"The upbringing of the good wife is fundamentally different from the upbringing of the good person."
I wrote that mini post a couple of months ago. I had not yet reasoned out every aspect of that thought, but I had already figured out that women who make excellent wives are more than often horrible people.
Now I have thought it through.
In patriarchal societies women are mostly raised with one single purpose: to be a good wife to a man. For that reason, most of her training will be aimed at making sure she grows up to be well behaved, rather than having a good character.
As we already know character is defined as the set of values and morals a person possesses, while behaviour is the manifestation of an attitude.
What the culture does is to make sure that irrespective of a woman's personality, character and attitude, she maintains a calm, composed and submissive demeanour at all times.
That's the reason why one could make a sweeping generalisation when talking, for example, of Nigerian women. Because indeed, the majority of Nigerian women tend to have to the same response to situations.
To them it is more important to avoid conflict than to actually solve an issue, since, even the sole intent of resolving an issue would often lead to a series of confrontations.
"You have to be a fool for peace to reign."
"A woman should choose wisdom over intelligence."
Phrases like these two are normal in our cultural setting. What they mean is that at no point should a woman be the one to react to a situation with any behaviour that is not aimed at maintaining peace; irrespective of what her attitude is at that moment.
The whole purpose of being a wife is not for her to do what is right, it is for her to do what needs to be done irrespective of what is right.
That's the reason why Nigerian women will iften act out of their character, their personality and their attitude just so they can conform to the societal definition of a "good girl".
What a good girl is differs from culture to culture, but given the widespread of patriarchy, I wouldn't be in error to make the following statements.
A good girl obeys her parents.
A good girl obeys her elders.
A good girl obeys her husband.
A good girl does not drink.
A good girl does not smoke.
A good girl does not party.
A good girl does not draw attention.
A good girl does not talk too much.
A good girl is modest.
A good girl is chaste.
A good girl is pure.
You can rarely tell a Nigerian woman's character from the way she behaves. She behaves well, at least in public. That's for sure.
It is not uncommon for Nigerian men to marry the well behaved girl because they erroneously believe that she also has good character.
However, to behave and misbehave are one thing, while good character and bad character are a totally different thing.
--------------------
I wrote yesterday that I'm a bad girl. It is true. I am a bad girl because I misbehave. But we will get to that.
For now, let me leave you to reflect on this piece. I'll be back later with more interesting observations.
I wrote that mini post a couple of months ago. I had not yet reasoned out every aspect of that thought, but I had already figured out that women who make excellent wives are more than often horrible people.
Now I have thought it through.
In patriarchal societies women are mostly raised with one single purpose: to be a good wife to a man. For that reason, most of her training will be aimed at making sure she grows up to be well behaved, rather than having a good character.
As we already know character is defined as the set of values and morals a person possesses, while behaviour is the manifestation of an attitude.
What the culture does is to make sure that irrespective of a woman's personality, character and attitude, she maintains a calm, composed and submissive demeanour at all times.
That's the reason why one could make a sweeping generalisation when talking, for example, of Nigerian women. Because indeed, the majority of Nigerian women tend to have to the same response to situations.
To them it is more important to avoid conflict than to actually solve an issue, since, even the sole intent of resolving an issue would often lead to a series of confrontations.
"You have to be a fool for peace to reign."
"A woman should choose wisdom over intelligence."
Phrases like these two are normal in our cultural setting. What they mean is that at no point should a woman be the one to react to a situation with any behaviour that is not aimed at maintaining peace; irrespective of what her attitude is at that moment.
The whole purpose of being a wife is not for her to do what is right, it is for her to do what needs to be done irrespective of what is right.
That's the reason why Nigerian women will iften act out of their character, their personality and their attitude just so they can conform to the societal definition of a "good girl".
What a good girl is differs from culture to culture, but given the widespread of patriarchy, I wouldn't be in error to make the following statements.
A good girl obeys her parents.
A good girl obeys her elders.
A good girl obeys her husband.
A good girl does not drink.
A good girl does not smoke.
A good girl does not party.
A good girl does not draw attention.
A good girl does not talk too much.
A good girl is modest.
A good girl is chaste.
A good girl is pure.
You can rarely tell a Nigerian woman's character from the way she behaves. She behaves well, at least in public. That's for sure.
It is not uncommon for Nigerian men to marry the well behaved girl because they erroneously believe that she also has good character.
However, to behave and misbehave are one thing, while good character and bad character are a totally different thing.
--------------------
I wrote yesterday that I'm a bad girl. It is true. I am a bad girl because I misbehave. But we will get to that.
For now, let me leave you to reflect on this piece. I'll be back later with more interesting observations.
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