Her wedding day was one of happiness and
merry making. But that was a few years ago when Wunmi Oyediji was still
in love. Fast forward eight years and you have a completely different
story from the sweet romance that led Oyediji to the altar.
Oyediji, a banker with a reasonable
income, met Damilare when he was working in an IT firm in Lagos. But
shortly after their marriage, Damilare lost his job and has had none
since then, except for the mostly futile hustling he does at the
Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos State capital. The village is Nigeria’s
IT hub.
For over five years, Oyediji has been
shouldering the financial responsibilities at home like paying their
children’s school fees, feeding and clothing the family.
Twice, she has tried to set up business
for her husband and twice he has been unable to account for the money
invested in the businesses. On several occasions, Oyediji has caught
Damilare cheating on her and on a few other instances suspected him of
attempting to dupe her.
“It’s just like he’s contented with the
situation because he has since stopped looking for job or trying to take
care of his responsibilities at home. If I ask him for any money, he
will say ‘shebi you have money, go and do it now,’” she told Saturday PUNCH.
“Over a year ago, I gave him over N1.5m
to get some equipment from overseas which he said he would sell at the
Computer Village. Till now, he insists the goods have not arrived in
Nigeria and each time I ask, he keeps giving different reasons. Some
months ago, he asked for another N300,000 to clear some issues causing
the delay in bringing in the goods but I didn’t believe him; so I didn’t
give him.
“Earlier, I had given him about N1m for
another project but nothing also came out of that one. I know he also
cheats on me because I go through his phones but he always denies it. In
spite of everything I do for him, he still connives with my mechanic to
increase the cost of auto parts so that he can take cuts. ”
However, Oyediji is not considering
divorce or separating from Damilare yet for a few reasons including the
fear of raising their children without a father figure.
“Apart from the fact that I don’t want to
raise the children as a single parent, I also don’t want my marriage to
fail. People will say the marriage failed because I’m richer than my
husband and that’s why I’m not submissive to him. But that’s far from
the truth. Some of my friends wonder if I’ve been charmed but those are
the reasons I don’t want a divorce,” she said.
In many of such cases, the women suffer
in silence because of a range of reasons including the stigma and the
cultural issues associated with divorce. In Nigeria, divorce is frowned
at culturally and so divorcees often have a hard time getting someone to
remarry.
New trend?
Findings by Saturday PUNCH show
that what Oyediji is going through appears to be increasingly becoming
common in marriages, which goes against a culture of having men as
predominantly breadwinners in homes.
Although many people blame the situation
on the country’s socio-economic situation, which has thrown more men out
of job, findings show that more men these days appear to be content
with abdicating their responsibilities at home to their women.
However, this is not to say that some men
in such circumstances are not genuinely working hard to provide for
their families. But even such efforts have been described as little by a
cross section of respondents who spoke with our correspondent.
Some of the respondents said the way the
girl-child is often saddled with more domestic responsibilities than the
male-child toughens and helps her to cope better with life challenges
than the male child.
Indeed, most of the parents who spoke
with our correspondent said they are more likely to send their female
children on errands than their males. And often times, while the female
child is being sent on multiple errands, the male child is sitting idle
or clutching to his video game.
In the United States of America, a
research by the Prudential Financial Group already found that over half
of the country’s women are primary breadwinners in their households- 53
per cent precisely.
The research further “shows that 40 per
cent of these women are either single or divorced and support themselves
entirely, while 22 per cent of married women earn more than their
husbands.”
Another recent study carried out in the
US by Pew Research tracking back 50 years seems to confirm the trend.
The research also shows a recent record share of wives being more
educated than their husbands.
The report acknowledged that it used to
be more common for husbands to have more education than their wives but
that for the first time, the share of couples in which the wife is the
one marrying a man with a lower level of education is higher than those
in which the husband has more education.
For instance, the report stated that
“among married women in 2012, 21 per cent had spouses who were less
educated than they were—a threefold increase from 1960,” according to a
new Pew Research Centre analysis of census data.
