An African Wife Overcomes Reproach
As told to “Awake!” correspondent in Liberia
I WAS one of thirteen children born to my father by his three wives. I have lingering memories of a happy childhood, fishing, swimming and snail hunting in the large creek near my home—a thatched hut in a large African village. What good times I had with my girl friends washing clothes in the stream! Little did I know that the creeks were becoming infested with parasites small enough to pass through the skin and affect a girl’s ability to bear children—her main role in life in Africa.
My family believed that all the activities of life were controlled by mysterious genies or spirits. One of them, I was told, had granted me remarkable success in catching fish. The help of those genies depended on keeping their laws. So, when I got sick one day, the local native woman zo, a sort of doctor, told my parents that the law of the genie had been violated by someone beating me over the head. Washing my body in some kind of herbal solution was supposed to restore good relations with my genie.
In a vague way I knew there was some great Spirit who had made all things. But I did not know anything about praying to this unknown power. Nor did I know how death had first entered the human scene. Calamity was always attributed to a witch, such as the one thought responsible for the death of my younger brother. On that sad event father acted immediately to protect the rest of his family. He had to carry rice, white cola and other items to the native doctor, who then sacrificed a chicken under a big tree and prepared a concoction of medicine to ward off evil.
Now, what do you think my parents expected to take place? They believed that the guilty witch would suffer a calamity—he would dream of being beaten by a stronger witch. Sickness would follow, and eventually he would confess. Thus justice would be satisfied, for the dream-beating and sickness were considered due punishments for the crime. But to avoid more beatings, the guilty witch would have to pay a fee to the native doctor. The only one who really benefited was the doctor, for he received fees from both parties. Meantime, my little brother was gone and nobody offered any hope that we would ever see him again.
“When You Marry”
While I was still young, mother gave me advice whereby I might avoid the grief she suffered through most of her married life. She was the first woman that father had dowried, so she was rightly the head wife, and she was valued as a fruitful bearer of children. But unhappily father later acquired other women in accord with the prevailing custom.
Though father loved his second wife more than he did the others, she was also popular with other men, and father never could bring himself to put her away for unfaithfulness. This situation caused mother to vow she would never again share her bed with father; she would remain in the household as though a widow. Then came the crisis when the third wife, the one who had to do all the hard work, decided to leave.
Tearfully mother revealed how father’s smooth talk had brought about this heartache. When mother was the only wife, father had persuaded her to take a pot as dowry gift and offer it to a young girl so that she might become his secondary wife. Father claimed this would be to mother’s advantage, since the drudgery of drawing water and other heavy work would pass to the second woman. But now, bitterly, she counseled me: “My daughter, never engage any girls for your husband and get yourself into this situation. When you marry, your husband should love you alone and no others!”
Training in a Bush School
When I was twelve I left home for a year of training in a bush school—training that would prepare me for marriage and motherhood. I was anxious to excel, to be knowledgeable, so that I might please my future husband in every way.
The woman’s Sande society provides for this instruction to be given many young girls in a secluded area of the forest. For the entire period we were completely cut off from our families. We were considered as dead, swallowed up by the female “devil” or forest spirit. Our return home would be viewed as emerging from death as new creatures.
At school my aunt, who was a zo, began training me to be a zo also. This would prepare me to be a big queen in the woman’s society and an authority on bush medicine. So I learned much about various leaves and herbs. The other girls were taught useful arts such as cotton spinning, basketmaking and weaving.
Emphasis was laid on our developing respect and humility before older persons and also to our future husbands. A stubborn, disobedient girl might be made to sit on a pile of broken palm-kernel shells. Or water might be poured on her constantly for hours. Even after completion of school, in serious cases of insubordination, the zo had authority to prescribe some special type of poison designed to double up a victim in misery, thus to drive out the haughty spirit.
‘This will not happen to me,’ I resolved. ‘I will not suffer reproach on that account.’ I still had much to learn about genuine love, that deep-down loyalty that adds no reproach.
The Reproach of Barrenness
At childbearing age I responded to a young man’s “I love you” and entered into a trial marriage arrangement. My parents wanted to be sure that my lover “could hold a woman good.” I looked forward to the day when I would bear my first child. Imagine the disappointment when I miscarried. After that, no “belly” again for me. Something vital had gone out of my life. I was like a tree without fruit, a cloud without rain.
One day a suspicious-looking old man left with my lover a little book about God. He promised to return. As soon as the sound of his motorcycle reached me I fled into the cassava bush. Why should a strange man come and visit people like us, except to catch us for sacrifice? One day, arriving on foot, he did catch us, but his friendly greeting stopped me in my tracks.
Through an interpreter he told about a great chief who handed over much good farmland to people he loved. They could keep the land as long as they respected the chief and his laws. Failing miserably, they defied the chief and filled the place with trouble. Now the kindly chief was coming quickly to throw out the troublemakers and give his possession to appreciative ones.
