Victimized by Tradition: Single Women in Nigeria Are Ostracized by Caste

Jennifer Ugwa Abuja, Nigeria — For Chidera Donatus and Chukwuma George, their love story began as many others had during the Covid-19 pandemic. While the world was isolated in lockdown, they both reached for companionship and social connection online: in a WhatsApp group that connected Igbo-speaking single women and men from eastern Nigeria. (Both an ethnic group and a language, Igbo is one of the majority ethnic groups in Nigeria and the native tongue of 20 million Nigerians.)

Donatus would comb through hundreds of comments every day, rarely contributing herself. When she finally did, George would be one of the first to respond. Their conversation soon became private, and after nearly two months of long chats and calls that often carried into the early hours of the following morning, George proposed, and Donatus accepted.

They began talking in April 2021, and by September, Donatus embarked on her first trip to Lagos in the southwest, an eight-hour journey from Akwa in the southeast, to see George. It had been five months since that first message from George, but Donatus said that it felt like they had known each other their entire lives.

But upon her arrival, George’s family informed him that she was osu, and he rescinded his proposal.

“An ancient belief in the Igbo tradition claims relations with osu (a person enslaved to a traditional diety or his descendant) would result in terrible luck in business and marriage,” explained Christian Opata, a historian and international studies lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, whose research interrogates casteism. “Hence, a diala (translated as son of the soil) — considered a freeborn, a noble with full status as a community member — shuns marriage with descendants of osu.”

A legacy of the slave trade

In the old Igbo society in southern Nigeria, people were divided into four social hierarchies: nwa-diala (or diala), osu, ohu, and ume. To be a diala was synonymous with freedom; this caste owned the ohu — enslaved persons in payment of a debt, often captives from distant communities and towns who were kept as domestic servants (later, during the Transatlantic slave trade the 15th to 19th centuries, they were also sold to white merchants).

Osu is a person dedicated to a deity by a family or community to avert a calamity or punishment from the gods. An osu has no privilege, freedom, or claim to anything in the community; in fact, they would have little to no interactions with the rest of society. According to traditional beliefs, the generational curse of the osu is passed down to succeeding generations, condemning them to be societal outcasts.

Ume, the fourth caste, was a person who sought clemency from punishment by offering themself to some of the ruthless deities. Some Igbo communities categorize osu and ume as the same, according to Ichie Francis Akanugwu, a traditional head of the Ikeduru community (who is diala) in the country’s southeast. “They are sort of a cankerworm,” he said.

Today, the lower castes — osu, ohu, and ume — enjoy the same constitutional rights as higher caste members and can engage in business within and beyond their communities, but the traditional caste structure continues to influence social dynamics like marriage; inter-caste unions are often frowned upon.

Opata said that casteism across rural communities in southern Nigeria are living legacies of the Transatlantic slave trade: colonists exploited the pre-existing social hierarchy and fanned classism among and within tribes to create a supply market of slaves. “The source was there, and the demand was high,” said Opata. “Before the 15th century, there was slavery, but what was the volume? A track in history will reveal the enormous hike in slavery with colonialism.”

The superiority-inferiority complex, he said, was built over time, and survives in Nigerian society today as a tool of oppression. In most present-day Igbo communities, caste ranking is a core concern for both families and couples.

Before a marriage can commence in the Igbo tradition, the families of the intending couples initiate iju ajuju — an inquiry to investigate a person’s ancestry in order to determine family lineage, health history, religion, financial standing, and even procreational prowess to bear sons. George and his family in Anambra, a state that borders Donatus’ native Imo, began this process shortly after he proposed marriage.

Donatus’ ancestry surprised even her. Heartbroken but hopeful she could save her relationship, Donatus boarded the next bus from Lagos to her hometown in Owerri, also in the southeast, to discover the truth.

“I felt rejected over something I knew nothing about,” she said.

‘No in-betweens’

Akanugwu, the Ikeduru head, said that a diala who marries an osu condemns himself and the rest of his family to the deity to which his wife’s ancestors were sacrificed. The family may even reject him “because you have gone to bring in an abomination,” he said.

Igbo culture is highly patriarchal. Women have very little or no social influence: even in as personal a matter as marriage, the woman’s consent does not count without the man’s assent — and this is applicable across the castes, said Maduagwu Ogechukwu, founder of the Initiative for the Eradication of Traditional and Cultural Stigmatization in Our Society (IFETACSIOS).

