Gendered Penalties of Divorce on Remarriage in Nigeria: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Seeking the views of metropolitan, university educated Nigerians in Lagos and Abuja (the previous and current capital cities respectively), our study explores gendered perspectives on the issue of remarriage after divorce to gain a deeper understanding of how customary, Islamic and statutory laws intersect. We build on previous studies (e.g. Therborn, 2004) to highlight that from the 1930s onwards, marital aspects of modern customary laws may be more patriarchal than some pre-colonial ones due to the colonial codification of customary laws in Africa. The empirical basis of our study is interviews with 24 Nigerian men and women, including female divorcees. The results suggest that what Ibrahim (2015) calls “the sociocultural penalties of divorce” are borne more heavily by women and this is exacerbated because traditional or customary laws in modern Nigeria were reshaped by colonial Christian codification. We conclude that whilst Yoruba people seem to have thwarted some of the more negative legacies of religious codification on traditional laws more than other major ethnic groups, customary laws in Nigeria still require re-codification to take on board the perspectives of African feminism.

‘Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others’: The Hierarchy of Citizenship in Austria

“…Citizenship has been at the forefront of struggles for freedom, democracy, and social rights (Domingues 2017). In part, the deviation between citizenship in principle and in practice is not only enormous; it is systematically biased against the powerless on the axes of 'race' (Alexander 2012;Wolfe 2017), class (Perchinig and Troger 1990;Platt 2016), religion (Permoser and Rosenberger 2016;Torry 2016) and gender (Aburabia 2017;Lavee and Benjamin 2017;Lazarus et al 2017). For Marshall (1950), citizenship is comprised of social, political and civic rights and Marshall and Bottomore (1992, p. 17) defined citizenship as: a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community.…”

“…The multiple axes upon which societal communities are formed thereby acknowledge that there is no singular model of citizenship (Akrivopoulou 2013;Domingues 2017). Paradoxically, mere acquisition of a passport automatically gives the holder certain formal rights and juridical status on a surface level , whereas entitlement to certain civic rights and social citizenship is graded according to different axes of differentiations such as 'race' (Glenn 2009;Anderson 2013;Tynes et al 2016), sexuality (Stambolis-Ruhstorfer 2013; Triger 2012), age (Rush and Lazarus 2018;Warming 2019) and gender (Lazarus et al 2017;Lavee and Benjamin 2017;Vacchelli and Kofman 2017). One might be inclined to point out that while citizenship intersects with 'race', it also interacts with multiple other categories such as class, gender and sexuality (Akrivopoulou 2013;Brubaker 1992;Fogiel-Bijaoui 2016;Triger 2012).…”

Just married: the synergy between feminist criminology and the Tripartite Cybercrime Framework

“…; Newburn ), gender is one of the critical sources of social advantage and disadvantage in society (Fogiel‐Bijaoui ; Lavee and Benjamin ; Lazarus el al . ; Tynes et al . ).…”

“…On the flipside, women's possession of high economic power can have detrimental effects on their marriages and their chances of remarriage in Nigeria (Lazarus et al . ).…”

“…Under customary and Islamic types of marriages, some men can marry multiple wives (Lazarus et al . ), which increases their financial responsibilities: “In virtually every arena of Nigerian men's lives, money's value is closely tied to the social work that it does in men's relationships with women” (Smith , p. 160). Since gender category membership is attached to the cultural expectations and performativity (Connell and Messerschmidt ; West and Zimmerman ), in this context, “men's cultural positionality in society influences them to be generally more ‘desperate’ to achieve financial success than women online”–cyber‐fraud (Ibrahim , p.54).…”