When women outnumber men

“Oh women treat us gentle now because we are very scarce.” These words were written on the back of a tricycle on one of Kano’s major streets. Funny enough, the words depict the mindset of some men nowadays. Oftentimes, men could be heard saying it is harder to get N5 now than to get a […]

“Oh women treat us gentle now because we are very scarce.” These words were written on the back of a tricycle on one of Kano’s major streets. Funny enough, the words depict the mindset of some men nowadays.
Oftentimes, men could be heard saying it is harder to get N5 now than to get a woman. Due to this notion which some men have about women, they mistreat women and make them object of ridicule and oppression.
They feel time has come for men to deal with women, to change wives at their free will and to even seek for the relinquishing of rights if the woman would want to remain married.
The questions that could possibly come to a sensible mind are whether this phenomenon is reason enough for men to rejoice, considering the fact that women have unbroken relationship with men either as fathers, brothers or relatives.
Is this not a challenge that both parties should think of a way of minimizing the negative effect it will have on the society?
And by the way, does the number make it easy for men to have decent and well behaved wives at their door steps?
Musa Ibrahim, in his early 40s, said because of their number, women are so desperate that they don’t wait for men to make the first request. He said there were instances when women had approached and offered themselves to him; with some relinquishing their marital rights. What they just need is to get married, “This has happened to me not once. Women are now so desperate that they would want to give themselves to men,” he said.
According to him, women have no cause to brag because they are at the mercy of men.
“They must pamper us to get us and to also retain us,” he said.
Aliyu Alhassan Bichi, a Kano business man, noted that despite the number of women in the society there is the need for men to respect them.
“We cannot undermine the position of women in our midst because they give birth to men and take care of the family. If we take the upbringing of the child alone, it is enough to give kudos to women,” he said.
He added that: “It is only the bad mannered men that would despise women and even boast of having an edge over them,”
He however advised women to behave well so that society would respect and cherish them, saying the wanton display of nudity by the women is what is making some men molest them.
Bichi further urged government to find ways of minimizing rampant cases of divorce which is the major cause of putting the lives of women to untold trials.
Abubakar Adamu commenting on the issue, felt that women should be pitied but not despised because it is not their making,
 “If you despise and oppress women because they are now too many, God can reverse it by making the men the majority and they might end up not having the wives to marry because the women have become few in number,”  he said.
He however advised women to pray fervently so that despite their number, they would not be left dejected.
He also advised parents to see that as a challenge and do more in the training of their children so that their female children could not be a nuisance to the society.
Reacting to this stance of the men, the women however feel it was not too bad all the same because, according to Talatu Ibrahim, a student of a tertiary institution in Kano, men still have to toil hard to get married. “They keep telling us that we are now too many and therefore very cheap to get but up till now I’m seeing many men that are unable to get married because they cannot afford the cost of marriage,”  she said.
Talatu also said she is not bothered by this outcry because she believes decent women are still scarce to get.
“It is only women that decide to make their lives useless that will face such problem. The decent and well behaved women will forever remain scarce and men must search very well to reach them, ”  she said.
In her opinion, a court staff and Islamic preacher, Malama Khadijah Aliyu said the fact that women are too many does not mean that they should be despised.
“After all it is not their making and neither is it the making of the men. It is God’s design and whatever is designed by God should not be taken for granted,” she said.
According to her, the reason why women are seen as too many is because they have all come outside with some of them exhibiting bad behaviours.
“If they had restricted their movements outside and had guarded their modesty, no blame would be put on them and no one will say they are too many,” she said.
She added that Islam has given a panacea for the problem where it encourages men that are capable to marry more than one wife.
“If capable men are marrying more wives and the men who are bachelors are getting married, the presence of women will not be as ubiquitous as it is now,” she said.
Malama Khadijah on her part, advised women to maintain decency and modesty because, according to her, decent and well behaved women would forever remain a scarce commodity.
She further noted that there was the need for both parents and government to join hands in facing the challenge because the phenomenon is affecting all and sundry, adding that men that were using this opportunity to oppress women should fear God and know that one day it would be either their daughters, sisters or other female relatives that might be subjected to same in the hands other men.