A beautiful young girl from a village was introduced to a young man in the city, but he refused to marry her because she was not educated as she couldn’t even write her name. And this raises a lot of questions.
While there has been a campaign everywhere, including in the villages to allow their daughters to go to school, many don’t. Still the campaign is apparently poor judging by the number of illiterates we have that are young.
It is sad that while they are denied education, they indulge in downloading films, songs and audios of books that are pornographic read by somebody and eagerly circulated. They don’t even need a smart phone.
When I told somebody that they spent a lot on data by watching films, she said they paid as little as N20,00 to the people that established the business to get whatever they wanted.
Education is not only about getting a job-it is about self-worth, to go with the times, as to be able to know what is happening, how to contribute where possible.
If at least girls attend secondary schools, they learn a lot besides reading and writing. They learn how to cook simple things, how to keep the kitchen clean and tidy, how to spread bed sheets well, how to sew and knit, among other things.
Also, in schools female teachers teach students how to take care of themselves during menstruation, a subject mothers don’t usually talk about.
In extra-curricular activities, they learn how to plait hair, tie head ties and so on.
If they go into marriage with these ‘skills’ at least they are armed with the basics on how to build their homes.
Of course it doesn’t mean that those that have not gone to school cannot cook or learn how to sew and so on, but learning these in school formerly among your classmates makes it educational and therefore more interesting and unforgettable.
However, if a young prospective wife cannot read and write it means she cannot read a text message or a message dropped at home.
Some may argue that they listen to the radio, but the problem here is that listening to the radio would not make them learn how to read and write. They may learn how to cook by listening to cooking programmes, but at the end of the day they remain staunch illiterates!
We should go beyond stamping your fingerprint in place of your signature which is as simple as writing your name.
Even though one may wonder what is their own, to use a Nigerian parlance with signature, well they have very much to do with it such as getting the National Identification Number (NIN) where you are required to sign. And you need it for sim card registration.
If this is excused for the old generation, it is certainly not for the young ones. It should be noted that while some are sent as house helps, some that live with their parents’ hawk or even do nothing as some would not allow their daughters to hawk, yet they would not allow them to go to school as well.
This is a dent on us all, a failure and a disgrace.
So coming back to the marriage issue, indeed while some men would agree to marry an illiterate girl and even enroll her in adult education, some would want their wives to be educated, at least to the secondary level. They don’t want her to embarrass them and be out of place among their friends’ wives.
They want a wife that can help their children with homework or even teach them how to write before they go to nursery school.
Nevertheless, on the other hand some men are ‘afraid’ of educated women and don’t want to marry them. They feel intimidated and are insecure perhaps because they cannot brag and intimidate the young girls with their qualifications.
You keep hearing that if a young unmarried girl wants to go for a master’s degree or buy a car or even drive one for that matter, she would be cautioned that men would be afraid of approaching her for marriage.
In this case, young men should not be afraid, rather they should see this as a challenge and improve themselves, or they should approach young women according to their own level or status. But certainly not to drag the young women back and make them feel as if they have done something bad by being brilliant and educated.
In this regard education is key to opportunities, even marriage as in this case, since an educated young man refused the young girl on account of lack of education.
