OPINION: Why Women Were Not Allowed To Wear Pants In Igbo Land, By Anayo Nwosu

As written by Mazi Anayo Nwosu

It was just before Christmas in 1940 when my mother Uzonicha aged 8, her elder sister Maria, aged 10 and her immediate junior sister Rosa, aged 6, were taken to Nnewi their home town from Enugu on holidays by their father, Charles Enumah, a serving colonial police corporal.

Then, their grandmother, Nwamgbafor, a devout traditional religion adherent was still alive.

The kids were to stay with their grandmother and return to Enugu when schools reopened.

Enugu was the seat of the colonial government of Eastern region.

My mum and her two sisters had arrived Nnewi late in the evening, too dark for their grandmother to observe their sacrilegious pattern of dressing.

The girls wore pants under their "Maryamaka" gowns.

The old woman's suspicion was confirmed early in the morning when the girls undressed to take their baths.

Before and until that period in Nnewi, women were not allowed to wear pants of any sort or to use wrappers or raffia palm fronds to design any that would have a string across their ogbe ndida or the vaginal orifice.

"Nwanyi adighi awa akwa!" meaning that "a woman is not allowed to tie a clothing material across her vaginal office. Only men could.

Mature women only tied wrappers or raffia palm fronds threads weaved into what is called "agwo" to cover their waist area while making the ancestral hole open for free entry of manly instrument or for ease urination.

Any woman observing her monthly period stayed indoors until the bleeding stopped. That explains why separate huts were made for wives while the husbands had theirs. Women were believed to need privacy during their menstruation and were deemed unclean within the period.

Also, a woman paying her monthly dues was exempted from gracing her husband's bed or prepare food for him especially if the husband was a dibia (i.e. native doctor) or priest to a deity. This also explains why most Igbo men who had the means married more than one wife to ensure that at least a wife would be on duty at any point in time.

In most villages at that time, both males and females of all ages never bothered about covering their breasts or chest areas.

While female breasts were regarded as milk bank for babies and not sex provocateurs, a man's chest was a measure of manliness in him.

Even up till this day, my 82 year old mother and women of her generation do not cover her breasts while at home. That's how my friends got to know how well I was breastfed giving the size of my mother's breast bank.

In a bid to preserve the culture of her ancestors, Nwamgboafor Enumah, a native of Obiofia Umuenem Otolo, seized her granddaughters' underpants and set them on fire to the utter shock of the young girls.

But the old woman didn't blame them for the transgression.Their mother, who stayed back in Enugu nursing a toddler and her first son, named John, was responsible for the offence.

If Agnes, the daughter-in-law had come back with the girls, she would have been made to face the disciplinary committee of senior married women in the extended family.

The powerful grandmother would later pick quarrel with her son who she accused of condoning a taboo. That her son had become was not an excuse. Tradition for her was tradition!

A truce was inevitable. The girls had to make do without wearing underpants until they returned to Enugu.

However, the offence didn't in any way affect the love between the grandmother and her son's children. My mother told me that the grandmother took her time to educate them on the implications of their actions and the reasons why she had to burn their pants.

Nwamgboafor was later to invite Oraeri people charged with the office of appeasing the gods to forgive abomination, to come perform the "ikpu alu" or propitiation also known as appeasement.

As a child growing up in the 1970s, I couldn't remember seeing my mother ever wear, wash or spread her pants on the "rope" outside for sun drying; neither did I see any pant in her box of clothes. But she is a christian!

Being an Nnewi prince saddled with the yoke of upholding my ancestral tradition and culture, I had since banned my wife from wearing any underpants from dusk till dawn and during weekends when I am home. I have also delegated the regulation of what my daughters wear to their mother and grandmother.

Even when my wife violates my injunction, my christian beliefs incapacitate me from calling on Oraeri propitiation priests to appease the Nnewi gods in Lagos.

Perhaps, my slowed attainment the life goals I set for myself could be traced to the violation of the traditional dress codes in my house. What a warped thinking!

How time flies!

Yesterday, the news media was awash with the decision of Saudi Arabia that hosts the holiest lands of Mecca and Medina, to allow women to drive cars after decades of imprisoning and deporting many women who had attempted to drive in the past.

It is a proof that men are the god of women.

That's amusing, Is it not?

It is becoming evident that the defenders and protectors of cultures and traditions (mostly religious) that limit women freedom would be completely humiliated by modernization.