This paper deals with womanhood in Tiv literary genres. It reinterprets gender roles in an African society. The Tiv of Middle-Belt Nigeria are a unique ethnic nationality whose feminine gender is regarded as the heart-beat of the householder, the measure of all things for the husband and the epicenter of the community. Contrary to the conclusion of the African Neo-cultural positivists, the roles Tiv traditional social system assigns to the feminine gender noble roles that elevate than demean her status as a woman. She is neither marginalized nor oppressed and exploited in social, political, economic and religious spheres. Gender discrimination is sine qua non in traditional society though, it is benevolent.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Feminism and Tiv Society
Gender in Tiv Literary Genres
The Positive Tiv Woman
Conclusion
REFERENCES
Abstract
The Tiv of Middle-Belt Nigeria are a unique ethnic nationality whose feminine gender is regarded as the heart-beat of the house holder, the measure of all things for the husband and the epicenter of the community. Contrary to the conclusion of the African Neo-cultural positivists, the roles Tiv traditional social system assigns to the feminine gender noble roles that elevate than demean her status as a womwn. She is neither marginalized nor oppressed and exploited in social, political, economic and religious spheres. Gender discrimination is sine qua non in traditional society though, it is benevolent. The paper argues further that, redemption from discrimination for the kwase Tiv is neither found in liberating her, for she is not enslaved, nor in centering her, she is the epicenter of the house holder. Womanhood in her feminine roles supplements and compliments the men for universal beneficence; the common good of Tiv society. She has womb, kitchen and cradle, but in further empowerment of her female power. We conclude that the roles tradition assigns to women are meant to advance the anatomy of their female power to receive life’s impulses to husband its stability and persistence of Tiv society. Woman is a female, and man is a male, different as biological facts though, they both seek in each, the other and the being of their beings.
Key Words: Womanhood, Tiv Woman, Kwase Tiv, Gender Discrimination, Empowerment, Gender Centering
Introduction
To be a woman you really are, to perform your vital role for your family and society as a woman, and to reap the rich rewards of love and fulfillment that are yours as a women, you must refuse to reject your fundamental nature as a woman-Mrs. Monica, A. Ushir-Hou.1
The 20th century has witnessed a powerful wave throughout the world to spiritually and socially uplift women and liberate them from the domination of men. This agitation was carried on through the Beijing Conference of 1995 with the popular belief that human progress as a whole depends on the spiritual, social, psychological and economic empowerment of women who are, without any good reason, discriminated against. Acolytes of this theory posit in no unmistaken language that, women world-wide suffer discrimination and oppression, and so they are in need of both liberation, centering and empowerment. The question of whether this thinking finds placement in every other African ethnic community is of concern to us in this paper. This work argues that, among the Tiv of central Nigeria kwase ka ishima I orya i.e. the wife is the epicenter of the house holder, the measure of all things for the husband and the epicenter of the community.
Contrary to the conclusion of the African Neo-cultural positives, the roles Tiv traditional social system assigns to kwase Tiv do not demean her and makes her interior. She is neither marginalized nor oppressed and exploited in social, political, economic and religious spheres. We argue that though gender discrimination is sine qua non in traditional Tiv social system, it is benevolent. That :redemption” from discrimination for the kwase Tiv is neither found in liberating her, for she is not enslaved, nor in centering her, she is the epicenter of the house holder, she has womb, kitchen and cradle, but in further empowerment of her female power. We conclude that the roles tradition assigns to women are meant to advance the anatomy of the female power to receive life’s impulses to husband its stability and persistence of Tiv society. Kwase Tiv, it is contended here, needs further empowerment, not liberation and centering or equality. By the instrumentality of traditional Tiv governance system, Kwase Tiv is a creature whose being attain true essential human nature through complementarity and suplementarity.
Feminism and Tiv Society
Tiv social operates a dual-sex system in which men and women have distinctive roles. This explains their variegated cultural attitudes subsumed in a sexist ideology. In itself, sexism is the principle of using the differences between male and female human beings as a criterion for determining the social worth and rights of men and women in society. Three levels of sexism are here addressed. Benevolent sexism preaches sympathy with women along side children as weaker vessels who need support and empowerment. Tiv social system practices this in excess as the local expression has it kwase hemen ityav ga; woman, the life giver does not risk life in wars. In the west, one of the more dynamic examples of benevolent sexism concerned the issue of who had priority to use the life boats while the Titanic was sinking in April 1912. Women and children, it was decided would have priority of access to the life boats2. Benign sexism recognizes gender segregation without bestowing sexual advantage or inflicting a gender cost. It is harmless sexism which finds expression among the Tiv in names and ritual ceremonies which celebrate womanhood. Tiv names like Torkwase (Queen Mother) Hembadoon (Female is the best child) Iember (Bundle of joy) are few examples in point. It is also not out of point to state that the wide spread practice of polygamy, and the payment of bride-price are benign sexism (or benign polygamy) in expression. The women who as it were, are more in number than the men are brought together from varied backgrounds and made to establish a dialogic encounter, to create a community with the husband as the head. On the second count, women in Tiv society are treasured as supreme realities, essential beings, and the over-yonder towards which life tends; the Mother, the wife on whom anything and everything is invaluable. The third category, malignant or malevolent sexism is the most pervasive and most insidious gender ideology. It views every woman as inferior to every man and concludes there from that both cannot have equal rights. In most societies, it subjects women to economic manipulation, sexual exploitation and political marginalization. Tiv society recognizes this ideology though, its practice is limited to women of transgressed character known among the Tiv as Kasev-Mba-hemban-ato; the negative Tiv women.
