WRITER: ADAMU HAMZA MARREE TALUM
It is generally believed among African traditions that a child is wealthy. Meaning, any marriage that has no child bearing is considered unblessed marriage.
I have heard this nine times out of ten that uncountable marriages were broken for lack of fecundity. These broken marriages spurred my understanding of the role of children as pillars of wedlock.
The concern now is, are African parents properly upbringing the children they are eager to bear ? This is where the torture is. It is very common to see one father having more than ten children but finally taking them to Almajiranci instead of teaching them. This is sighted as running away from responsibilities on the side of the father.
Mr. Kamaru’s case was a similitude, he had three children with the wife he had inherited from his late brother, Karma. It is quite acceptable in Islam for a man to inherit a wife of his brother , particularly when the brother died and the wife is young and likes the surviving brother. For in case, if the wife has few children. For the children of the deceased to grow in total orphanage, Islam allows the wife to be remarried to the brother of the deceased to help in bringing up the children.
There and then, Malam Kamaru has three children aside from one his late brother had with Aisha.
Life was getting unbearable and he found it difficult to pay the rent of a room and parlor where he lived with his family. Actually , the room was not large as even the parlor was so enshrined.
Three children usually slept in the tiny parlor while Malam Kamaru slept with his wife and the youngest child in the room. This is said to be very poorly confirmed by many Islamic orientist but interpretations are many in Islam as schisms are ubiquitous. For one to declare his non-readiness on this lifestyle may likely be faulted by another sect.
Malam Kamaru was confronted with two choices; he should either boycott child bearing or he lived to continue in such grumpy condition while things were actually so bad to him. The commodity prices were getting too exorbitant in the country. What one could buy cheaper before has been proliferated three times now.
It was one day when Malam Kamaru came to attend his Jumma’at prayer that he caught the preacher discussing the related topic that has long been crushing his heart. He had heard with his two ears that he had freedom for child-spacing even in Islam. Malam Kamaru’s eyes shined and glittered for he now had a reason to hook on.
Immediately after the prayer, he went ahead to meet his wife to tell her about the new development he heard in the mosque but the wife could not listen. All she knew was that a child is a wealth and to adapt child-spacing is Jewish orientation. After all, God cares, God feeds, God does everything to what he created, not humans. Malam Kamaru couldn't correlate her preach with the economic torture he experiences every day.
Malam Kamaru was caught between the anvil and the hammer. He was short of what to say or what to do….
1_Can you advise Malam Kamaru to divorce the wife?
2_What will be the fate of the children if he devises her?
3_Does it make sense for Malam Kamaru to endure the child bearing in a crumpy room?
Answer the questions above as you read the short story.
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