By Sylvester Odion Akhaine
As you approach the village of Emacuta, through a pathway barely wide enough to accommodate the passage of an automobile and flanked with wild bushes wearing a crown of crimson dust, you come upon a variety of fetish articles, symbolic of the spiritual inclinations of its inhabitants. These items, adorning the side of the bushes at random intervals and at the entrance of the many pathways running into farmlands, give the warning to hedge off unwanted persons or act as protection against the nefarious. Ahead, clouds of smoke spring from some outdoor kitchens and mingle with those from freshly burnt weeds and brushwood from farmlands to form a slapdash that goes upward, spreading outward as if aiming to hug the sky above. As you come into the embrace of the expansive open grounds that form the main village dwellings and comprise various clusters of huts, tree crops, and domestic animals, you cannot help but revel in the reminiscence of your growing-up years. It evokes in your current subconscious a feeling of total freedom. Also, it makes you feel even more welcome in this pristine and peaceful atmosphere, an environ so much removed from the complexities that make up the wacky world that is now yours. It further makes you think to yourself: what a ruse, this new found life of yours; called “advanced life” or more commonly called modernity you are compelled, albeit unenthusiastically, in line with your educational status, to live as you flow with its tides.
This village, relatively sizeable, despite its seeming rustic nature, draws you from time to time by its serenity to take refuge away from the craziness of your abode as a sanctuary for peace. A giant lamp, which seems to be automatically put on at the turn of a nocturne by a diligent hand, the type very much lacking where you now dwell, lights up the very dark night and sitting on scaffolding. It cuts the picture of some antique lighthouse illumining the way for and giving guidance to any soul caught by nightfall in the denseness of its surrounding bushes, some one hundred metres away from the dwellings where pit toilets and water wells which usually brim over during the rains are located and which could very well become traps that such unwary strangers or itinerant visitors whose lips speak of and footfalls bear the marks of shalom are warned off.
Wandering off in thought, your mind bounces to the excuse made by you, this time, to pay a visit to your most beloved place of origin.
Marriage is the foremost and most elemental cultural institution for social order. Called in by a relative to help out with issues arising from a marriage case, you least hesitate as the allure of been* at home overwhelms your better sense of judgment which warns you not to interfere in a dispute between a man and his wife, particularly as you were not privy to the mode of the relationship, and since you are not a legal judge and are only a few months old in the business yourself and therefore, cannot claim to be a pundit in the matter. Although you can tell that the reason for your advice being sought is not necessarily because of your reputation as a straightforward and objective adjudicator right from your childhood days whenever you were called as a witness or judge by your peers or elders in domestic cases that came up as part of everyday living but because you are now perceived, despite your age as a wise and respected sage, and one with high achievements within and outside the locality who not only comes but also feels at home with everyone, blending with them as if nothing has changed in your status, and this, some make a point of duty to point out at every given opportunity.
You therefore try to get to the root of the matter to help in whatever way you can and then dispose of the matter and go on to enjoy the rest of the vacation in peace when the characters involved open up and you get your ears full with the following mouth gaping facts, happening in our time and age, which would alter a major aspect of your view to life, much beyond your imagining.
In Emacuta as in most other societies that have managed to preserve their primordial customs you would be enthralled and would hear of the practices of marriage rites and customs. First and foremost, for any such union to be acceptable, parents’ acquiescence and blessings were imperative and parents indeed had, to some extent, a sort of over-lordship over their daughters and could give and retrieve them in a marriage contract. Next, and overriding on other consideration, apart from the aforementioned, is payment of bride price which is compulsory, and which failure in this respect, would make a man unable to lay claims to a woman even when already blessed with the fruit of the womb, by her. My candid opinion on both requirements is that they must have been invented in the course of the evolution of tradition as a way of safeguarding the girl child from abuse by irresponsible men who may not know the essence of marriage and may go get a wife for the sake of use and dump. Since the parent’s experienced eye is there to do the job of scanning for a good man and the bride price is there to show the financial competence of the man, these are put in place.