Akanugwu notes that while the osu may be a part of the community council — and even hold top positions in the group — anyone of osu ancestry cannot be crowned king in his local community, nor can he perform the solemn responsibility of breaking the kola or offering libations in the community. (For men in the Igbo communities, to be afforded these roles does not only signify coming of age but also acceptance as the son of the land. Barring a man from performing these rites was seen as a way of marking him an “outsider.”)

Although someone of osu ancestry may receive a traditional title in another place, it is never at home. “There are no in-betweens,” said Akanugwu. “You cannot revoke [being an osu].”

No Jew, no Gentile

In an interview with WMC Women Under Siege, one of the oldest leaders in Imo state, His Royal Majesty Eze Godwin Agbayim claimed that the osu caste is deeply rooted in the disobedience of Isaac when he was advised not to marry from the Edomites, he said. “It means they shouldn’t marry from the osus,” he said, “because it is an abomination.”

Nigeria has the the sixth-largest Christian population in the world (87 million in 2015). Most Christians are also found in the southern and middle belt regions of the country. Igboland has seen a blend of the Orthodox denominations and Protestantism. Both Donatus and Georgeare Christians. At some point, she thought love and religion would be enough.

Casteism is not inherently a part of Christianity — or any other religion — but in Nigeria, where Christianity has coexisted with pre-colonial caste structures since the arrival of the Portuguese in the 15th century, the two have intersected in complex ways, wrote Oliver Alozie Onwubiko in “Facing the OSU Issue in the African Synod: A Personal Response.” Christian missionaries reinforced caste divisions by incorporating local customs and traditions to ease conversion. Colonists would later claim to have done the same to acquire cheap labor.

“We are in the same church, eat from the same Holy Communion, and when it comes to our daughters and sons getting married, we start telling stories,” said Reverend Divine Eches, PhD, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Owerri Chapter. “That tradition and culture have life because the church permits it!” He said the problem is that, while most church leaders preach acceptance without actively condemning caste stigma in marriages.

“The Scripture says there is no Jew, and there is no Gentile.”

Abolition?

A 1956 law abolished the Osu Caste System, but while it passed, the law was never implemented. The Nneji Foundation, a transnational advocacy group founded under the patronage of a prominent Nigerian politician—from the osu caste—is currently adjudicating for a review in order to pressure the government to implement stiffer punishments for offenders.

“The law was dead on arrival without implementation,” argued historian Opata. “It appears [the now-defunct Eastern House of Assembly] made that legislation, maybe, to satisfy the colonial masters [and] convince them that they were ready for independence.”

(Britain, Nigeria’s former metropole — and former client in the slave trade — only began to advocate for the abolition of slavery after the Industrial Revolution so that it had local labor to source raw materials, which it would then export to feed the industry at home. Opata described it as a classic double standard of the West. “It’s just like how the West defines terrorism: When the Big Powers are hurt, it becomes terrorism. but when they hurt others, it’s regarded as state intervention.”)

Still, “even if 100 laws are passed, it will not be adopted,” said Emeka Ogbonnaya, PhD, national publicity secretary of Ohaneze ndi Igbo, a global Igbo socio-cultural organization. He said that rural populations would not comply if it contradicts their traditions.

Past efforts to abolish casteism — most recently, in 2018 and in 2021 — across southeastern states have made little mark. Ogechukwu of IFETACSIOS said that even with reconciliation programs and pledges to stop caste segregation, families will still contest marriages between an osu and diala.

“Preconceived belief of doom is fueling the divide,” she said. “I would say, show me an osu going through hardship, and I will show you thousands of dialas that are in worse marriages.” Ogechukwu said.

Casteism in Igboland has yet to receive the appropriate attention from the government as an issue that borders human rights, she said, as women’s voices are degraded and dismissed in every caste. Comments like “Imagine a woman coming to tell me what to do about tradition — a woman who squats to pee,” Ogechukwu said. “It cuts at the very essence of liberty.”

“Osu [caste system] has no basis in contemporary society,” said Opata. “It is useless.”

According to Ogbonnaya, the divide by caste will naturally resolve itself. “Maybe in about 20 to 30 years,” he said. “Water will find its level gradually.” But six decades after the so-called caste abolition statute, single women of lower caste are still barred from fully engaging with society.

Ogechukwu, for her part, said she looks forward to such a future, “[when] everyone in the Igbo nation will see the light.”

It’s been more than a year for Donatus since that fateful encounter. George is married now, and Donatus still remembers the day of his wedding. “I won’t lie to you, I cried,” she said, admitting that she’s still heartbroken. “The pain was fresh again.”