SOC202
Danielle Plesser
August 5, 2008 4:30 PM
A Nigerian man has been forced to adhere to Islamic law and divorce 82 of his 86 wives. He was formerly a teacher and preacher, claiming that the Koran allowed a man to marry as many women as he could equally care for. When threatened with death, he agreed to divorce all but four women, the maximum amount allowed according to the law’s interpretation of the Koran. Most of these women are less than 20 years old, and some are even younger than the man’s children with other wives. The first article on BBC also mentions that he as well as all of his wives are unemployed, and the man (Mohammed Bello Abubakar) refused to explain where he got the money to feed all his wives and more than 170 children.
When I read this article, it felt like a bad joke. I mean, the man kind of laments his fate, being married to all these women, and goes as far as to say that it is only thanks to Allah that he can bear it. I’m glad Niger isn’t just shrugging this off and is insisting the law of four wives max be respected. I am concerned though, because there is no mention of any care offered to these women who will soon be divorced. Many of them are fairly young and some have as many as seven children. Since the article says that they are unemployed, I can’t imagine that they have any work experience. What will they do to support themselves? I’m not saying they ‘need a man’ to take care of them or anything silly like that, but it is troubling because they will suddenly be on their own, where before they were living in such a big family. I hope that the legal system, having forced this upon the women and their children, is aware that it now should be responsible for their well-being until they can care for themselves. I wish such situations weren’t present in Niger at all, but since they’re trying to correct it, they’d better do it right.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7591037.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7547148.stm (The first article, for which my article was a follow-up)
2 comments:
I am in total agreance with you. It is uppsored that he even thought that having 86 wives was ok, but that is besides the point. I am concered about the well being of the other 86 women and thier children. As you said many of them have had no work experience.I am just as concered as the next person.
I totally agree with the concern of the women, but what I'm wondering about is the kids. I mean if some of these 82 wives have maybe up to seven kids and living with a single mother there is going to be severe economic and social issues. I know you say that these women don't need a man to raise their family, but on the other hand not having any sort of father figure in your life can be psychologically daunting.
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