Akhigbemen and Orofo, peasant farmers, grew up in the crucible of this way of life. They had an average means and were blessed with a daughter, Ekata. She was so well-endowed; imagine a well-horned banana tree: wonderful calves, a curvy backside, and the most symmetrically sized busts; feminine vitals that made her the cynosure of both genders such that old men would wish to be young yet again, as she blossomed into the stage at which she was expected to start the marital journey.
Agbon, an industrious young man in the village had right from when Ekata sprouted into adolescence with manifest feminine generosity, been head over heels in love with her, and on the day they were brought together by fate, he did not hesitate to set the ball rolling on what he felt would be a lifelong affair. Ekata was homebound from a well with a bowl of water on her head. Agbon, who at the same time, was sauntering along one of the numerous pathways which dotted the village, ran into her. He looked at her, longingly, and Ekata gave a fluttering smile, looking slightly away. The smile seemed a soft landing and if ever he had hesitated in chatting up a woman, this was not such a time. It was a phase as a man, he needed not to perambulate, so he went straight to the point.
“Ekata, would you marry me?” he asked.
In reply, the smile broadened as her brows twitched askance, expressing some slight surprise before her eyelids finally flicked backwards to reveal very wide-brimmed white eyes that looked straight into his.
He stared back undaunted, saying further, “I ‘m in love with you”.
“You, in love with me? How? Please don’t waste my time,” she said as she walked away.
That brief encounter evoked a thought process. Ekata rested her hands across her breasts and thought “He is handsome, responsible, and quite hardworking but I need to convince myself that I love him, and if so, will my father also like him and allow us to get married and….?” She shifted into a thought process. Things worked as though driven by gripping and insuperable forces. Now, she grew wings and glided through the clouds like one of the angels in some mosaic canvas. In a short while, she found herself drowning in an ocean. She somehow swam through as though propelled by a boat engine. The next moment she was in a cathedral, a song of joy filtered across the generously lit hall. In the distant skies above, more and more angels clustered bearing flutes of Hosanna while the sixth heaven opened revealing the mystery of creation. Then, she saw Agbon mounted on a chariot driven by many co-joined horses. The chariot seemed to glide through the air without really touching the ground, a scenario not dissimilar to Prophet Elijah’s ride to the heavenly realm. In a twist of wonders, it glided into a room with a bed on which lay two golden wedding rings. Agbon, now struck by a thunderbolt, not derived from the angst of elemental forces from on high, but of emotional arrows thrown by Efae, goddess of love, of beauty, the one who never failed to pay a yearly homage to her beloved, Ekejiokhor. Efae visits were heralded by throngs of love arrows, and if anyone was struck by any of them, bespoke a sure-footed landing on the turf of a soul mate in love. These bolts ripped through Agbon’s senses without warning and he saw himself before Efae, the goddess of undiluted love and fidelity who beamed at him with a countenance that signaled approval. As in a slide transmission, Agbon beheld another feminine figure. Beholding this image meant being rooted in eternal purity. The figure was so delicately endowed: think now of the most delicate and sensuous of a woman’s nature—the legs, the waist, the stomach line, the bust, and a face with quickly changing dimples. Imagine, a song being piped from the fragile lips of such a creature—‘amazing grace’. Agbon now found himself in an ocean of dirty water, soon followed by an ocean of blue waters, and these happened in quick succession. Then, he emerged, draped in ceremonial clothes and a creature that had beads adorning her shoulder line and a crown made in Okuku hairstyle, made more radiant by beads, was by his side. He saw an elderly man in what looked like a potpourri assemblage of merrymakers, pouring wine on the foreground of an ancestral totem that stood the test of time.
