We like to think of maturity as the ability to tolerate, endure and adapt to any situation. It's a quality we cherish in people, especially in friends and partners because we confide in this maturity to have a long lasting relationship with them.
However, we must pause to reflect on our idea of maturity and if this much sort after personality trait is doing us more harm than good in a society like ours.
Personally, I like to think of maturity as the ability to identify a problem, search for solutions and choose the one that will benefit as many people as possible, including myself. However, in a society like ours, where the collective well being is placed above the individual well being, I have come to realise that my definition of maturity is not very appreciated.
But let's ask ourselves this question: is being mature, as intended by our culture, good for us as Nigerians?
I personally think it isn't.
We have already discussed social contracts and how these affect our day to day relationships and activities. What we didn't mention is how these social contracts are shaped to accommodate the social hierarchy in our society. In other words, even in social contracts, there isn't actually a mutual responsibility between or among the parties involved. Instead the lower ranking individual or group is required to submit by social convention to the other party.
To offer a better understanding of this precisation, I would like to analyse how maturity is defined inside a family unit from the point of view of the lowest ranking individual in the social hierarchy.
HOUSEHOLD: HUSBAND/FATHER - WIFE/MOTHER
In a family setting, the father comes first. He is the head of the family and he must be consulted before any decision can be made. In the case of opposing views, he gets to have the last word. There are exceptions, like among the Yorubas, where even women can be head of the family. But I would like to us to restrict our analysis to what we would say is the norm.
In a household, after the father, comes the mother.
(Before we proceed, let's make a clarification. What characterises social hierarchy is not really the amount of power each individual or group holds, but the disparity between the ranks. Even between subsequent ranks, there can be a critical difference in power, so much that a rank can become oppressive to the rank that follows immediately).
So in a household, the mother comes right after the father. However, father and mother do not relate to each other as parents to the same children; they relate to each other as husband (top) and wife (bottom). Therefore the father comes to hold more decisional power than the mother. She has to respond to him in everything, not just in matter concerning the house and the children, but also in matters that concern herself. We can say that the wife-mother submits to the husband-father.
In a scenario, in which the husband-wife relationship faces a crisis, social convention demands that the lower ranking party should be the one to make the greater sacrifice for peace to reign. This means that the wife is expected to understand the husband, forgive his misconduct and clean up his mess, where necessary. The wife's willingness to do this or how this impacts her well being is irrelevant. She is bound by three social contracts (man to woman, husband to wife and father of child to mother of child), all which places the man above the woman, to perform this role.
How does this relate to maturity?
A mature woman is a woman who performs these roles on her own and without “external coercion”. The moment a woman is being “advised”, or better reminded, of her role in the house, she is already losing the appellative of a mature woman which by social definition coincides with good wife, good mother and good person.
HOUSEHOLD: PARENTS – CHILDREN
I added children to the social hierarchy because, well, they are part of the society but the truth is, children don't matter. They are almost irrelevant until they grow into adults who can make decisions and make social contracts. So, even though I use the word children, which might suggest infants, I am actually talking about adults men and women and how they relate with their parents.
First of all, let's bear it mind that parenting is not considered a responsibility, a choice – for the most part, or an (risky) investment; it is rather an obligation that a man and a woman owe to the society and a favour that a man and a woman do their children. This means that children are indebted to their parents as long as they live. This debt consists of obedience and financial responsibilty.
Children owe their parents absolute obedience until they get married. After marriage, a man becomes the head of the house and becomes the new figure of authority, while the woman transfers her obedience to her parents – in particular her father – to her husband.
There might be situations where the extended family is called to mediate in an issue involving a husband and a wife. The extended family, however understands that the husband, as the head of the household, has the final say and that the wife must obey his decision.
As far as the financial responsibility is concerned, children are still required to cater for their parents even after they have gotten married. In many cultures, the husband, besides taking care of his own extended and nuclear family, also takes on the responsibility of catering for the wife's extended family. Of course, this kind of arrangement results in many different types of situations that we will talk about that subequently.
What happens when the parents are not good parents?
Technically nothing.
In advanced societies where individuals matter as much as the collectivity, if not even more, children are seen as valuable members of those societies. They are considered the future of the society, so a lot of investments are made on them. Good parenting is one. In cases where parents fail to offer this primary care, children are taken away from them by govermental institutions created to safeguard the welfare of children and placed into foster care or communities.
In Nigeria, children are rarely removed from an abusive family setting because, like I said, they don't matter. And as these children grow into adults, they know that no matter what happens, they can never break the social contract between them and their parents because they were never an active party in its creation. Rather they were born into it.
When you are born into a contract, you don't have the power to annul it. Only the person who created that contract can do it. That is the reason why we hear of parents, most especially fathers, disowning their children, therefore annulling their parent-child social contract, but we don't hear of children disowning their parents. The word “disown” (to not own), itself suggests an ownership of the parent over the child.
Our situation is not as bad as in some Muslim countries where parents have the right of life and death over their children, but in Nigeria, you won't be reported to any authority if you abuse your biological children.
What does it mean to be a mature child?
To be a mature child means to understand and accept that the parent-child social contract is binding under any circumstances and until death do them part.
Being mature in Nigeria is not easy and most importantly is not conveient. There is more to lose than to gain from being mature especially if you don't rank high in the social hierarchy.
I don't do Nigerian maturity. I have never done it as a child or as a woman. I simply do me. I am a very individualistic person and, yes, I am selfish. I put myself first. I know, that even for the intentional definition of maturity, I am immature. But seriously, I don't care much.
I am just here to illustrate. In the end Everyone does his or herself.