A sociologist, Mr. Monday Ashibogwu of the Republic Media Limited in a phone conversation with Saturday PUNCH, identified Kenya in East Africa as also having a high number of women breadwinners in households.
“It’s even worse off in Kenya where there
is a high prevalence of lazy men who will not do anything and wait on
women because a lot of their women are very industrious,” he said.
Looking at similar situations in Nigeria, the case of Mr. David Popoola comes to the light.
Like Damilare, Popoola was into IT until
his business crashed about five years ago. Since then, he has depended
on his wife, Funke, who manages a thriving catering business in Lagos.
Since losing his job, Popoola has had a
few job offers, but he turned them all down for one reason or the other
each time an offer came. The latest one came when Popoola rejected a job
offer by the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, facilitated by
his uncle.
This attitude infuriated Funke and her appeals to get Popoola to work have so far been shunned by him.
In an informal interaction with Popoola
by our correspondent, he revealed he had turned down the latest job
offer because he felt the job did not befit his status.
“The job is beneath me. Can you imagine me doing a LASTMA job with my master’s degree? He said.
Funke, however, explained that she has
been providing for the home and paying the children’s school fees,
singlehandedly, for five years.
A source close to the family also shared
with our correspondent how Popoola wondered why there was so much fuss
over his decision to wait for his dream job.
“He told me that after all, he’s been
supporting the home since by taking care of the kids when his wife is at
work. His wife is tired of the whole thing, but she’s enduring it
because she doesn’t want to go through divorce,” the source said.
Like Popoola, Mr. Akpan, who is also jobless, has been taking care of the home while his wife, Gloria, is at work.
Gloria, a director in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, has been embarrassed by her husband’s situation.
Akpan, a chartered accountant was a
banker until he resigned some years ago after a recapitalisation policy
by the Central Bank of Nigeria led to mergers which affected his bank.
His complaint was that a younger worker was being put above him as his superior.
After a few months of searching for job,
Akpan got another one but resigned six months later, citing a similar
excuse. In all, Akpan has resigned from three jobs before deciding that
he was no longer interested in working for anyone.
Since Akpan’s last job in 2008, he has been relying on his wife to carry out the financial responsibilities in the home.
Gloria told our correspondent that in
addition to such responsibilities, she has had to constantly upgrade her
husband to keep up with her status as a senior federal civil servant.
“I buy him cars and give him money
because it will be shameful for the husband of a director to look
wretched. The situation bothers me but what can I do? It’s my cross,”
she said.
Tolulope, who is from a rich family, met
her husband in church. They courted briefly before getting married 10
years ago. Shortly after the marriage, Tolulope realised that Daniel was
not a comfortable businessman he had claimed to be. He always insists
that Gloria, a banker, is earning more than him and should therefore
foot the bills in the house.
Tolulope said she has grown tired of shouldering all the financial responsibilities at home, but does not know what to do.
She said, “He doesn’t do anything at
home. We used to share our children’s tuition fees between us but after
some time, he stopped paying. He said after all, I was earning more than
him.
“I never really knew him before we got
married because the marriage was arranged in our church. He gave me the
impression that he was responsible and had a comfortable job. It was
later that I got to know that he wasn’t a businessman as he had claimed.
“Sometimes, he would not come home. He
would say he had one business to attend to but none of the businesses
ever brought in money for the family. So I knew he must have been
cheating on me. I went through his phone one day and saw a text message
from someone claiming to be pregnant for him. He denied and swore to me
that he knew nothing about it.
“I don’t mind putting down more money at
home, I just want him to be putting something down too even if it’s only
N5,000. I bought him a car when he complained about taking public
transport.
“He gets jealous every time he sees me
with any man and if he asks for money and I don’t give him, he gets very
violent. The painful part was that he beats me in the presence of our
children.”
But interestingly, the trend is not peculiar to the country’s educated class alone. It cuts across all strata of the society.
For example, a sample carried out in major markets in Lagos shows a scenario similar to the ones earlier highlighted.