Agbon fell into the same thought process dreaming of beautiful Ekata where he assured himself that from Ekata’s demeanour and response to their encounter, she would be his for time infinite. He decided to take concrete steps to bring this dream to reality. Although, a man of little means, he had faith, and since this could move mountains he believed that if he put in his best he would raise the required funds to meet the necessary marriage requirements, but first things first. He knew the saying that a farmer does not travel on a long trip when the harvest is ripe. He took the bull by the horn and went to see Ekata’s father, Akhigbemen.
***
The roots formed a cobweb on the ground surface, partly finding accommodation in the depth of the soil. The trunk stood robustly in defiance of the burden of its boughs which made a subliminal outline of a roof archetype with a profoundly expansive formation that provided a shed that served as an outdoor recreation spot. The owners of the compound had resisted the temptation to cut down the acacia tree in its early years of growth, despite the risk of tropical storms with raging winds and heavy rains. But the value of it as a natural carbon sink saved it.
Akhigbemen sat under the acacia tree, in the front of his house. He looked up and saw a man approaching and wondered who the August visitor was.
“Good day, Sir,” Agbon said with a slight bow as he got close to Akhigbemen.
“Welcome, my son. I hope all is well?” Akhigbemen said in obvious apprehension.
“All’s well, elder one,” Agbon scratched his head apparently in search of the right words to say next.
“Hm, hm… it’s well, ehm…then thank God. So…, why this visit”
“To ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage and…. for your blessing.” Agbon blurted out, forcing some form of calmness into his tone.
Taken aback, Akhigbemen somehow managed to conceal his surprise from Agbon. He had never given serious thought to his daughter being due for marriage, much less who to give her out to.
“When did you make my daughter’s acquaintance?”
“I love her elder one,” Agbon said ignoring the question
“Marriage is more than love,” Akhigbemen retorted.
“I’m capable, I’m able, I‘ve what it takes,” Agbon replied, all in one breath, and then added after a slight pause, “I’m a man.”
Akhigbemen took a deep look at the man and realised from his posture and countenance how serious and intent he was. He was not gifted in seeing through people but he could tell the sincerity of this man’s intention. He would ask him to do the needful and get the elders in his family to come for the formal request. But suddenly, the prospect of getting more than a bride price whetted his desire seeing that this man could be pushed by love into doing more than is required to get his woman. He knew he should not continue with the marital conversation because it was not normal. A prospective bride would do the marriage talk with a retinue of older and elderly relatives, and besides he had no real knowledge of the man, from birth and back into his family lineage and history. However, he had the reservoir of belief that Agbon would make a good husband for Ekata, his beloved daughter. Therefore, he saw an opportunity to put the suitor to the test and extract some commitment from him outside the watchful eyes of the more experienced progenitors. His wants were many, but he would start with these: a cottage and some money to boot.
“Do you have the means to marry?” Akhigbemen asked resuming the conversation.
“What do you want me to do?” Agbon asked straightening up with a countenance that suggested sagacity and at the same time giving off his nonplus of mind.
“Build me a cottage, my son, my daughter is yours”, Akhigbemen says with a note of finality.
“Is that all?” Agbon asked for clarity.
“You do just that,” Akhigbemen said and, without a break in breath, called out to Ekata. She walks in with a wrapper made of local fabric wrapped around her slim frame. On seeing Agbon, she became shy. Her mien told it all without asking her opinion or consent, which would have been a matter of formality anyway.
The old man beckoned to his daughter and took her hands and joined with that of Agbon, saying: “My daughter, I present you to this young man as wife.” He had given her hands in marriage, and she would live with him in no distant future.
Although Ekata’s views were not sought on whether she liked the man or not. It mattered less under the patriarchal order of her community, and she had given him a space in her heart since their first meeting. She looked down while Agbon stared almost immobile, lost at the sight of her, imagining, in a thought process, that the taste of this pudding would be better in the eating than looks.
