BY ANITA SANNI MUSNAT
I had always sought the opportunity to air my opinion on this worthwhile topic. It is generally known that, our custom and practices makes us distinct people and we ought to cherish them, yet, looking at the Ghanaian society one notices that, some customs and practices need to be done away with by virtue of their irrelevance and being out of touch with modernity.
To start with, matrilineal inheritance which to all extent has been useful has its faults likewise. With this system, a man for instance succeeds his maternal uncle and not his father. Quite often, this has resulted in situations where the deceased’s maternal relatives have driven widows and bereaved children from their family homes. A nephew is then chosen to inherit from a man whom has toiled with the wife to set-up a home and acquire some property. Educated people of Ghana, is fair for a widow to be chased out of her marital home with her children because the husband is no longer alive? Matrilineal inheritance should be abolished forthwith.
Another custom generally criticized is the “Trokosi” system. What this entails is that, for the sins or crimes which our relatives committed against a god or goddess, young girls are sent to the shrine to serve for life. They live as property of the shrine and are married to the custodians of the gods or the priests. Though slavery is no longer practiced anywhere in the world, Trokosi can be said to be another form of slavery. A huge sense of injustice is seen in the fact that innocent girls are been held accountable for the wrongs of their forbearers. The Trokosi system is the most outmoded practice in the country and its abolition is to say the least long overdue.
Thinking about outmoded customs and practices brings to mind the injustice some women go through in the name of widowhood rites. Although this differs from tribe to tribe, the general trend reveals a subjection of widows to inhuman treatments. In some tribes, it is customary for a widow to be fed on an egg a day for a week, walk barefooted for quite a long time and even be refused a handshake at the funeral. Judging by the fact that a widow may or would be willing to give all there is to save her husband’s life; need we subject them to such an ordeal? I don’t think so.
Furthermore, it’s customary in some Ghanaian tribes to bury the dead with precious items like jewelry, pieces of cloth, gold and other valuable items. Aside this being sheer waste of resources, burying the dead with these valuable, it encourages grave looting. So these desires of honouring the dead rather end up enticing thieves to desecrate the graves of their loved ones. All these things considered, does that mean there could be no better way of honouring the dead? What about taking care of his spouse and children?
Finally, an equally appalling practice that needs to be abolished outright is the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) practiced among some tribes in Ghana. Though, it is very horrendous and fatal Ghanaians are playing the ostrich as this barbarism is being perpetrated against innocent girls. In a society where men run riot when it comes to sex, defenders of FGM has no right to insist on sexual discipline by suppressing the libido of women.
In conclusion, it must be stressed that, the practical realities of the day have rendered some of our customs and practices outmoded. They should therefore be banned outright if we are to move forward as a nation. Among these are matrilineal inheritance, the Trokosi system, inhumane widowhood rites, burial of dead bodies with valuables and Female Genital Mutilation. These customs cannot upgrade our developing Ghana, they must therefore be done away with.
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