Daily Trust - the online edition

It is well known in many cultures sons were preferred to daughters, in the olden days because they would help in farmlands and other rigorous activities like protecting the family physically and so on. While a daughter will be married and move out of your house. The issue of inheritance also played a role in making preference to male child, where a male child was automatically the Heir Apparent, and inherits everything.

During the Jahiliyya Period (Ignorance,Pre-Islamic) a girl child was buried, but when Islam came it prohibited that, and apparently to show that a girl child, or many amongst children is not a disgraceful thing to be ashamed about, God has blessed Prophet Muhammad with four daughters and two sons, and one of the son’s ,Al qasim ,died in infancy. This had made his enemies to mock him for having a lot of female children.

But gradually female children were ‘accepted’ (pray, who are the men going to marry?). Although even in recent times female children were not seen as so favourable, because there was no education, and they mostly became a huge burden on their parents and brothers, particularly where they got married, had children and divorced and due to some circumstance they brought their children with them. If they were widowed, they were still a liability.

With the coming of Western education, suddenly girls have become ‘equal’ to boys, if allowed to go to school, some even outperform the boys!. As a result of this, girls too could become something in the society; they could take care of themselves, their parents and relatives. The rest they say is history, as women have made impacts in almost all sectors in human development, such as medicine and engineering.

Therefore, I was surprised when I read the story (Sunday Trust, April 27,2008) of one man in Kano that beat his wife when she gave birth to a baby girl for the fourth time. According to the story, because he was so unhappy, he refused to come and see the baby for three months from Lagos, and he also snatched the baby and threw it away, and warned the wife not to breastfeed the baby girl.

The irony of this narrow-mindedness was that the man failed to see that if it were indeed a crime to have four successive female children, he should also share the blame. But then, sadly, some men still hate to have female children and blame their wives for that.

Recently I read a story from UN Integrated Regional Information Networks of one woman in Burundi, Francine Nijimbere whose husband cut off her arms up to her elbows in 2004 for failing to give birth to a boy. She relied entirely on her mother for basic things like bathing and eating.

The story said that the man, who was a soldier, was arrested and later sentenced to life in prison but he was released in December, when the president of Burundi granted pardon for all inmates suffering from incurable diseases. The wife raised alarm when she learned of his release, saying that he was not ill, and she was afraid he would kill her.

This story really moved me, but I saw it as far away, like hearsay, but to be confronted by the Kano story is something else, it is closer to me and, in fact it is in my town.

Such attitude is ungratefulness to God’s gift, especially while childless people are desperate to have a child regardless of gender.

Nevertheless, a lot of people believe that female children are more compassionate, and therefore more inclined to take care of their parents than male children. This is because while male children are busy taking care of their wives and children, female children, though may not be as well off as the male children, save and scrape to help their parents.

One man with five female children, told me, beeming that he was grateful to God for blessing him with them, "You know women are more compassionate than men. I love them so much, I wouldn’t trade any for a male child."

This is at least a small consolation that not all men regard female children as unfortunate, or even a taboo.

I recall one episode in an all-female children family. The daughters are four lovely, well-loved children. The three eldest ones, aged ten to six years, were playing and making great noise. The mother told them to stop shouting, and the youngest said, "It would have been worse if we were boys!" What a cheek!

Thereafter, the men that maltreat their wives for having female children should be severely dealt with. They are barbarians not fit to live among civilized men and women, but among beasts where they belong. As such, they should be treated like beasts.