As a young girl, I had big dreams. But after I finished primary school at fifteen, one of my dreams (going to secondary school) was dashed. My father disappointed me, telling me point blank to forget about any more schools. His plans for me going forward entailed marrying me off. According to him, it was my responsibility as a girl to marry and procreate for my husband. Schools were for boys, he argued. All my efforts to reason with him proved futile. He insisted he wouldn't go against his people's traditions by sending a girl child to secondary school.
The night we had this talk was one of the worst nights of my life. I cried my eyes out and refused to be consoled by anybody; not even my mother. I just couldn’t understand why it was such a taboo for a girl to get educated, but very normal for a boy to do the same. It was even hurtful to think that I made better grades than my brother.
I felt betrayed! Why should I have to reject an offer from Ovim Girls' College, the best of such schools around? Many young girls like me attended that school, sent there by their parents who were brave enough to defy tradition. Why couldn't my father be just as brave?
I was full of questions but had no answers. How could my father even think it was right to marry me off at the age of fifteen? The thought of being sent off to a man’s house at that age to attend to his whims and caprices scared and worried me. For many nights to come, this kept me awake. Sometimes, I would cry myself to sleep thinking about it. My mother tried her best to console me, promising to discuss the matter further with my father. But I knew that those promises wouldn't yield any reason. My father's mind was made up. If anything, her attempts to persuade him to change his mind got him annoyed. He took it as her questioning his authority and was quick to remind her that he was the head of the family. He then blamed my mother for not raising me well enough to know my place as a woman.
The situation at home soon got tense and I felt guilty for causing it. My mother had always been the obedient and dutiful wife, a woman who did everything to please her husband, even if it meant her suffering. So, to think that she even questioned his decision and pissed him off all because of me... I had to de-escalate the tension, at least for her sake. That was why the next time she came to discuss the matter with me, I listened to her.
“You are my only daughter, Ngozi,” she began as we rested from work one day at the farm. “You are the only daughter your father and I have. And trust me, we mean well for you. You may not believe it now, but getting married is the best thing you can do for yourself at this time.”
I heard the guilt in her voice as she talked to me about the traditional principles I knew even she did not believe. She told me about the stigma associated with girl child education in the village and how no man would want to marry me later after I must have spent many years in school.
“Our people believe that sending a daughter to school is not only a waste of resources that should go towards training sons but also a way of preparing said daughter for a promiscuous life in the future. Now, you know that your father is prominent in this village; it would be a thing of shame for him to allow his daughter to go off to secondary school. Please, I plead with you to understand…”
I did not understand, and I most definitely did not agree with anything my mother said that afternoon. But I had to pretend like I understood just so she could feel less guilty over the situation.
In the year 1978, my brother Nduka completed his secondary school education. And my father made plans to send him to the university at a distant place called Nnsuka. The mere idea of that happening filled me with jealousy and rage. I wished I were a boy, even as I despised my womanhood. I was grumpy for months. I hated everyone. But none of these changed my father's decision.
Interestingly, I was unable to get married until I was twenty years old. That was five years of waiting post-primary school, the same five-year period it would have taken me to acquire a secondary school education. But instead of getting married, I wasted it being a single village maiden to whom none of the men could muster enough courage to betroth me because they thought I was too bold. Perhaps, I intentionally made it difficult for them all to dare approach me, out of spite for my father. Every day as I walked to and fro the numerous farms we owned, I held my head high, exuding pride and subtly telling all the men to stay clear of me as they were out of my league. They all seemed to get the message and stayed clear until one December night when everything changed; I fell in love, but it was out of my control…
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