With this illustration I came to understand the Creator’s purpose for the first time. And I learned that his name is Jehovah. What a grand future was offered to those who would please this great Heavenly Chief!
Deep within me something came alive, something that had died long before. All the sacrifices I had paid for had been unable to give me hope. Now there was something to live for after all. It was as though from the bottom of a dark hole I was being raised gradually into the light and warmth. I gladly consented to have this old man come and teach us the Bible regularly.
Faith was built up as I learned all about the one having ‘the keys of death and the grave,’ Jesus Christ. (Rev. 1:18) There was hope that my little brother would live again! What a grand prospect! And it was the Devil who had filled the earth with false worship, vain sacrifices and magic medicine that enslaved the superstitious.
My lover and I understood, too, that honorable marriage was no halfway arrangement. The dowry was soon paid in full. Both he and I had been changed for the better through Bible knowledge. I felt now that he should be able to “hold me good.” And what a pleasure to attend Christian meetings together!
“I Can’t Cry”
Not for long did we enjoy this happiness. “Let us go look for money somewhere,” my husband announced one day. I did not share his enthusiasm. It would mean leaving Christian friends, busying ourselves in the pursuit of mammon. Soon the good habits and the fruitage of love, joy and peace vanished. By the time we got back to our village I was a mistreated, spurned wife. My husband was interested in another woman. How I longed for the congregation meetings! But now my husband forbade me to have anything to do with Jehovah’s witnesses.
By this time I had learned that Jehovah was the Supreme Lawgiver, and no other, not even a husband, could properly cancel one’s obligation to the Creator. My husband threatened persecution and summoned my parents and the village elders. With all the strength I could muster I declared before them all: “The thing that Jehovah has taught me, none of you have taught me in my life. So I cannot quit. I have a new hope now!”
Next my husband moved to shatter my heart. Without delay he married my younger sister. Then he came and self-justifyingly said: “Ever since you be with me, you never ‘born’ child. I have no children by you. I know the thing I will do to you will make you cry!” “Since Jehovah’s name is on me,” I replied, “I can’t cry. Since it is your money you want, and you have taken my sister and all the other girl friends you have, and you tell me now that I am just a barren woman, I am going to give you your money!”
When my parents returned the dowry money, he himself, according to our custom, wrote out the receipt and free paper: “This woman is free to marry anybody. My name is not on her again.”
Reproach Taken Away
Thus I was thrown aside as worthless. I was like the dying embers of a fire. I needed to be stirred up again through close association with God’s people. Jehovah, not some genie, now truly became my helper, and under his care I made good spiritual progress. That was an unforgettable day when I accompanied that old Witness—the one I used to run away from—in the preaching ministry. People were surprised when I was able to tell them things about God, though I had never been inside a regular school. Later I even learned to read God’s grand promises to them out of the Bible.
Then, in due course, came baptism. My life now had definite meaning, for now I belonged to God. What a blessing I could be to others! How well I understood the fears and despairs of my superstitious country sisters! Particularly to those who could not have children I poured out my heart. Rather than the work of witchcraft, as they supposed, it was possibly the work of parasites that can affect the internal organs to the point of “spoiling the young belly.” Doctors later expressed the opinion that this had been the cause of my miscarriage. But the great Healer would soon correct our imperfect bodies. Miscarriages, stillbirths, malformed and sickly offspring will not mar the joy of those who share in repopulating the earth. No longer will mothers “bring to birth for disturbance.”—Isa. 65:23.
How satisfying to see seeds of Bible truth taking root in good hearts! One old Kpelle woman believed all her life that the dead are spirits who will never again live on earth. The truth that people will be resurrected in fleshly bodies to live on earth thrilled her. In time she accepted true Christianity and was baptized. As my “daughter” spiritually, this old “ma” now joins me in the preaching work. My real mother, too, listens respectfully to the Bible’s message. May she act before it is too late.
Long ago Hannah sang out exultantly in gratitude to Jehovah: “Even the barren has given birth to seven, but she that was abundant in sons has faded away.” Often I look upon the many children in a village, happy and carefree. But their parents are often proud, resisting the word of Jehovah. How can they survive when God sweeps away this crooked generation? Their reproach will be far worse than that of a barren woman. They are bringing forth merely for destruction. How I thank Jehovah that by his Word and spirit I am enabled to serve as a humble instrument in bringing forth “seven” for survival and life!—1 Sam. 2:5.
My mind has not changed. “Since Jehovah’s name is on me, I can’t cry.” I can only rejoice as a spiritually fruitful branch, desired and loved now by a husband at whose side I serve God. Together we prepare for survival and the joys of living under the loving rule of the One who promises eternal life. But even in this present time I can with joy and appreciation repeat the words of Rachel: “God has taken away my reproach!”—Gen. 30:23.