A lot of the women at Ketu and Mile 12
markets in Lagos are travellers from adjoining states like Oyo, Ogun,
Osun and Kwara, sending money home for the upkeep of their families.
One of the these traders from Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, identified herself as Mrs. Ramota.
Ramota said though she labours everyday
to send money home to her family, reports getting back to her concerning
her husband had been unpleasant.
“In spite of all I do to feed my husband
and four children, travelling up and down, I hear that he cheats on me
whenever I’m not around. And he doesn’t do anything. He always waits for
me to send money,” she said.
The Books frown at it
Speaking on the issue, a Muslim cleric,
Prof. Ishaq Akintola, said that the Quran specified that the man should
provide for his home and not the woman.
He said, “The Quran says the man should
be the breadwinner. That is according to Quran Chapter 4 verses 24-27.
There is nothing wrong if the woman is empowered. If she can work, she
should be allowed to work. The Quran says that men have reward for their
work and women too have reward for what they do.”
Also, Pastor Seyi Adeyemi, the senior
pastor of the Worship Centre and Apostolic Church, Oregun, Lagos, said
the “Bible is very clear with regards to the responsibilities of a man
in a home as the breadwinner.”
He continued, “The Bible clearly states
that whosoever does not provide for his home has denied the faith and is
worse than an infidel. It is not out of place to have a situation
whereby the woman who is supposed to be a helper but blessed to be
equally as buoyant probably because of the work she is doing, stands to
bridge the gap in the time of challenges. The man may have lost his job
or be going through some hard times.
“But it does not mean that the man should
sit down and reverse the role established by God. The man should not
become the househusband and leave the woman to go out and fend while he
sits back idling away doing nothing and expecting the woman to bring
everything. A man should find something to do, no matter how the
situation may be.
“It is worse to be a beggar in your own
home or sit down doing nothing when the woman is bringing in income. It
is more dignifying for the husband to do something, even if it is small
and earns little income than to be a dependant or a beggar in his home.
Men should not take it for granted that since their wives are working or
earning more, then they should now sit back.”
In her contribution, a marriage
counsellor, Rev. Shade Toyin-Kehinde, agreed that the added
responsibilities being given to the girl-child could be responsible for
the perceived laziness in some men today. She, however, appealed to
women going through such situations to shun divorce and seek counsel.
She also advised young women in the process of making a choice for
marriage “to pray, look well and also seek for counsel.”
She said, “Divorce is not an option; that
a man is lazy is no grounds for divorce. He’s become your cross and you
have to carry it. For such a woman, it is better to find a counsellor
or somebody both of them respect. She can seek for counsel from such a
person and it will be very helpful.
“A man that is full of ego will not want
to listen if the woman is trying to encourage him; he may say she’s
trying to control him because she is the one making the money or that
people will say it’s his wife that is controlling him. So the woman
needs a lot of wisdom.”
She also encouraged such men to do any
legal work they can lay their hands on and not wait for the job that
suits their desires when their options are limited.
“Some of our men like to wait for white
collar jobs which are very scarce these days. So sit at home while the
woman hawks around, trades, does everything , brings money and
shamelessly, such a man will sit down and eat .
“Some of them have been sitting down for
ages, some for 10 years and don’t see anything bad in it. It is very
wrong. There are businesses and petty trading that a man can engage in
and will still fetch money and he will still maintain his pride as the
head of the home. Such men are ashamed to take any other job apart from
the one they are looking for but are not ashamed to take money from
their wives.”
She also encouraged counsellors and
pastors to try to connect such men with opportunities that could help
them become productive beyond the usual prayer and counselling sessions
organised for affected couples.
However, Ashibogwu’s opinion is that the
trend is not necessarily on the increase but that the situation is being
brought to the fore more than before because of increasing access to
data in the country.
He said, “Women are naturally more
industrious. It has been the case for long. We are having more access to
data, so it’s beginning to show that more women are more industrious
than men.
