generalspeaking

Cultural Engineering

"The high rate of divorce is a worrisome situation resulting in adultery, prostitution and the births of children out of wedlock, and has become dangerous to society."
Deputy Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Kano, Nigeria

The Hisbah Board in Kano city, responsible for sharia law, has recognized a problem in that majority-Muslim northern Nigeria city. And they feel they have arrived at a solution. The problem has been the thousands arrested for improper dress, the selling of alcohol, the pervasive presence of prostitution, and the indecent mixing in society of the sexes, prohibited under Muslim laws.

The worrisome rising rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock child-bearing sought a solution. As did the sorry state of impoverished widows and divorcees whose desperate financial straits forced them to attempt to make a living on the streets of the city, a situation that appalled the conservative Islamic values of the general society.

The city was the venue of a number of terrorist attacks including multiple bombings taking place at bars serving alcohol in the Christian quarter of the city where 24 people were killed in July. That led to the banning of alcohol sales. An assassination attempt on the emir of Kano killed his driver and three bodyguards. The revered Muslim leader had spoken out against extremism.

A drive-by-shooting succeeded in taking the lives of nine women who were part of a polio vaccination drive whose purpose was to combat the scourge of poliomyelitis in one of the three countries of the world still bedevilled by its dreadful presence. In Afghanistan and Pakistan as well, health workers have been targeted by fundamentalist Islamists for trying to eradicate polio.

The solution to the incidence of these social improprieties and the lowly status of women was to conduct a mass marriage ceremony, where 1,111 marriages took place simultaneously. "Poverty is the major setback to people getting married, while divorce is becoming rampant", claimed Aminu Ibrahim Daurawa, commandant general of Kano's Hisbah Board.

To solve that dilemma the state government paid a token dowry of 10,000 naira (about $65) for each bride, giving them as gifts as well household utensils to help them set up a household. Grooms were given white brocade robes and scarlet hats to enhance the ceremony, and brides wore matching red outfits.
Some analysts claim a 50% divorce rate exists in northern Nigeria, where a Muslim man can simply state three times "I divorce you" to end a marriage. Perhaps it might have been a reasonable idea as well for the Hisbah Board to have a good hard look at re-interpreting that religious-cultural entitlement for men, enabling them to abandon their responsibilities.

A host of impoverished bachelors unable to afford the cost of a wedding leads them to resort to he use of prostitutes. As well, young Nigerians cannot afford the customary dowries required in both the Christian and Muslim communities, along with the expectation of gifts and ceremonies attending to a marriage.

A partial solution to these many social-religious problems may have been expressed by the collective marriage ceremony, but it may in fact turn out to be a temporary band-aid to a country where one hundred million people live on less than $1 a day despite a growing national economy.

Labels: Custom, Human Relations, Nigeria, Social-Cultural Deviations

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, December 21, 2013