Impact of widowhood on elderly women in nigeria

Impact of leavehood on fourth-year women in nigeriaThe paper examines the complaisant structured context and implications of leavehood in south Nigeria. It argues that in spite of the efforts by machinateal and informal get onncies to alleviate the burdens of widowhood, the gender informed discriminatory formula of mourning which exacts a heavy toll on women persists. In this case, widows argon widend to harsh and often cruel mourning enforces which be oddly tasking for elder women who prepargon to contend with frail carnal health, expiry of partners and the moral, psychological and physical mark of widowhood. Therefore, while these practices ar norm oriented they ex affectation the elderly widows to psychological and companionable make out challenges. How of all time, these elderly widows argon to a fault often led into activities and societal strategies perceived as capable of alleviating the burdens of widowhood. ein truth bit interesting is the finding that widows who are grumpyly eng advanced and enjoy mixer rattlinglihood cope better with the challenges of widowhood than others. In view of the above, the paper argues for a more agile role by mixer change by reversalers in intercommunicate safekeeping provisioning and policies for less(prenominal)ening the burdens of widowhood on elderly women.INTRODUCTIONThe plight of widows has been a recurrent theme in the efforts to address perceived or material gender imbalance in Afri keister societies even in contemporaneous times. In spite of this the traditional conception of mourning which places a high burden on women has obviously defied reform efforts. in that locationfore the focus on widows actually derives from the traditional and patriarchal nature of African societies in which women are often regarded as the silent role players. In such(prenominal) a situation a woman who loses her partner whitethorn confront ethnicly structured scenarios different from the case of a man in the equivalent situation. Therefore, the imaginings of widowhood in African societies are socio-culturally structured and rein agonistic and move over operative gender imbalance.Widowhood, meaning impairment of angiotensin-converting enzymes cooperator whether early or laterward on in life entails a lot of things, virtuallyly problems for the bereaved. Its effects may even be worse when the bereaved is an elderly person. Her self identity element in any case changes in the sense that it brings on an era of identity crisis. This is because the widows relish that the real essence of their being married has been lost by the decease of spouses. Coping with this identity crisis depends to a large extent on the exclusives qualification and will. For traditionally oriented women, the role of wife is central to their lives, structuring their lives non single in their house h sr.s exclusively also on the job and in answering the question who am I and these women often put wife of at the top of their dispositions (Atchley, 1996).Social recognition and acceptance also pose a problem to widows because often times, widowhood in African societies goes with the erosion of sociable recognition. Widows often face problems of declining social recognition and acceptance after the expiry of their spouses and this can be linked to their losing their central roles of wife. In dealing with the societal strength, these women get involved in other activities that they think will athletic supporter them get recognition from the public and this can be seen in their busy troth in politics.The elderly large number in the society are often stereotyped as lazy, wicked, hard to please disgusting, sickly and sometimes even diabolical (Korieh, 2005). This can be explained by the fact that they are viewed as burdens and distractions from ones immediate family and responsibilities. This stereotype is wrong because in the society, old people who are kind, peac eful and God fearing can still be lay d accept and this shows that one being evil or nice has nothing to do with age but the persons character and dispositions in life. check to Hazelrigg (1977), age by itself is not the cause of eachthing and it gets meaning only from how we use it to sort people. Thus, although age is used systematically to distinguish and categorize people, age in itself explains very little or nothing at all.The qualifying of a spouse can be a very traumatic experience specially for many sure-enough(a) women who devoted approximately of their lives to their marriages, economizes and children. Widowhood has thus been called the exemplar of a expressful life event and perhaps requiring more adjustment than any other life transition. (Hatch, 2000 Gallagtor et al, 1983).In addition to this, isolation and exclusion from the social environment sets in all in the name of widowhood practices and rituals and the woman is not anticipate traditionally to look aft er herself or freshen-up. This is often defined crudely as not bathing or combing her hair (See Basden, 1966). He aptly captured this practice in traditional Igbo society. According to him the woman mourningMoves from her deceased husbands house to a small but in another part of the compound. While dwelling in this hut, she wears no apparel unless perhaps a rag she must sit on a block or wood and nowhere else. Instead of a dormancy mat, a banana leaf must suffice (Basden, 1966 278).A large theoretic orientation in gerontology, the use possibleness of age argues that universal aging involves maintaining as long as possible the activities and attitudes of middle age (See, Havighurst, 1963 Brehm, 1968). The basic assertion of this theory is that individuals should be just as combat-ready and involved in a variety of different