In a matter of months after the discussion with Ekata’s father, Agbon was able to fulfill his promise and build for Ekata’s father the cottage he asked for, since that was the primary request made of him, so he could tie the nuptial knots with Ekata. He lived up to his promise from his savings. A few weeks later, Ekata moved into Agbon’s house and began fulfilling all marital obligations in advance of the wedding, and was soon blessed with the fruit of the womb. The final marriage rites for which Agbon was saving were to be performed at a yet-to-be-determined date because his income projections had suffered a shortfall due to some unforeseen economic downturn that affected his business and community. However, without much warning, Ekata’s father suddenly became desirous of payment of the bride price and made no pretense as to the urgency of it. Agbon who had taken for granted his patience on the matter was taken aback when he made the demand for the pride price intolerably. On account of his failure to meet the deadline set by him, he recalled his daughter. This action put a wedge in a somewhat promising union.
Agbon went into a thought process. Had he not been alive to his marital responsibilities and tried to meet his entire obligation to his father-in-law. But for the year which had initially promised to be good for harvest and which had suddenly turned gloomy, he had had everything in control but alas the rains would not come on time. Those, including him, who had cultivated their land early enough with the hope of an early harvest, were in for a disappointment. Seeds were roasted in the hot bowels of the earth. In such no-rain times, the community was accustomed to appeasing the gods for every imaginable sin that might have been the cause of the problem. Young virgins would go on a procession in their naturalness through the entire community raining curses on invincible forces presumed to be responsible for the hardship. Often they invoked the power of their womanhood which no one dared challenge. Weirdly, this communal ritual had its potency because, upon its enactment, the virgins were always driven back to their homestead by a heavy downpour. This time around, it happened just this way but the weather had already taken its toll on those who lived by farming. Bushes wore the mark of the injurious weather, food crops that managed to sprout were at best, withered. In some fortunate cases, morning dew helped to cushion the lean harvest Even though the dew dropped through the drought period, it was just too little. The crux of the matter was that the yields from the harvest were so meagre and were at best used for survival rather than money-making. Agbon thought that his father-in-law would understand his plight but was surprised when he made him look irresponsible due to his financial drawback which was the lot of all in the community.
Now Atiegbemin, a local trader who hails from Amiede, a nearby village dealt in Western products and was rich by the standard of his locality, being untouched by the fall out of the drought, and hearing through the village rumour mill of Akhigbemen’s action on his son-in-law, decided to exploit the situation by offering to pay Ekata’s bride price in addition to other cash incentives. The go-between, who considered the pecuniary gains in the marriage deal, did not hesitate to meet with Ekata’s father on the issue. For Akhigbemen, this is a golden opportunity to end the tenure of the farcical relationship his daughter had gone into with Agbon, humiliated. It was a time to acquire some good fortune for himself. He summoned his daughter to his sitting room.
“Ekata, my daughter I called you back home for a simple reason. You recall that Agbon is yet to pay your bride price. I’m therefore giving you to another, someone, who is more up to the task of being a husband to you; Atiegbemin. He had offered to pay your bride price, without any delay. Take him as your husband.”
In shock, Ekata stood for a couple of minutes. She knew her father well and that he was not joking on such issues and would only speak on them when his mind was made up. When she regained her composure, she asked with a noticeable trepidation in her voice. I don’t understand father. I had thought the call back was to put some pressure on Agbon so that he would hasten to pay my bride price.
“That was the initial plan,” said her father.
“But why the change in plans?” she asked further.
“Because he is taking too long, my dear, and I refuse to become the talk of the town and the ridicule of family members who had accused me of dashing you out for a cottage.”
She gasped and said, “But it was what you asked for”.
“In addition to and not as a substitute for the bride price,” her father countered.
“It’s more than the bride price, ten times over”
“It still doesn’t replace it”.
“Why then didn’t you ask him to pay in the first place?” She asked.
