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| A pregnant teenager |
In recent years many Nde Abiriba have been wondering where the community is heading to due to some strange occurrences and traditions that are alien to Abiriba being witnessed today and which,unfortunately,our today's elders are reluctant or afraid of talking about or have refused to address.
Going by what obtains today in the society and in every other communities in Nigeria where teenage pregnancy is becoming or have become the order of the day,one would say that Abiriba ancestors or elders saw this coming and they put up a law or rules which "WE" the "NEW GENERATION" who sees our fore-fathers as ILLITERATE IDOL WORSHIPERS regarded as archaic,barbaric and uncivilized laws or rules that should be expunged, because, by our reasoning "A CHILD IS A CHILD".
Looking around Abiriba today, where it is claimed that civilization and Christianity have taken over, one would find many places or homes where the First Son or Daughter in the house born in those days bore the names of relations, friends or well-wishers instead of the usual way of naming the first son or daughter after the man's biological father (if the child is a male child) while the first daughter bears the name of the mother of the child's father.
This is because, in those days, it was considered a "TABOO" to bear a child out of wedlock by the female folks or to impregnate a lady by mostly young men who happens not to be their husbands, or to put it rightly, " WHEN TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE CEREMONY HAD NOT TAKEN PLACE BETWEEN THE YOUNG MAN AND LADY.
It is important to note that there was nothing like a law mandating a man who mistakenly or intentionally impregnated a young lady to marry her in those days as seen today but the fear of one's name going negatively round the community in case the unfortunate happens was the order of the day. The advice was for young men and ladies to abstain totally from the act of bearing children out of wedlock to avoid the shame that will follow later, and the rules made a lot of head-ways in our society as it brought sanity and teenage pregnancies to the barest minimum.
Have we paused and pondered what killing of goat or ram when a young lady finds a husband in our tradition or why the mother of the bride ecstatically kills the ram or goat to celebrate her daughter who is about to get married known as "igbu ewu nso " in our local Abiriba dialect stands for?. There is an Abiriba adage or proverb that says " okuku madu luzie ogu ihu egbohu nna nwo ya". ( Meaning: when one's fowl fights a good fight the owner will not be shamed".
THE FACT THAT OUR FATHERS OWNED UP TO BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR SUCH UNWANTED PREGNANCIES IN THOSE DAYS, IN THE EVENT SUCH OCCURRED, IS ENOUGH REASON TO KNOW THAT THEY REALLY UNDERSTOOD THAT A CHILD IS A CHILD, but they frowned at having babies out of wedlock even though they mostly maintained practically a polygamous families in those days. But today the preaching and practice says "One man One wife" whereas the rate of teenage pregnancies and children born out of wedlock is triple than what use to obtain in those days when polygamy was in vogue.
Our fathers knew that a child is a child,hence they did not advice for the child to be aborted, but they refused to encourage bearing children out of wedlock when the young man knows nothing about taking care of a woman as her husband or the young girl knowing nothing about raising up a child as a mother. The refused to accept children born out of wedlock to be named after them to encourage their sons and daughters to do things the right way.
Our fore fathers saw what is happening today early enough and they made sure that ladies who got pregnant were not giving a befitting wedding in Abiriba neither were they allowed to sit at the compound squares popularly known as "iduru ogbo" like those who respected themselves and the tradional laws to encourage young men and women to marry and bear children the right way and through the right tradition.
It is on record that many parents,sisters and uncles stopped paying their children's or relatives' school fees when the young man impregnated a young lady either by mistake or accident or if the young girl gets pregnant while schooling as punishments. All these things were put in place to checkmate unwanted pregnancies which brings sufferings to the baby, and, in most cases, the mother, as most young men fails to take care of the baby and the mother after. Most parents punished their children as a result of unwanted pregnancies while many learned from it.
We are talking about a time that, even when a young lady's bride price had been paid by the would-be husband which is the main tradition, the two parties still waited until when their marriages takes place before the lady starts talking of getting pregnant ( i.e: If they want to do white wedding after). A time when marriages were only done in Abiriba. A time when some traditional presentation of wines (ibu mmanyi nwami) took place by one December and the wedding came up after one year (next December) or after some months,but all in Abiriba.
Patience and obedience to the traditional laws was the order of the day,and the people assigned the duties of meting out punishments to offenders did not look at faces in those days, but what do we see today? Total collapse of our traditional values and systems.
By: Prince .N. Kalu ( P.N.K)
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