roles and responsibilities in their later years as they were in their middle years. Judging by the desolation and feeling of aloneness these widows expe rience after nutriment for decades with their spouses and losing them when their companionship is closely needed- at retirement one would agree that the military action theory to a large extent captures the situation of these widow (See Atchley1996).Thus, according to Brehm (1968), except for the biological and health changes older people have essentially the same psychological and social needs as middle aged people. From our get hold of, it was discovered that this activity theory is of very wide significance as a bonnie number of elderly widows used in the study agreed that active involvement in traffic helped them deal with widowhood and its related stress. For them, it helped them overcome loneliness, tender them with resources and kept time moving. This is in live with the contention of Kunkel (1979), that pee-peeing discipline widows adjust better during bereavement than those sick, jobless or incapacitated.Based on both the likely erosion of social recognition and i nsurmoun defer loss which widowhood offices, widows have often had to face socio-psychological challenges. These challenges result from both the societal attitude to widows and more crucially the psychological and even physical health of widows. As the above discussion shows, the case of elderly women may be worse given the unexamined stereotype about their attitudes and behaviour (See Korieh, 2005).Therefore this study want to ascertain the socio-psychological impact of widowhood on elderly women in a distinctive traditional setting in Nigeria. Such an exercise has undoubted policy and look implications since discrimination against widows form part of the much decried harmful traditional practices against women. Hence the outcome of this study may be instru kind in making known social policies for protection of women as well as pinpointing empirical and theoretical social croak response to the problems of widowhood.The study was conducted in Nsukka Local political sympathies Area of Enugu State, Nigeria. Three quarters in the local government empyrean viz Nkpunano, Nru and Ihe-owere were purposively chosen for the study. A total of 500 respondents were chosen through purposive sampling in the above three quarters. All the respondents were identified elderly widows above fifty years of age in these communities. The multi-stage sampling technique was used in actually selecting the above respondents while the questionnaire and interviews were used as instruments of data collection. The findings of the study report below was based on a total number of 448 elderly women who fully responded to the study instruments.RELATIONSHIP among MENTAL/EMOTIONAL STRESS ANDWIDOWHOOD IN antiquated WOMEN IN NIGERIA. matchless glaring socio-psychological impact of widowhood identified in the study sample is kind/emotional stress. In the case, quite a good number of the respondents describe experiencing this type of psychological imbalance. As the sidestep below orie nts, the enormity of responsibilities widowhood lays on them triggers off mental/emotional stress in addition to physical stress. board i dissemination of Respondents by Nature of Health nisus.StressRespondents functionMental Stress71.6Physical Stress28062.5none16135.9Total448100From the table above, apart from the 161 widows (35.9%) who declared they had no stress at all, 280 (62.5%) suffered from physical stress while 7 (1.6%) suffered from mental stress. This was as a result of the weight of responsibilities handed down to them after the shut out of their spouses. As has been indicated in the literature (See Basden, 1966), the isolation of the widow and the shabby manipulation meted out to her in the name of glossiness in Igbo shoot down can generate and heighten emotional and mental stress. In fact as one of our respondents stated, approximately of the times I fall sick, it is because I think of how to care for my family and I dont seem to come up with any solution. There fore in the Igbo area of Nigeria generally, as our study reveals, widows are confronted by social practices and observances such as disinheritance, and isolation which have adverse effects on their mental and psychological balance.Mental/emotional stress is a situation in ones mental well being or emotional state occasioned by tragedy (See Atchley, 1996). According to Atchley this stress can be manifested in the form of extreme anxiety, worries, frequent head-ache, high blood pressure, insomnia, heartache and regular infirmary visits precipitated by mainly by worry.In patriarchal societies, especially where the widows are suspected of killing their husbands widows are left entirely without social support (see Korieh, 1995). This is normally worse for the women who do not have adequate educational background or who were prevented from obtaining further education. According to one of our respondents, a close relative of her deceased husband tried justifying the treatment meted out to her by asking her how come it was our brother who died?Therefore, the death of a womans spouse in Igboland is usually a great psychological and physical challenge to the widow and her children. The woman who is bereaved is usually expected to be the chief mourner, assisted by relatives and friends, the wailing, weeping and hysteria are expected to go on for days before the mans burial and even afterwards (Afigbo,1989). As has been reported in the literature such wailings and bitter lamentations are culturally expected (Basden, 1966 Meek 1937 cf Afigbo, 1989). This practice of prolonged wailing and anguish compel by culture may often affect the psychological and mental