“So that he would now take forever in building the cottage, that is, if he ever does, after paying the bride price and claiming you fully for himself.” He looked intently at his daughter and sensing the strength and depth of emotional ties she must have forged with Agbon said, “Oh my daughter, use your head, you are too much of a jewel for someone to just walk in here and snatch you away for just a pouch of bride price, simply because it is clad in love even though it must be emphasized that the bride price remains a customary duty for your becoming wife to any man”.
“Then give him time, father,” Ekata blurted out.
“Until when my daughter? Two, Three, Four Years, or until you have given birth to all the children in your womb? Time is what I cannot afford right now. You think of it, what if he does not ever get out of this financial difficulty, how am I sure I would find someone this suitable for you again, and in good time? Remember you are a woman and time is ticking”.
“Then, I must help him find the money,” she said.
“And be ready to face the possibility of fending for him and the children you would bear him, all your life”, he said persuasively.
“I don’t mind,” she said.
“You do, you must do! I paid your mother’s bride price and all that went with it. Thank God, she is not here now to witness your senseless behavior but whether you like it or not, someone must pay yours.”
That ended the altercation between the father and his daughter, and put paid to any hope of a change in the man’s mind.
Ekata was caught in a thought process. “How can I go with a man I never knew from Adam, a person I am not friends with, in the least, a man whom I never courted? What kind of tradition is this? Simply because a man is unable to meet up with the payment of bride price due to no fault of his, his wife is taken away from him without any qualms of conscience. Where will I start from? How would I find happiness? I wish I had the means to help my husband. Fate, why are you this cruel to me?” Ekata sobbed quietly. “My father’s words are law according to the custom of the village and I can only voice any objections but cannot put them into action. Besides, and to make matters worse, my mother is no more, at least as a woman she would have understood my situation, and her maternal support could have countered this abuse of tradition and custom arising from the craftiness and greed of my father. To lose one’s mother at a tender age was indeed to lose the kind of succour that comes from the maternal breast which no other can ever replace,” she mused.
Back in Emacuta, Agbon pined in great anguish that his love and wife for want of the payment of bride price had been forcefully taken away from him. He almost took solace when Ekata sent word to him that she had found out that the seed of a mortal cycle had been sown by him. She was in the second trimester. He jumped up in emotional triumph thinking that there was still hope for him until he got the latter part of the message stating that Ekata was now living as a wife with Atiegbemin.
* * *
Atiegbemin, on his part, began to revel in the joy of a fulfilled manhood until goblins, sphinxes, ghosts, and motley other non-descript creatures wielding lethal objects, gave him a hot chase. He ran. It was a run for survival but his legs seemed to fail him while the frightful creatures closed in on him. Each time it seemed he had been caught, it turned out to be just a close shave. Suddenly, he saw himself standing on a big log hanging over a large pool of water. He ran across and as he approached the end of it, a lion stood exactly at the spot of alighting, poised to pounce on its prey. Next, he saw himself in the woods, his movement clogged by thorny shrubs and undergrowth. As he ran, his effort was stalled as though weighed down by forces beyond his control. At last, he found himself seated at a huge dining table set with a sumptuous meal; a buffet, it seemed. He took a sweeping look around in search of his wife with whom he dined since their nuptial turn. At this point, without a conclusion to his search, his mortal senses came back to life. His bed was soaked in his sweat.
Atiegbemin, not one to take such things lying low, made noise over the dream he had. He told whoever cared to listen that a foolish man called Agbon who did not know the difference between paying a bride price for a wife and doing a man a favour was after him with magical powers to destroy him and his family. He threatened and tried to make good his threat to take Agbon to the elders’ council over these allegations and other perceived overtures to take what he claimed was his traditionally wedded wife from him.
