THE NARRATIVE ARC
Our Mothers Carried Their Wealth Around Their Waist
And showed us the importance of financial independence
As a young girl who holidayed in my Nigerian village with my grandmother in the early 2000s, leaving her home because school was resuming, was often painful. To soothe me, Grandma would take me to her room, loosen her wrapper, untie the end, and give me some money.
“Buy something and eat, okay?” She would say to me while wiping away the tears running down my face.
Money to buy something new, greasy, or shiny, aside, the older I got, I noticed that women kept their money tied up on the edges of the wrappers they tied around their waists.
When you bought something from the women at the market, they would take your money, loosen the wrapper, untie the edge, and put your money into it. If there was change to give you, they would take from it and give you. It was the same routine when you bought something from the woman on the streets and it was the same routine when women met for meetings and there was a financial contribution. It was the same routine when a woman wanted to contribute to her sister leaving her marriage or contribute to her brother undertaking a far journey.
My mother never wore her money around her waist though as she always worked for the government and had her money deposited into her bank account. But, because of a lack of education or a lack of need to do so, many women did not have bank accounts then.
How did they protect their money? From my grandmother, I learned the money went from their waist (during the day), to under their beds (at night)where there was a tin, an earthen pot…or a small pit — if it was a mud house. (Yes, I am that old). The top of the tin, pot, or pit was often disguised with miscellaneous items so it was difficult to easily find the money if you had no idea where the owner hid it.
When I listen to Africans today talk about how a man should be the main or sole financial provider, I always wonder how that came to be. I know that my grandma, like theirs, were women who worked, kept their money close and whenever there was a need, the wrapper was loosened and the problem was handled quickly.
My grandfather died too early for any meaningful interaction between us, but I do not think that if he were alive, my grandmother, would need to get his permission, “I see that you are crying because you are sad to leave me so wait and let me go and ask my husband for money to give you because I do not have any. ” These, I hear from women today.
Neither do I think that if my grandpa was alive, my grandma would ever say to me, “I do not work. My husband works and I take care of the home”.
What I am certain of is this, if my grandparents were alive, my grandmother would have continued her life as a part-time trader of everything she grew on her farm and the animals she raised in her barn. A powerful voice in the community, my grandmother would have continued to head the women in our kindred.
As a woman who battled infertility for years, for the infertile women in the village, my Grandmother would have remained the godsend who directed them to the native doctors and herbalists who were renowned for curing infertility. And all these, while playing hostess to the many people who trooped into her home as she was renowned for her generosity.
If one were to wonder, “Was she a good wife though?”
I say, fair question. In my culture, our mothers are given names by other women or by their husbands. These names reflect the way they are as wives. My grandma was called, “Ahu-diya” (the body/the soul of her husband)by my grandfather. Women called her either that or “Ahu-gold” (the body/soul of gold — because she was wealthy and loved trinkets). So yes, my grandmother was both a good wife and financially independent.
My grandma was not a special woman of her time. I know this because if one took a trip to my village today and observed the women, one would find them to have an occupation — be it selling oranges. One would also find them taking care of their homes.
Without the prevalence of information today via the internet, social media, phones, etc, somehow, our mothers of ages ago had it easier finding ways to be financially stable for themselves, their many children, their husbands, and extended families. How is this so?
Money has gotten more plenteous and yet, incapable of buying as much as it used to in the olden days. Also, with the widespread banking systems, our mothers today cannot carry reasonable sums of money on their wrappers. However, our mothers’ past did not have the luxury or orientation of waiting on their husbands to provide for them.
The typical patriarchal African home was polygamous. The husbands went to the farms with their older male children. When people say that women stayed home, the assumption is that they only stayed home to cook, clean, and breastfeed. Some younger children were delegated sweeping, cleaning, and helping with the cooking too.
The women worked on their farms around the home. On their farms, they grew the vegetables and all the ingredients to cook the bigger foods like yam, rice, and beans, that their husbands and older children, cultivated on the farms farther away from home. The women also traded whatever they had to others who needed it so they brought home all that their families needed. And who kept the poultry, goats, pigs, and the other domestic animals needed to feed the homes? The women.
African women have always worked hard. They were socialized to be strong enough to care for themselves and everyone else.
Today, more than ever, it is important that women understand that they must strive for their financial independence. As a woman who stayed longer in an abusive situation, because I was not financially independent, there is no greater education I can give any woman save for this — have a paying occupation and have your money close.
We may have outgrown the time when women wore their money in their clothes and hid them in tins, pots, and pits but what we as women cannot outgrow was the spirit of the time — a time when women knew the value of financial freedom.