balance of the woman (See Afigbo, 1989). In addition to this, widowhood may also occasion psychological and mental imbalance in some women especially older women whose mental faculties and emotions have been weakened by the challenges of living.Another key practice of widowhood in Africa which affects a womans psychol ogical balance is the compulsory period of privacy and isolation (Nwoga, 1989). In this case, the woman is isolated from the community for a undertake period. According to this scholar, the isolation is combined with a regime of total scorn of the hygiene and body needs of the woman and incidentally, the practice of widowhood known as Igba-nkpe has also been discover among Islamic communities. According to Trimmingham (1959), this period is known as iddat or idda among the Moslems and covers an average period of four months and ten days but in Igboland, the period lasts full 12 calendar months though primitive Christianity has reduced it in some cases nowadays to six months.Due to their ages also, there are more reports of depression, poor health or new or heightened illnesses among these widows than there is among non-bereaved elderly widows and some of them do not live lasting than one year after the deaths of their spouses (Gallagher and Thompson, 2001). This is because dep ression sets in at the loss of a spouse and most of them tell themselves that there is nothing to live for anymore. At some other times, married women friends see these widows as threats to their own still be marriages and as a result terminate their relationships with these widows at the death of their spouses.ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT IN OCCUPATION AND COPING WITH WIDOWHOOD AMONG ELDERLY WOMENWomen across the globe have shown enviable courage, resourcefulness and residence in carrying on despite the trauma caused by widowhood, the isolation imposed on them by widowhood and the difficult tasks of earning a living and protecting themselves and their dependent family members. These women work outside the home as the breadwinners, make decisions, head their households and sometimes mug up other women in areas of public life (ICRC, 1999). The above is no less the case with elderly widows in Southeastern Nigeria whose burden may have been doubled by the reality of aging. However, the women a s our findings indicate see maintaining a sense of balance through engagement in phone line or meaningful economic activity as critical to surviving the coping challenges of widowhood in old age. Therefore, as can be tell from the table below, most of the widows were actively involved in one form of occupation or the other in order to earn a living for their families, and maintain some level of socio-economic functioning considered necessary to coping with widowhoodTable ii scattering of Respondents by Perceived influence of industrious occasion inOccupation on CopingActive InvolvementRespondentsPercentageYes39989.1No4910.9Total448100%It can be noted that 399 respondents (89.1%) stated that active involvement in occupation helped them deal with the stress of widowhood. This is in agreement with the literature which asserts that active involvement in occupation assists widows to deal with widowhood (See Kunkel, 1979). These widows when further questioned expressed different reas ons for their involvement in active occupation but given that finance usually is a walloping problem to widows, 126 (31.6%) and 154 (38.6%) respondents respectively believe in active involvement because it provides notes for the upkeep of the family and prevents too much thinking for the widowsTable iii Distribution of Respondents by Importance of Active Involvement inOccupation.Importance of Active InvolvementRespondentsPercentagePrevents loneliness5614Prevents thinking15438.6Provides gold resources12631.6Keeps time moving6315.8Total399100Apart from involvement in occupation, these widows engaged themselves in some sort of social activities. These they did most times to get their minds off their problems especially at those periods the pains of loss of a love one and maltreatment by in-laws were very intense. The table below goes to show that a reasonable number of widows get themselves industrious socially in one thing or the other as a way of avoiding being engrossed in the t hroes of pain or endless contemplation of life without ones partnerTable iv Distribution of Respondents by Social Strategies Adopted by Elderly WidowsSocial schemaRespondents%Active involvement in meetings7717.2Stepped up interaction with family429.4Move involvement in religion25957.8Introversion143.1 conscionable keeping busy5612.5Total448100Given that most of the respondents were Christians, it was not out of place to discover that majority of them follow or resorted to prayers as a social strategy to cope with widowhood. In the interviews as well, it was observed that a good number of them adopted church activities as a solace from the loneliness and difficulties associated with widowhood. Apparently, the widows as the interviews revealed held strongly to the popular arbitrariness that when all things fail, God never fails. One of them said in vernacular, Ekpere bu ikem. Chukwu bu onye nkwado m. This manifestly means in English, Prayer is my strength, God is my provider.From the foregoing wherefore, the study revealed that most of the elderly widows at one point or another adopted economic strategies to help them cope the hardship associated with widowhood. Such strategies ranged from petty trade down to taking up additional jobs. On the other hand, they also adopted social strategies to assist them in their daily affairs as widows. These womens involvement in occupations and church activities as means of coping or overcoming