‘You must marry your wife’s corpse’

At first it was congratulations and celebration galore as Madam Margaret Emmanuel was delivered of a set of beautiful twin girls.  But few hours after, the joyful mood turned sour and mourning took over, as news filtered in that mother of the twins had passed on. She gave up the ghost on her way to the hospital, living the twins behind without the very vital motherly care. It also marked the beginning of the trauma of her husband and father of the twins, Mr. Adejo Emmanuel. Aside being shattered by the news, he was suddenly faced with a somewhat insurmountable challenge of weaning two infants alone.

But the trauma did not end there, only Emmanuel didn’t know at this point in time.
While lamenting his predicament, Emmanuel said, “My life is like a balloon that was punctured with a pin, which immediately deflated it of all the joy. When a woman is pregnant the prayer is to hear the babies’ cries and that of the mother’s joy; but now the mother is gone, leaving the babies,” Emmanuel said, sobbing.


That was the story of the Emmanuel family last December 21. As if the agony was not enough, the deceased’s family members sent a message to the husband that he has to obey their custom and tradition by performing certain rituals and rites. Chief amongst these rights includes performing the mandatory marriage ceremonies with the deceased wife, an activity the couple had failed to perform while the late Margaret was alive. Without that, they told him that he is barred from coming to his wife’s village in Akenze, Ebonyin State, let alone, burying the corpse.

Emmanuel, a peasant farmer in his mid-50s is thus being called upon to go through wedding ceremonies with his late wife’s corpse. Coming from Emmanuel’s Igala ethnic background, this is rather bizarre and unimaginable. He lamented, “I don’t know what went wrong and I don’t know my sin. Like any other fellow Christian, when everybody was preparing for Christmas, I was preparing as well, both for a merry Christmas, safe delivery for my wife and a successful naming ceremony for the babies; not knowing that I had another thing coming.”