immediate stoppage to the denial of women’s rights by African culture and let African women enjoy their constitutional rights and freedoms to marry whoever they want and wear whatever they want including the freedom to expose their bodies in public.
The consequences of such rights and freedoms especially to the African girl-child are never brought into consideration.
Rather, they are dismissed as cultural issues which the constitution says are best left to the girl-child herself to choose without interference from society, parents or the public, once the girl-child has reached the legal age of majority of 18 years.
The attributions of denials and abuses of women’s rights and freedoms to African culture by politicians and so-called eminent scholars are not borne out by the sacred teachings of African ancestors contained in African ancient writings and oral traditions.
These teachings show that marriage in African culture and tradition is not forced but rather guided by the demand for a show of practical wisdom, responsibility, care and love towards each other by those who intend to marry.
Below is one such example:
Zakia was a beautiful and clever girl.
She lived with her father who always approached her for advice.
But once he did not do so.
And Zakia was angry!
This was when the king asked the girl’s father to let him marry her.
Zakia’s father did not tell his daughter about it, but promised the king saying, “Oh, my King, my daughter will be very glad to marry you.”
But Zakia was not glad and said, “No, Father, No, No! I will not marry and love a man that I do not know.”
“My dear daughter,” said her father.
“If you don’t marry him, he may be very angry! But he is very good and clever. Please, do as I say!”
And Zakia said, “All right. I’ll marry him, but the King must learn a trade. I’ll marry him only if he does so.
“One day he may lose his throne and what shall we do then? We shall be poor and die of hunger. “Go and tell the King my wish.”
Zakia’s father went and told the King his daughter’s wish.
The King smiled and said, “Your daughter is not only beautiful but also clever. I’ll be glad to do as she asks. I am sure that we shall be happy together.”
So the King began to learn the trade of a weaver.
Soon he could weave a beautiful handkerchief, and he sent it to Zakia as a present.
“If she likes my present, she will marry me, I am sure,” he thought.
Zakia liked the handkerchief and said, “Now I see that he loves me.”
In a month they married and began to live together.
Zakia often helped the king with advice.
One day the king came to her and said, “I want to know my people. How can I learn what they think? How can I learn what they want?”
Zakia thought for a while and then said, “My King, if a man wishes to know another man well, he must live with him, or meet him often.
“I think you must put on the same clothes as ordinary people do and meet them in the streets most of the time.”
“I like your advice,” the king said.
And the next day he went walking along the streets with two of his ministers.
Then dinner time came. “We shall not go home for dinner,” he said.
“We shall go to a cafe where people eat.”
So they came to a small cafe in a little street.
But when they entered, the floor under their feet slipped away and they found themselves under the floor.
They shouted for help but nobody came.
“What a nice welcome for a King!” said the king angrily.
Suddenly they saw the face of an ugly old man peering down on them laughing.
“Ha! Ha! Ha! In three days I shall kill you! Your meat will make a nice dish for my cafe. “Everybody likes my cafe for its very good dishes! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
With these words the ugly man vanished.
“Let us tell him who we are when he comes back,” said one of the ministers.
“Oh, no,” said the king.”
“If he knows that, he will kill us today. Give me time to think.”
And he sat down by the wall and thought.
Some hours later the ugly man came back to them.
“Here is some water for you to drink. But I shan’t give you any food. You are fat, enough.”
The king then said, “If we must die, we must. But I want to tell you something.
“You may get much money for it.”
And the ugly man said, “Yes I like much money. Go on!”
And the king said, “I am a weaver and the King’s wife likes my work very much.
“I shall weave a handkerchief and you will take it to her and get more money from it than from the good dishes in your cafe, I am sure about that.”
The ugly man brought down a loom and thread, and the king began to work.
He made a beautiful handkerchief for Zakia.
The ugly man took the handkerchief and went to the king’s wife with it.
It was not easy to get to her, but at last the servants let him in.
“I have a very beautiful handkerchief,” he said to the king’s wife.
“Look at it, please. A good weaver made it. Will you buy it?”
Zakia understood at once that the king was in trouble.
“Yes, I’ll buy it. It is very beautiful,” she said.
Zakia bought the handkerchief and told her servants to follow the man while she followed them on horseback.
They came to the cafe and went in while she waited outside.
A fight broke out in the cafe and the king and his two ministers were rescued.
“My dear Zakia,” said the king when he saw her. “You have saved my life. I love you more than anyone in the world!”
Zakia was happy to hear these words, and the king and his wife went home and lived happily hereafter!