A Nigerian man, Nze Tobe Osigwe has said that Igbo culture in the past did not view divorce as stigmatizing.
The writer and filmmaker, who stated this in a Facebook post on Monday, August 18. said many women not only left their marriages and remarried many times, some had children for different husbands.
According to him, the stigma attached to divorce as well as polygamy is alien to Igbo culture.
Osigwe added that the people that made Africans believe in ‘till d3ath do us part’ now divorce when their marriages are not working.
“In the past, there was no social stigma attached to divorce in Igbo culture. Many women got divorced and remarried as many times as possible ehi wulu gboo,” he wrote.
For them, if marriage works, fine. If it does not, fine. You immediately go back to your father’s house and ask your kinsmen to get back your bride price. Once your father’s family ascertain it’s irreconcilable, bride price is quickly retrieved to open room for other men, married and unmarried, to try their luck.
Many women left their marriages wherein they bore children and remarried in the past. There was nothing like enduring an unworkable marriage because you have children.
Leaving a marriage never diminished a woman’s value. This stigma that comes with divorce today, as if it’s an abomination was inexistent.
Many women had children for different husbands in the past. Some women, after the end of their first marriage decided not to marry again but stay in their fathers houses where they lived out the rest of their lives comfortably without being shamed by the community, parents or siblings.
You see, this modern perspective of defining marriage as till death do us part is alien to Igbo culture. This alien POV alongside insistence on monogamy as the only acceptable form of marriage are the chief reasons some men think once they marry a woman, the woman belongs to them to do as they like for life. It’s also the reason some women stick to an abusive man as if it’s their destiny while praying ceaselessly for the man to change.
In the beginning, it was not so in Ala Igbo!
There is no shame or sin in leaving a marriage that is not working. Surprisingly, the people that made us believe till death do us part now divorce as many times as possible. They do not wait for death to do the parting. Well, I will not be surprised to also see them accept polygamy in the future.
