Wives in big demand as scarcity bites

Women dance at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi last year during a seminar. The seminar by Pastor Chris Ojigbani of Nigeria, was to, among other matters, help people secure and keep spouses. Photo/FILE

Hu Jiahe now knows only too well that keeping a wife requires more than just a full stomach and a nice dress; she must also never get out of sight.

His wife did so three months ago, and that was the last he saw the apple of his eye. Now he has to father and mother their two-year-old daughter.

But last month, a small window of opportunity through which he can get the wife back opened.

A sobbing wife called him begging him to send some $3,131 (Sh291,183) to what she said were her abductors.

If he does not, the woman is reported by People’s Daily of China as saying, she risked being sold to other Chinese men desperately in search of scarce women.

Bought bride

Hu, who lives along the China Vietnam border, had himself bought the lost bride in 2008 for about $5,600 (Sh520,800).

On gathering information from neighbouring villages and townships, Hu found he was not the only one who has lost a wife — dozens had.

“One of them was his neighbour, whose wife had said she was going shopping on the morning she disappeared — the same excuse that Hu’s wife used — but never came back,” wrote the People’s Daily.

Police in Shuangfeng County, which has jurisdiction over Hu’s village, are said to have launched an investigation into the missing Vietnamese women. The investigation has since been extended to 16 townships and villages in China.

Hu’s friend, Hu Xinfa, says he is lucky he has not yet lost his wife, but explains that he spends sleepless nights with every toss from his wife sending him out of bed.

Sociologists are said to be looking at the dynamics involved, and suspect the wives to be willing abductees.

Some are said to be happy moving from a rural live of poverty to better endowed Chinese towns.

But if Hu and his friends had visited Nairobi on September 10 last year, they would be overwhelmed by the many smartly clad women who had turned out for a sermon on how to get and keep a husband.

It was the day Nigerian Pastor Chris Ojigbani set the city ablaze with special prayers for “serious” singles who were looking for a husband. (Read: Do we have a husband crisis?)

In a near-pandemonium, about 10,000 women fought for space at the KICC’s Plenary Hall to listen to sermons that ranged from how to get and keep a man, to the art of dating, and how to keep the fire of love burning — words that would be honey to the Chinese.

This was happening when only a few weeks earlier, the national census had debunked the myth that there were more women in Kenya than men.

The census had shown that the ratio of men to women in Kenya was almost one to one.

Days after the event, Miss Martha Anjela, a student of design in Nairobi was to tell the Nation that she went to the service to learn the art of getting a man and keeping him.

For the Chinese, the challenge is how to get a woman and keep her.

Hu’s problem is widely believed to be as a result of the Chinese one-child-per-family policy, and a widespread practice of sex-selective abortion that has created a gender imbalance disfavouring men.

In many Asian nations, an age-old preference for sons, combined with new prenatal methods of knowing the sex of a foetus, and aborting females in the process, is now said to be creating previously unforeseen social problems.

A book addressing the crisis, the Bare Branches had in 2004 predicted the widespread kidnapping of women in China and India and mass migration of young males in search of mates.

It is estimated that the number of excess men in China will stand at 30 million by 2020, and 28 million for India.

Put another way, demographers say the world’s two most populous nations, between them, are already “missing” 100 million women.

Editorialising the phenomenon recently, The Economist went further to blame the “missing” women for the current global economic crisis.

According to Prof Shang-Jin Wei of Columbia University, the skewed Chinese sex ratio can explain much of global trade imbalances.

He argues that Chinese parents want to save as much wealth (as opposed to American spending) as possible to ensure their son can attract a wife.

For the Chinese to restore global financial order, says the editorial, it either has to import women from other countries, export men, promote polyandry or reduce excessive saving.