While there are some ethnographic data on the basis of which a case can be made for the assignment of interior roles and status to women in traditional Tiv society, such ethnographic data are however defective and unhelpful on two counts. On the first count, the data fail to go the whole way in viewing the status and role of women as part of a complex totality of Tiv customs and social values.
Taking into account the unique nature of the Tiv outlook on the created world, its comprehensiveness, its communality, and its egalitarian, rural and agrarian nature, traditional Tiv social system consigns to women the roles and status that best agree with the common will, social control and group goals and objectives. The role and status of a sister (ingnor), a housewife (Kwase yough), a mother (Ngo) and divorce (wan ya) are different one from the other. In any or some of these roles, her position may be viewed as “interior” and an “underprivileged”. Yet, in any or some of these roles, her position may be viewed as “superior” and privileged”. In Tiv understanding however, the woman’s role and status is more or less at par with that of the man. This position is well illustrated by Angya (1999) who argues that in any conjugal association, the husband plays the leading role. “The Tiv”, she says “do not give to the courage of women the same form or the same direction as to that of men, but they never doubt her courage; and if they hold that man and his partner ought to not always exercise their intellect to be as that of other too”3. Angya argues further like Simone de Beauvior that, the division between the sexes is not the product of an event in history, instead, this division “is a biological fact”. Women are women; she says; by virtue of their anatomy and physiology, and throughout history, they have always been subordinated to men4. Even though this thinking is embellished with the alloys of the modern Tiv women, one salient fact which reflects the spirit of the past is its egalitarian fair.
The Tiv do not think that man and woman have either the duty or the right to perform the same roles, but they show an equal regard for both their respective part; and though their lot is different, they consider both of them as beings of equal value though, like any successful vehicles must have only one person on the wheel with ultimate responsibility. Most obviously, Saint Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:22-28 apply succinctly to the Tiv. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands … for the husband is the head…”
Evidently, clear traits of malevolent discriminatory practices are absent in traditional Tiv social relations. Tiv oral texts abundantly support the thesis that the opportunities of the Tiv woman to achieve her desires are no less than man's, what defines social relationship include among others metaphysical prowess, power and authority, wealth and the age question. They define the individual's behaviour in terms of who behaves where, and in the presence of who. Thus the Tiv talk of Or Kwav (age mate) with whom one is an equal in social interaction. Those who are Kwav share between one to two years gap. Kopytoff more lucidly expresses this idea thus: "Lineage authority and representation of the lineage to the outside world are organized on continuum of age that is of relative eldership... Thus, the inequality of power and authority is most pronounced between generations and it is thus presumptuous for the junior generation to question the decision of the senior generation"5.
Professor C.S Momoh's (1978:41) generalization most aptly sums up the thinking of the Tiv. According to him, the way African (Tiv) traditional thought had structured things in society was such that old age came first. On this basis authority, discipline and respect was to flow. It so happens that in traditional marriages, the husband was often the older and so automatically, by the cannons of the social custom he assumes leadership in the partnerships6.
In Tiv marriages, this cultural trait merges as an invaluable index of social relationship. Thus, the wife obeys and respects her husband not only because he is the head of the family but also because he is elder and the husband controls and directs the wife because she is younger.
Yam-she by which definition is giving out ones' sister ingor in exchange for another persons' sister is said to devalue womanhood though, as a wife". It was rather a potent means of preserving the basic cultural value of the Tiv by retaining the reproductive force within the community, far from the half truths or outright fabrication that are intent at constructing a blind maze around the true essential being of Kwase Tiv,
What is said to be the demeaning status of women today is the result of the abolition of the traditional marriage system. Yam-she was a powerful deterrent against tribal disintegration. With its abolition, tradition and custom, and the authority of the elders were easily repudiated. So tar Tiv vihi (Tivland was distressed). The bride-price (Kem-kwase). Thus, it became obvious that wives secured under this new system were not tied to any control measure, and so the women (wives) could leave their husbands with the flimsiest excuse. Perhaps this is what accounts for the present day demeaning roles and discriminatory practices against women. The Dutch Reformed Christian Missionary (DRCM), Casalegio agrees with this conclusion; this bride-price marriage which was looked forward to with such great expectation degenerated from its inception into commerce in human lives7.
True, the abolition of Yam-she enhanced the position of women because they now had a greater choice of marriage partners or at least a voice in the selection, it also reduced immorality in Tiv community by enabling the young to marry with personal funds as at when due. But it also hastened the atomization of the Tiv community, and demeaned motherhood in the process. In Tiv social system in which exchange marriage subsisted, the fertility of the wife was enhanced by akombo a spiritual force which was placed outside the house of the wife. The sons that came from this marriage "set right" this akombo when necessary to secure health and fertility for their own wives.
