Who says divorce is the end of life for a woman?

Not too long ago, I encountered a woman who couldn’t have been older than 24, huddled at the gate of an apartment building on a cold night.

Her husband had locked her out because the gateman had told him that she had left the compound when he had instructed her not to.

She let on that being out in the cold in the dead of night happened often; all she needed to do was overcook his spaghetti, call him by his name in public and not "Honey" as instructed, or ask a “stupid” question.

Poking my nose where it didn’t belong, I asked her why she was still with him.

She thought for a little while and told me that she had chosen this herself so she was enduring it. “Who would want me now, anyway?” she asked.

I remembered this woman this week when news broke that a prominent Woman Representative had divorced and her husband had remarried a much younger woman.

MARRIAGE ISN'T A PRISON

I noticed how netizens praised the husband on his new catch but when referring to the Woman Representative, they seemed to pity her, wondering who will want her, now that she was unable to “keep” this man.

First, I think that some relationships should end. Marriage is not a prison. Holding on to a relationship at all costs, even if it literally kills you, isn’t something women should even think of doing today.

That said, it would help women leave relationships that only erode their being if we changed our attitudes towards divorced women.

If we stopped looking at them with pity and wondering what good can possibly come out of their lives post-divorce.

In a perfect world, all long-term relationships would end in marriage, and all marriages would end only at death, but the world is far from perfect. Men and women are dying at the hands of their spouses every day.

Maybe we could borrow a leaf from North Africa. Mauritanian women, for instance, celebrate divorce with song and dance.

FRESH START

After a divorce is finalised, a woman is warmly welcomed back into her family home with parties and dinners, signifying a fresh start.

While the divorced Kenyan woman is stigmatised and seen as “damaged goods”, the Mauritanian woman is encouraged to own her life’s experiences and see it as a reflection of her uniqueness and a source of beauty.

In this part of the world, these women inspire poetry. Let’s unshackle married women. If she knows that her past will not weigh on her future, she will not be afraid to walk out on a man who beats her.

She will not pretend not to see when a relationship has run its course. She will not die at the hands of the man she married.

If she tries and it doesn’t work out, if she packs her bags and comes home, remember, she is not damaged, she is wiser.

This columnist is the author of the book, Things I Will Tell My Daughter