Lessons from Grandma 2: “If a man touch you….”

Dear God,

Grandma in anger one day had chided another woman saying….”Any woman that has a daughter does not boast in public”.

That proverb was confusingly profound for me. This goes to show the level of fear and uncertainty that mothers harbour for their girl-child.

Why?

For our mums, raising a girl-child in a severely typical Man’s world was a challenge. A big one. A world where every mistake is blamed on the woman. Where the girl-child carries the shame and the full consequences of an illicit relationship alone. And their mothers would pay the price with them for any mistakes made out of waywardness. Mothers also carry the shame and the disgrace like a dreaded brand.

So once upon a time, it was whispered all over that Maria Chikeluba was pregnant outside wedlock. Back then, that was the worst fate that could befall any girl and her family. The very worst. Everyone in that family paid a price for it.

1st, the girl: she would become the scorn of the community and to escape the shame and disgrace, she would be secretly married off to the 1st bidder whether normal or abnormal. Mostly, abnormal men, impotent, retards, cripples, old men looking for a boy-child and the likes who would ordinarily find it difficult to marry wholesome maidens, have choice picks on a platter. It didn’t matter how beautiful or intelligent you were, you automatically became a defective good and auctioned off immediately.

And you dare not say “No”, because your family will never allow you to have a “bastard” in their home. (Dad, please forgive my use of that word.) Sometimes, to escape the stigma or the dilemma of being sold off into marriage, they opt for abortion. If it works well they carry both an abomination and a guilt label all their lives and if it goes wrong, they lose their lives.

That was then, Lord. Trust this new generation… They have rebranded it into “baby-mamaism” and celebrate it. I guess they got tired of hiding away in shame for an act between two people especially if the other party is not hiding. If the sperm donor is not ashamed, why would the sperm-receptor be? Checkmate! What they are doing now would have made Grandma pull some hair! (Children of these days…Tufiakwa…” In Mama’s voice)

(But Lord, I love the Gen Zs, I think I will make a very good Gen Z, right? It’s okay, roll your eyes).

Let me not digress, Lord. Now, on the other hand, mothers also would pay dearly for it and if she was Catholic, she would be excommunicated from the church and social gatherings in the village. Everyone will have a say in her affairs. She would be the topic of gossip and a reference point for bad motherhood.

And then other family members would pay for it too because the scandal will stain their reputation and family integrity and all other girls in the family may become suspects forever. (There is a saying that if one finger dips into oil, the rest of the fingers will partake in the stain). It didn’t matter if she was raped. It didn’t matter if she was the victim. The girl-child would always be the scapegoat. She will pay with her future and her destiny. Give or take…..she loses.

And that is why mothers raised their daughters with an iron hand. I could still hear one of my auntie’s voice warning my cousin and me……. “This one that you girls are wriggling your waist up and down if you get pregnant, we will marry you off even if the man was crippled, deaf or dumb”

And she wasn’t joking.

And that is why before you even know you are a woman, or what it means for you to be one…..you get strict warnings like… “If a man touch you, you will be pregnant”. This very simple and innocent advice had caused so much havoc for both the boys and the girls growing up.

Listen to this, Lord…

So Peter was brought to our house for treatment one fateful day with a bloodied nose and battered face. He was pounded to a pulp by no other than Ukamaka Okike. Peter was an easy-go-lucky fellow who could be annoyingly excessive in his plays. Unfortunately for him, he chose to play the day after Ukamaka received the dreaded lecture … “If a man touch you…” And Peter went to touch her hand. Out of fear that she would get pregnant, Ukamaka pounced on him and beat Shege-jagwa out of him. Before she realized that the mantra was symbolic, she had destroyed Peter’s face forever. She stuffed a full pan of sand down his throat and they had to flush his system to save his life.

Dad, imagine the level of fear that drove Ukamaka as she pounded away on him. I am sure her life just flashed through her mind and she lost it. I am not sure why our mothers chose that symbolism as their sex education mantra but it delivered its message of fear.

All my friends in secondary school testified that they received the same Mantra… “If a man touch you….”. The fear of getting pregnant out of wedlock was the beginning of wisdom. And you would do anything to avoid it.

Lord, you needed to hear half the stories my friends told about their ordeal with that mantra and how each interpreted it. One said that for fear of sitting in a bus near a man, she had trekked some kilometres to her house carrying a heavy load. She said she couldn’t walk for weeks after that. Another one said she wore sweaters and wrappers that covered all her bodies so that if any man mistakenly touched her, it would just be the cloth. And Lord, she wore those under the hot blazing sun! You needed to know how many innocent boys got beat up for innocently touching a girl.

(Stop Laughing, Lord. It wasn’t fun for us! But Like it or not, it worked).

And as my uncle treated Peter on the balcony, I innocently said to Grandma …..

“Poor Ukamaka, is she pregnant now, Mama?” Grandma shook her head absently.

“But Peter touched her, and even in beating him, she had touched him, so she’s possibly pregnant now”, I insisted.

Grandma stared at me for some time and then burst into a hard laugh. She laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes as she gingerly waved me off.

For some months I watched Ukamaka cautiously waiting for her tummy to grow but it didn’t. She was not pregnant, yet a man touched her….why?

Hmmm.

It took a while, but the mantra later made sense. I got to know what “touch” meant. Our idea of sex education today is different and starts too early, but then again, the world we live in today matured early. Raising a girl-child now is different. You don’t give them mantras anymore, they may even give you.

According to my daughter, “Google is your friend and if in doubt, ask AI.”

Imagine?

They seek the information they want, they know where to find it, and they know what to do about it….. Aren’t they the lucky ones, Lord? When I muscled up enough courage to have the “girl talk” with my daughter, she looked at me weirdly and said…..

“Mum, is that why you are stammering? I already had “the talk” with Aunty Brume and Aunty Ada and I am fine. The rest I can google”

I stared at her. Hmmm.

Thank you Aunty Brume and Aunty Ada, my own personal support system.

This is Your daughter, Lord, I still have more lessons but I am checking in.