Clearly, womanhood was central to Tiv ontology and apparently, motherhood, as espoused above, represented the principle of the fecundity of the family, even though she was a woman of another compound. The shattering of this social system and the emergence of kem-kwase eroded the esteemed status of womanhood and invariably disintegrated the community spirit which its essence, the Tiv cherished and guarded jealously. As a consequence, says Rubingh, “the tribe now stood in danger of supernatural affliction, for the means to protect against human pollution had been removed. There was no adequate way to guard miscarriage, abundant conception… now the possessors of evil tsav (witchcraft) could move in to strike at their defenseless victims at will”8
Thus far, womanhood in Tiv social system is holism. She is related to nature to form wholes that are more than the sum of the parts b y creative evolution. She is related to the earth and embodied the same fertility as the earth; the natural repercussions in the yield of the fields could be ominously foretold. Such is the status of Tiv women as mothers that the Tiv find a way acknowledging same in names by directly replicating the name of their dead grandmothers or sisters.
In Tiv society, entire community has a stake in the marriageable females (angor). So argues Rubingh (1969:135) "if there were many daughters born rather than sons, this was no real loss, for they could be exchanged for additional wives"9 either for himself, his sons and, or distressed members of the immediate community who work on his farm. Thus, through angor, creativity, and hence continuity of animate and inanimate beings is sustained. The Tiv, therefore, celebrate the arrival of female children as many as they came. This celebration finds expression in names and ritual ceremonies. It is thus common to find such praise names as Hembadoon (the best); lember (my bundle of joy) Doobee (perfect finish); Afazende (one with a majestic walk); Kumashe (the esteemed woman); Dookwase (the beautiful one); Torkwase (Queen mother), which all point to the fact that womanhood in traditional Tiv society is the over-wonder toward which life tends.
The next question concerns the status of a woman as a divorcee or an unmarried member of the society (i.e. Wan Yd}. This category of women has been reclassified into two units. Firstly, those who suffered primary bareness and are tired of 'working for other people's children.". The second group include those who may have been divorced by their husbands for whatever reason or those whose bride price may not have been paid, Whichever category they belong, traditional Tiv social system recognized them as full-blooded members of the society who in truth are the connecting rod, of continuity between men, the cosmos and nature.
The observation of Ruth Laudes (1953:126) correctly applies to the Tiv, that "throughout Africa, women traditionally have been accorded extensive opportunities... and official recognition (as Priestesses, and mediums... and other authorities supervising women's interest"10 in politics and economy. The case of official recognition of women's status and role in traditional Tiv society explains the election in 1999 of a widow, Mrs. Margaret Icheen, the first female speaker of a house of Assembly in Africa (i.e. in the Benue State House of Assembly). This is in addition to the very many women traditional title holders found all over Tivland.
Division of labour is another parameter for measuring the status of women in traditional societies. The division of labour between husband and wife either with respect to the upbringing of children or to the production of food for consumption; that between girls and boys as regards the functions expected of them by their family and the community at large and that between men and women as members of the community. This delineation fits the Tiv social system very well. There are roles that are strictly feminine while others are Male defined. The differential roles are consigned by the divine architect in acknowledgment of the physiology of the sexes. Sigmud Freud provides for us a typical example when he says that the moral sensibility of women differs from those of men. Quoting Freud, S.E. Stumpf (1993:114) says; cannot evade the notion (though I hesitate to give it expression) that for women the level of what is ethically normal is different from what it is in men. Their superego is never inexorable, so impersonal, so independent for its emotional origins as we require it to be in men. Character - traits which critics of every epoch have broughtup against women - that they show less sense of justice than men, that they are less ready to submit to the great exigencies of life, that they are more often influenced in their judgements by feelings of affection or hostility - all these -would be aptly accounted for by the modification in the formation of their superego11.
[...]
1 This was the candid view of Mrs. Monica, Ushir a house wife of over thirty years’ experience. Her views in this regard is golden
2 For a detailed story, read Mazrui, A.A. (1991) "The Black Woman and the Problem of Gender. Trials Triumphs and Challenges" Being the 1991 Guardian Lecture Delivered on July 4, 1991.
3 Charity Angya, (Professor and Director, Centre for Gender Studies/Experienced House wife. Recorded interview in Makurdi on 20 August,2002 at Makurdi.
4 Beauvoir, S. (1993) The Second Sex in Stumpf, S.E, Elements of Philosophy: An Introduction New York, McGrow-Hill, Inc.p160
5 Kopytorff T, I. “Ancestors as Elders," in Africa Vol. 41 No. 2. 1971 p128
6 Momoh, C.S.(1978) "Eldership in African Marriages" in African Insight, Vol. 18 No. 1. Spring. P41
7 Rubingh, E. (1969) Sons of Tiv, Grande Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House Company.`p134
8 ibid
9 Ibid p135
10 Ruth Laudes in Rubingh, E. (1969) Sons of Tiv, Grande Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House Company.p126
11 Stumpf, S.E. (1993) Elements of Philosophy; An Introduction (3rd Edition) McGraw-Hill Book Company/
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