widowhood are largely in agreement with the views of some scholars who have compose on widowhood (see, Kunkel, 1979 Atchley, 1997).SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE AND THE ALLEVIATION OF PROBLEMS OF WIDOWS IN NIGERIA.As the study revealed, widowhood in Southeastern Nigeria poses a variety of problems to women ranging from low social prestige, disinheritance, and forceful remarriage amongst others. Widows in Southeastern Nigeria often encounter the most strong forms of these discriminations in spite of the increasing modernity of all sphere s of the society.One prop of this gender discrimination is that once the man dies, the widow faces the incidence of disinheritance by in-laws. In western societies, a woman is entitled to all she ever had or shared with her deceased husband but as this study found out in Southeastern Nigeria widows, though preferring to continue to work on the lands owned by their late husbands cannot do so because land inheritance is impossible for them as a result of cultural norms which forbid this (Korieh, 2005). According to Oluwa (2005), though in paper the statutory and customary laws indicate that widows should inherit or be sole beneficiaries of their exanimate husbands properties (especially where children exist), this does not take in in practice. Rather in some cases where the woman is desperate for these lands and property, she is forced to conform to the tradition of widow inheritance. In this case, the woman is treated as part of the properties of the dead men and is also availabl e for inheritance. She becomes the legal wife of her inheritor and the children inherited and those born by the inheritor are considered to depart to the new husband (Evans Pritchard, 1951).The study also discovered that for fear of banishment and related punishments, widows suffer in silence, especially when they are denied traditional sources of support. This usually causes economic hardships and deprivation. They lose their honour and respect as soon as they lose their husbands. Their husbands being traditionally their main sources of honour and respect, once dead gives room for them to be treated with disregard as humans especially by in-laws (ICRC, 1999). This can be explained by the popular Igbo adage which says that Di bu ugwu nwanyi, (a husband is a womans honour).It was further discovered that widowhood in Igboland is usually a great psychological and physical challenge to the elderly widow. The wailing, weeping and hysteria are expected to go on for days, before the man s burial and even after wards as is obvious in the literature, such wailings and bitter lamentations are cultural expected (Basden, 1966, Meek, 1937 of Afigbo, 1989) and this prolonged wailing and anguish enforced by culture may often affect the psychological and mental balance of the woman.The list of problems is almost in exhaustible and these call for the intervention of social work services to help alleviate if not eradicate them entirely. From the study it was honoringd that those widows who involved themselves in occupation cope better than those who did not. Social workers should therefore take cognizance of the need to sensitize the idle widows to get busy in order to overcome both the financial and emotional hazards of widowhood instead than wallowing in self pity. In this case social workers can go the extra mile of linking widows with systems or organizations where these jobs no matter how small can be found.They can also act as advocates for these widows on the veer o f in-laws maltreatment. This role of advocacy should be extended to the policy makers bringing to their notice the ills suffered by the widows especially the elderly ones so that ways of enforcing already existing policies will be found and new ones established. These policies should cover areas such as Medicare for widows, living arrangements (this can be achieved by building low court houses), changing or eradication of harmful widowhood practices etc.Perhaps beyond the above public policy responses is the critical need for a widow oriented social work practice which while cognizant of the socio-cultural and psychological burdens of widowhood in Southeast Nigeria sees the elderly widows as a special group. Basically, aging and its resultant physical infirmities and socio-psychological withdrawal makes the elderly widow particularly unsafe to widow induced stress. Hence, social workers acting in their capacities to function as enhancers of coping capacity, linking agents and prom oters of effective humane operation of social systems (see, Ekpe Mamah, 1997 on the functions of social work) can do a lot to improve the situation of elderly widows in a male dominated society like the Igbo Southeastern Nigeria.The re-examination of the main findings of this study indicates that the situation of elderly widows can be explained along the lines of the popular continuity theory in social work. According to this theory the individual in the course of growing older is predisposed towards maintaining constancy in the habits, associations, preferences and lifestyle that he/she developed over the years (Peterson, 1976 McCrae and Costa, 1984). According to these Scholars, peoples habits, preferences, associations, states of health and experiences will in large part determine their efficiency to maintain their lifestyle while retiring from full time troth and perhaps adjust to the death of a loved one.Therefore in accordance with our findings in the study, it can be infe rred that activity at old age helps the elderly overcome loss of their loved ones especially their spouses and this activity if possible should be in the areas preferred and chosen by the individual with which he/she had been accustomed to over time.