By Patricia Uyeh

The news of a man who connived with his doctor to remove his wife’s womb becaue he didn’t want more kids went viral. According to reports, the story happened in Festac and the couple who planned to have only three kids ended up with five. This prompted the man to do what he did.

Now, a talk show host, Tope Mark-Odigie, who is one of Your View’s presenters, came out to support the man’s actions. According to her, as long as the couple were legally married, the husband can do whatever he wanted with his wife.

In her words;

”We cannot behave like the western world. We are in Nigeria and we are in Africa. We are a people that will tell a man to prostrate for hundred times to marry one woman. We are the one that will ask a man to bring a million Naira, to bring a goat, to buy everything possible because you are giving over that woman unto the man to take care of her, to make decisions for her, as long as you own her. As long as we still live within that rule, we cannot begin to form westernized. We cannot begin to form modernity. We cannot begin to form feminism. Except we want to expunge traditional marriage. So, we are going to do legal wedding which means that I am bound only by the laws of this marriage. Then if my husband does anything contrary to my legal rights, of which we have shared everything in the marriage 50-50.

“If you want to do culture, do culture. If you want to do modern 21st century family setting, then you focus on that. But you cannot eat your cake and have it. In our country, we have prioritized culture more than any other thing.

“A man has a right to decide how a woman should look.If he wants her to be slim or be fat he would say add weight. He would tell her I have bought you. I own you. So I tell you how to look. I tell you how I want your body to look. I control your life.”

Do you agree with her?