It saddens me when I see society questioning a widow who finally finds love. You can’t be criticizing a woman who has lost her husband from the arms of your partner.

Bolatito Olaitan

Why are widows judged harshly when they remarry? Why are we quick to celebrate with widowers when they find love again? Why does society shame a widow who finds love but then they keep mum when a widower does the same thing? Is there a written or unwritten constitution that states the number of years a widow should mourn her husband? Or is it just a cultural thing? But why is it that these same cultural values favour one and doesn’t favour the other gender?

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Certainly, for people who are genuinely in love, when a spouse dies, their world literally crumbles, as they have to grapple with grief and pains of the loss. Shocked and devastated, they feel a sense of guilt for being hapless and unable to prevent the inevitable while the other person passes on. All these feelings are normal and there are no rules about how you should feel when death happens because there is no right or wrong way to mourn.

Just as there are no rules about mourning, I don’t think there should be rules about the number of years
a woman should mourn her husband. In as much as those same rules don’t apply to a man, I don’t think that rule is valid.

In this part of the world, women get more consumed with their grief than men. Their grief is more intense and persistent. I have seen a lot of widows with deep scar of loss in their heart, bearing intense anguish that often leads to what experts call complicated grief which is more chronic and more emotionally intense than mere typical grief. Women are more vulnerable to complicated grief than men. I have seen a lot of Nigerian widows go through the awful experience. They feel deeply attached to their loved ones to a point that they are always reluctant to remarry or some time remain single for ten years or more. If we are to take statistics on this, I am very certain there are more women than men.

Indeed, it saddens me when I see society questioning a widow who finally finds love. You can’t be criticizing a woman who has lost her husband from the arms of your partner. You have the access to stay cuddled up next to your husband or wife of over many years and you are right there with him/her in a cozy bed and running your mouth because you saw a widow with a new man. I am miffed and I am going to say my mind. People who sit down in the comfort of their bedrooms spying on a widow who has a boyfriend are jobless. Why will you even roll your eyes in disgust when you have never walked a mile in her shoes? What’s your own business with who warms her bed? Oh, I get it; you think it too soon for men to be hovering over her, right? You feel she hasn’t grieved enough or in the right way? Or you even think it is not proper for a woman with children to date again? Of course because you feel she is dishonouring her husband, she is automatically responsible for his death. You are one of those wicked people peddling rumours that she already had that boyfriend which was why she connived to kill her husband. Witchcraft is not only for people who drink blood and fly to their covens at night. People who put their ugly noses into other people’s businesses too are topnotch witches and wizards.

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Please, if you still have someone who warms your bed in the night, then your opinion is inconsequential in this matter. Lose your spouse and see what it feels like before judging other people’s lives.

Moreover, I don’t care if you are a relation to the deceased or not, your uncle’s wife has her life to live after the death of her husband. So, stop policing her around.

I really don’t get why after a woman has mourned her husband for over two years or more, you still feel she should forever dim her light to prove to the world that she loved her husband. Will the pains she feels make her husband resurrect from death? If her needs are not met emotionally and physically, will that make her husband crawl back from the grave at the dead of the night to warm her bed? Let these people live their lives in their own terms. These judgments hurt them and they deserve to be happy.

You are wondering why I am so angry. well, I have a friend who lost her husband in her thirties and I knew what she went through. She mourned her husband for four years and when she decided to start dating again, tongues started wagging. For crying out loud, she was in her early thirties when she lost her husband and some people still felt she should remain celibate till eternity. That is cruel!

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Although I know that there is a certain frame of time that can be considered to be too soon and I understand that some people move on too fast because they are in denial. However, one thing

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I know is that you can find love when you are in grieving because often times when the heart falls in love you are not in control. The heart falls in love leaves you to deal with it. Widows who fall in love again do not erase their old partners and they are not being disloyal. I strongly believe that mourning can co-exist with new love. It doesn’t mean one love is moved out to give room for the other. Whether you believe it or not, for the widows who find love again, the memories of yesterdays love still linger on.

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Re: Stop questioning single ladies about their marital status

Bola your write up on the back page of the Sun this week was not only excellent but also an award winning one. You may not be born again, but keep it up. Marriage is not a must; it is not one of the commandments of God. It is not everybody that should get married. See 1 Corinthians 7-7-8 and verse 29. It does not validate anyone as a man or a woman. I am up to 40years and comfortable, but I am not interested in marriage at all because I am not a fan of this world. I am thinking about heaven. There are pressures and I told my people that if I see a single mother of one or two kids, I will marry because even if I marry I need only one child.

—Val Egbuna, Aba

You are gifted. Please carry on the good work.

—08064..090

To a large extent, your submission on single ladies being bothered about their marital status is potent. But if one considers that each clime has a peculiar way of looking at and reacting to an issue, the act of engaging single ladies on marital issues, including late childbearing in our clime is a norm that would take only the creator to obliterate from our psyche. Such enquiries, in most cases, are done out of sympathy for the ladies in questions. The issue of menopause in female sect also triggers such an enquiry based on concern. Why should a fit lady opt for an adoption when she had all it takes to have her own? She would be better off a single parent, which equates rightly with a woman with a late husband, instead. Please bear with the inquisitors in this case. I plead with you.

—Lai Ashadele

You just made my day. I heard someone complaining of her guy last week and I asked her, “Must you marry him?” She said, “I am 37, I need to get married, age is not on my side’. I answered her: “You want to marry someone who complains and suspects your moves? You fight with him daily and keep malice. She told me he will change when she marries him. Are the signs not obvious? When domestic violence starts she will start disturbing God.

—Chinyere

The fact is that women are responsible for marriages that are not working and more worrisome premarital relationship that could lead to marriage. At other times, one could through daily living portray herself unmarriageable in the eyes of the public. But then marriage is a beautiful institution and remains a good will that is expressed to single ladies. So, in order to curb the excesses of single ladies and make them more responsible, loved ones can only mount pressures on these single ladies. It is just that at times it is blown out of proportion. I think moderation should be the watchword

—Eze Joseph