African wives treated as 'glorified slaves' – Rev Felix-Adejumo

African women are like “glorified slaves” in their marriages, President of the Funke Felix-Adejumo Foundation has said.

Mrs Felix-Adejumo, whose foundation, according to her website, “is dedicated to making worldwide impact with a special call to restoring dignity to womanhood and equipping women from all over the world”, told her audience in one of her teachings that in a typical African village, women are treated like chattel.

She said while marriage is “a necessary evil” and “a mere social contract to be run and guided by traditions and superstitious beliefs” to some people, others see it as an “organised forum for child-bearing and child-rearing”.

In Africa, Mrs Felix-Adejumo observed, marriage “is like a formalised slave trade: the woman is like a glorified slave – you can kick her out and get another one at will and you are free to marry as many as possible”.

In the Western world, she said “it is like a business: for better for stay, for worse, for leave”.

Elaborating on how women are badly treated in marriages in Africa, the author of over 50 books, illustrated that in a “core African village, a man with many wives goes to the farm with his wives, they labour almost equally, some of them are even pregnant or whatever and when they are returning, the man carries only one useless cutlass while his wives carry loads and they are sweating and the man is using the useless cutlass to drive away imaginary flies and greeting people that do not require his greetings”.

And when they get home, she continued: “The man sits before a transistor radio with a keg of palm wine while the woman is busy in the kitchen. That’s marriage in the African setting”.

She, however, said: “It’s the dawn of a new day”, adding that: “Marriage is neither Western nor African, marriage is biblical, the family is the gift of God to humanity. …Marriage is sweet depending on the cutlery you use to eat it.”