Agbon was not a man to allow injustice to triumph, he would rather fight. He pondered his predicament and explored the possibility of a favorable judgment under the elders’ council. Although tradition was in some cases very rigid, it did lean towards situational requirements knowing that laws were made for man, not the other way around. He hoped custom and tradition would prevail, and even under the modern justice system, he could already deduce in whose favour the scales would tip in respect of his wife due to what he saw as his foolish actions but for his unborn son, he would fight and to any level because the underlying factors behind his losing his wife and yet-to-be-born child to another man were beyond the ramifications of the law whether traditional or modern. These factors were born out of greed and the need to satisfy the ravenous desires of a man who did not mind exchanging the happiness of his daughter for pecuniary gains. He likened his fate to that which had befallen his country two decades earlier. His country had been pregnant with a much-sought child- democracy. But the military bent on sitting on the country’s resources used force and guile, violated the sanctity of the people’s will, aborted the pregnancy, and reinforced authoritarian rule. He decided not to suffer such a fate that befell his country.
* * *
He petitioned the mobile court which happened to be sitting in his village. The channels of redress were set up to settle disputes among the local people to eliminate the hassle of going to the city to seek redress for perceived injustice. It was to counter this move that his kin, Atiegbemin, had summoned him to the elders’ council. First, he bluntly condemned his competitor’s role. As one who believed in the supremacy of the rule of law, he insisted that the law took its course since the whole principle of justice, whether by a traditional or a modern approach, was based on the need for fairness and equity regardless of means and circumstances. The matter, as it were, was now before Mrs. Ejiya who presided over the mobile court.
On the first day of the hearing, the village town hall was filled to the brim. This resulted from the attention drawn to the case by Atiegbemin, the defendant’s dust-raising. Members of the elder’s council were there, and in large numbers ostensibly to see if the legal system of government would upturn and run contrary to the laid down customs and traditions of the people. Akhigbemen, Ekata, Agbon, and Atiegbemin, were in the dock.
The juror struck the gavel to signal the commencement of proceedings.
“Who is the father of this woman?” The juror asked looking at the persons in the dock with a high sense of purpose.
“I ‘m, my lord,” says Akhigbemen.
“You gave your daughter in marriage to the plaintiff, Agbon, and later to the second defendant, Atiegbemin?”
“Yes my lord, and it is because Agbon failed to pay her bride price.”
“Therefore you gave her out in marriage with his pregnancy to another man.”
“The pregnancy is mine, I paid her bride price,” Atiegbemin interjected.
“Quiet! This is a law court,” Juror Ejiya, said, striking the gavel.
“The pregnancy is mine. She has been pregnant for six months my lord and he hadn’t set his eyes on it by that time,” Agbon countered defiantly.
“Alright, then, I ask you, Mr. Atiegbemin: how do you know you are responsible for the pregnancy?
“My lord, when I took her for wife, she came to live with me. I knew her and almost immediately, let’s say in about a month, her feet started swelling, she slept more often and her tummy increased in size,” he explained.
The court roared in peals of laughter and the sound of the gavel resonated.
“Let’s hear what Mr. Agbon has to say,” Juror signalling order in the courtroom.
“My lord, Ekata remains my wife. Her pregnancy is mine. I knew her in her fertile season six months ago. Although her father sent for her a few weeks after that, after which he refused to release her back to me, she sent me messages barely a month after that she was taken to another man’s house as wife in her condition of pregnancy which had resulted from the unity of our passion and which was making her vomit, and giving her a swooning and revival spell and making her quite selective with her meals. You take a good look at her stomach. This is not the size of a pregnancy below Six months.”
“I can see you are an expert in pregnancy matters,” put in the Juror.
Again, there is laughter and the juror speaks.
“Order in the Court…,” striking the gavel again
“What does the woman have to say?” She asked.
“I slept with Agbon while I was in his home and I am quite sure the pregnancy in his. But I also slept with Atiegbemin, for fear of being beaten up, but the pregnancy is not his,” she said confidently.
“Ekata, you mean in all of this, all you could do is to sleep with whoever of the men you found yourself with. No questions, no hesitations, no opinion,” the juror interjected. Laughter again but it fizzled out immediately Ekata opened her mouth to respond.
