‘Your Husband Has The Right To Do Whatever He Wants With Your Body” – Presenter, Tope Mark-Odigie

Few days ago, a Nigerian doctor took to Twitter to narrate the story of how a husband connived with his doctor to remove his wife’s womb without her consent because he did not want more children in Festac town, Lagos.

According to the husband, himself and his wife agreed to have just three children but now they have five. After the birth of the 5th child, he connived with the doctor to remove her womb without her consent. He said he cannot see himself using condom to have sex with his wife. The wife has also stated previously that she doesn’t like taking birth control pills because they make her bloated.

This morning, the hosts of TVC’s show, The View, discussed the issue and one of the presenters, Tope Mark-Odigie, was of the opinion that as long as a woman has gotten married to a man traditionally, he has the right to do whatever he wants to do with her.

According to her, it is the culture that we practice. She stated that traditional weddings have been created to give the impression that a woman is being bought by a man.

”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.”

Watch the video below. She started talking from the 19.55 minutes