The widow is a veritable specimen of suffering. She depicts
clearly the male-dominated society in which we all live and
man's inhumanity to woman. She is buffeted on all sides,
first by her grief which she is not allowed to suffer silently,
then by the society who decree that she is a leaf in the wind,
all on her own.

In some Nigerians societies, the widow is not as tormented
as in others. Among the Yorubas, the tradition is not very
harsh on her. Just wear the mandatory black, sit on the floor
for as long as one year, don't go to the market and other
such restrictions.

Then at the end of the mourning period, she can resume her
life once again.
But the story, even among the Yoruba, is not always that
smooth. Because she is often seen as a chattel, her late
husband's property to be shared along with farmlands and
furniture, her troubles may start as soon as her husband is
buried.

The widow is the first suspect when causes of her husband's
death are being considered. How can she be innocent? Was
she not the last person he saw? Did he not sleep with her,
eat her food? All types of implausible reasons are strung
together to crucify the widow. She must be a witch. She
comes from a family of witchdoctors, or don't you
remember? The relatives conduct the autopsy in their heads
and pronounce her guilty even when the deceased had a
prolonged history of diabetes or even cancer.

Oftentimes, when there is financial gain involved, the most
successful tool used by greedy in-laws is to accuse the new
widow of killing her husband. That way, she is forcibly
ejected from the only home she has lived in for probably
the better part of her life, out into cold uncertainty. The
children are sometimes pushed out after her so that the
empire can be adequately shared by the miserable vultures.
Of course, a Yoruba widow is lucky if she gets the support
and consolation of her in-laws.

In some parts of Edo State, according to Mrs Nkem Izuako, a
seasoned member of the bench, a widow is made to sit on
the floor, near naked with a fire to keep her warm for seven
days. During this period, she is not allowed to bath. Se must
wail and howl her loss at intervals while her relatives keep
vigil with her.

After the seven days, she howls and laments all the way to
the stream near naked but her mourning is for a whole year.

I remember vividly the paper titled Culture and Widowhood,
at a workshop on "The Nigerian Widow - Her Plight in The
21st Century organized by Abia State Women Association in
conjunction with PROJECT HEALTH, some years ago,
delivered by Mrs Izuako on the horrors widows are made to
go through in most of Igboland, not all. If the submissions
had not been made by a learned woman, born in Igbo land
and married to an Igbo man, I would have found the
instances cited unbelievable. The stories were so pathetic
that I wondered if the said Igbo societies do not deserve the
civilization that is just being preached to the naked
inhabitants of Koma Hills. This in the same society where
woman can't own land and 60 year old women have to call
their four-year-old grandsons to break Kola. The Kola that is
supposed to symbolize life cannot be broken by a woman
who carries pregnancy for nine months to give life to that
four-year-old boy and the all the men in that society! A
woman who tills as much land as (if not more than) the man
cannot own land unless she buys it in the name of a small
boy she trained with her money.

And before any Igbo men (or Igbo women who rationalizes
being treated as thrash as) start to curse me, let them start
their rejoinders by honestly narrating how widows are
treated in their villages (not in Lagos) and how they'd want
their wives to be treated if they slump and die today. I know
that the punishing and humiliating rites of widowhood do
not take place in all Igbo societies but if widows are treated
shabbily in your place, why don't you do something instead
of picking holes in this piece.

Try, this for size, as told by Mrs Izuako. In one Igbo society,
it is an abomination for a woman to see her late husband's
corpse. As soon as the man is pronounced dead, the widow
is expected to flee home with her children. That is according
to tradition but the reality is that while she's on 'exile', her
in-laws can plunder the deceased's properties.

There was this widow who refused to run away. She stood
her ground. The whole village shouted abomination. Her
brother-in-law refused to be part of the burial. The widow
being a member of the Charismatic Renewal Movement was
rescued by the sect who buried the rejected body. To show
his 'powers', the brother-in-law came late and exhumed the
corpse and left it in the open.

Could somebody tell me the rationale behind the tradition
that forbids the departed to rest in peace? A custom that
forbids a woman who has fed, lived and slept with a man
from seeing his body is illogical. Exhuming a brother's
corpse in the name of tradition is sickening.

I remember a widow from the Enugu/Agidi Community
whose brother-in-law wanted to 'inherit' narrating her
experience. The brother-in-law was rich, quite so that
everybody felt there was no reason why the widow and her
children had to suffer. But suffer they did. The children were
sent home from school for unpaid fees. The landlord
threatened the distressed and hungry family with ejection.
Yet the brother-in-law didn't lift a finger to help. When the
desperate widow sought him out, he made his amorous
intentions known. The widow was shocked.
"How could you even think of sleeping with me?" she
tearfully asked.
Smirking, the brother-in-law told her: " you cannot work at
railway and collect money at NEPA". And that was the end of
all help she could hope to get.

Is the Igbo widow's problem still being compounded by the
Umuada (daughters of the land) whose mean mentality of
the oppressed make laws that make life horrible for the
widow? Or things are different now?
Do they converge to enforce all types of obnoxious laws? If
that attitude still obtains, one hopes they know that it is an
attitude born of jealousy and lack of self worth.
Do we still have bush people who confine to a corner where
she must wail and weep? She acknowledges sympathizers
nodding, as she must not speak. Gifts for her are dropped
on the floor. She sits there almost naked (especially around
Nsukka area) clad in black mourning clothes for between six
months to one year. She is not allowed to have more than
one change of cloth. The Umuada shaves her head and
other parts of her body. Her food is prepared outside the
home. She can't use washed plates and cannot eat with
'normal' people except widows like her.

In some societies, she is locked up with the corpse. In other
climes, she is whipped by terrifying poison-carrying
masquerades. She cannot hug or be hugged. She can't shake
hands or go to the market. And after the one-year mourning
period, she is taken to the river for the Aja-ani ritual during
which the aja-ani priest 'rapes' her. In some societies,
according to Mrs Izuako, the widow is raped by 10 men. To
cleanse her and make her available for other men! Lord
have mercy!

www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-5636.html

widowhood in Naija is very devastating

"Widowhood in the southern states of Nigeria" should have been the title. The OP should do more research before giving it the initial title.