“Yes, my lord. My father’s words are law. I can only disobey him at my peril. Helplessly, I was goaded into the arms of a man I hardly knew within months of being forced out of the arms of the man I loved. Despite my opposition, much suppressed though, to my new espousal, Atiegbemin took me to his home in Amiede where we lived as husband and wife, though pregnant. In the circumstances, all I could do was endure. I must use the opportunity of the freedom of speech granted me by this court to say openly that I have no love for Atiegbemin and my life has become miserable because I have to go outside of myself all the time to show love and respect to a man I feel nothing for so as not to be a source of disgrace to my father,” Ekata said with a measure of relief.
At this, the court was quiet. You could hear a pin drop.
“All this is because the weaker sex is a pawn; in the hands of her parents and her spouse. But there must be a leeway with which to assert some individuality and take a stance if she tries hard enough,” the juror said breaking the silence.
“My lord, I had no choice, but I know I love and want the first man,” she remarked.
“Then why did you not insist,” the juror asked, flustered.
“Please understand, my lord, I could not, not under the prevailing circumstances,” Ekata appealed.
The juror paused, looked at everyone in the hall, and raised and hit the gavel for a break.
Upon resumption of the sitting, the juror announced the decision of the court to use Deoxyribonucleic Acid, a DNA, to determine the paternity of the unborn baby, since the time of carnal knowledge of the woman by both men is close enough to create confusion of who was responsible for the pregnancy. She scheduled all involved to attend a session with a medical practitioner who would explain all that was involved in such a process to determine the paternity of a child. She assures them that this method had been found to have no inherent limitations except those arising from laboratory errors often resulting from improper handling of samples, expired chemicals used for testing, and other human factors that could lead to false results. She concluded that, by and large, this method was error-proof and can be considered dependable. Upon further explanation by the medical practitioner, all parties consented to the procedure.
***
Ekata, Agbon, and Atiegbemin sat on the lounge of a provincial hospital that had facilities for paternity tests. The pregnancy is now twenty-four weeks old. Sample of cells were collected from the mouths of the disputants. Those trained in the field call them buccal swabs. This way, a vast chemical specimen would reveal the real father of the unborn baby.
***
Judgment day. The courtroom was unusually crowded. It was a sea of human beings, those sympathetic to the litigants came to witness the juror’s ruling on the matter. There was uneasy calm about the place that was exacerbated by the tardiness of the juror, deferring to her professional mannerism. Two police orderlies appeared and took position behind the juror’s armchair. At long last, she emerges from the inner chamber of the tribunal premises, in lordly elegance. Everyone rises in deference to her lordship and she sits. The clerk read the case, Agbon vs. Atiegbemin. The litigants registered their presence. The juror cleared her voice. “Here is my ruling,” she began.
“Akhigbemen, the first defendant gave her daughter in marriage to Agbon, the plaintiff on the condition that he would build him a cottage and pay the bride price, the latter a demand of custom. The man met the first part of these conditions and had yet to fulfill the second condition. The partial fulfillment of the marriage conditions, not in whole, made the co-defendant give out his daughter in marriage to the second defendant. In arriving at a decision therefore, the court took cognizance of the reason for the non-fulfillment of the promise made by the plaintiff; and this would be the point that as a result of twists and turns in the fortunes of the complainant which the court recognized as a part of the vicissitudes of life and for which every human heart should leave room for made the plaintiff appeal to the first defendant, Akhigbemen, asking for more time to harness resources to fulfil his obligation but went unheeded. This court took judicial note of the fact that at no time did the plaintiff express his unwillingness to fulfil the second part of the marriage obligation.
The court also took cognizance of the fact that the first defendant relying on the provisions of customs, gave his daughter in marriage to the second defendant. The latter who wanted a wife did not hesitate to get married to the object of litigation. Evidence before this tribunal shows that the second defendant knew that the subject of litigation was already customarily betrothed to the plaintiff. The subject of the litigation, Ekata, had spent six months with the plaintiff as husband and wife. The second defendant did not for a moment think about the possible effect of his marrying such a woman and went on to manipulate the native laws and customs of our land tied to the payment of bride price payment egged on by the puff of wealth.
These aforementioned are however not the matter brought before this court. The import of their mention here is to create a background to the matter that is up for consideration. Now, in laying claims to the pregnancy of the object of litigation, the dispute over the ownership of the pregnancy becomes the central element of this litigation and that is what this court has to attend to. Gone are the days when such matters posed a huge problem in legal reviews. These days, thankfully, there are scientific means to illuminate such hitherto dark areas of legal jurisprudence. It is in light of this, that it pleases this honorable jury to note that the era of divination to understand the unknown affairs of man and woman is over, thanks to progress in science. The technique employed to provide accurate answers to paternity questions is DNA, and this honorable court ordered a DNA examination of the litigants. In the precedent case, the case of Idialu vs. Okonofua, in which the trial juror found in favour of Idialu, the complainant, whose wife’s pregnancy the defendant had laid claims, a DNA test confirmed the biological affinity of the foetus to the plaintiff and of which this court had also deemed it worthwhile to have recourse to in this case. Upon the sequencing of the chemical bases of the DNA, which is the unit of life, and as explained by the doctor, Mr. Atiegbemin, the second defendant and one of the claimants of the unborn child failed to match the obligate cells present in the child. Half of the obligate cells in the child matched the plaintiff’s and the other half matched that of the subject of litigation, Ekata’s. The probability of paternity is sure for Mr. Agbon while Atiegbemin is excluded from the possibility of being the biological father of the unborn child. Thus, the report showed, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the pregnancy belonged to the plaintiff, Mr. Agbon.
In conclusion, but first, as a way of expressing my opinion on the very salient issue of parents’ influence on their children’s choice of a spouse which came up in the course of this case, I wish to note that customs are made for man and woman and not the contrary. Thus custom is subject to reform in line with the changing realities of our world. Women are not to be treated as chattels to be sold to the highest bidder. Marriage involves emotions, feelings, and that thing everyone calls love. They are the psychological factors that contribute more to the success of marriage than any other physical or ephemeral consideration. Also, since women are by no means inferior to men; both are equally endowed by the creator, social functions such as bearing and taking care of children and other domestic duties should by no means become a social construct for justifying the perpetuation of acts of inequality between man and woman.
To put it differently, this should not signify or dignify male dominance – what some would call patriarchal hegemony. Without a doubt, women have so many mountains to climb before they reach the Uhuru summit. To accelerate societal consciousness and action in their favour, it is high time they took a step. The first is a fight to reform the laws of our land to allow women the right to consent in this serious business of marriage. This is no longer an era for women to be kicked up and down or tossed about while they remain mute in the name of respect for the ‘superior’ gender or in blind deference to parental wishes. I am not unaware of the saying, ‘What an elder sees while sitting, a child cannot see even while standing’. This court finds it particularly insulting and demeaning to the female human person. It would have failed in the temple of justice if it did not, for posterity’s sake, state that the first defendant acted shrewdly and inhumanely towards not just the plaintiff but also his daughter, the subject of litigation, in the matter that led to this case. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights grants all the right of expression. The subject of litigation should be aware that she has the right to say no to a mismatch, or any match. Therefore, she has the leave of this court to seek redress on her right to expression in the manner of consent in a marriage.”
The juror lifted the heavy end of the gavel and allowed it to fall on the table. She bowed and retreated ceremoniously into the inner chambers whence she came, and with her exit began an unceremonious change of one’s mindset in the shaping of doubts and shaky opinions on the need to embrace modernity even though it is acknowledged that it must always be trimmed into a formation that would not strip the people of their essence, their values and their worth which is a measure of their intrinsic culture, their tradition.
The author of this piece is a Professor of Political Science at the Lagos State University, Ojo
