| Abstract: |
This study interrogates the spectre of child marriage in the selected works of Zaynab Alkali and Abubakar Gimba. Child marriage, a practice now being legislated against as child abuse has been a common practice throughout history for a variety of reasons. This paper explores the practice of child-marriage as represented in Zaynab Alkali’s Stillborn and Abubakar Gimba’s Golden Apple. The study employs the psychoanalytical theoretical framework in analyzing the selected texts. It is discovered that child marriage is still silently practiced all over the world for different reasons such s insecurity, poverty, protecting the female child, because of teenage pregnancy, social relationship, tradition and religion even in modern times. It is concluded that child marriage is an abuse that takes away the girl-child’s (more than boy-boy’s) right to choose her own partner, exposes her to many health challenges and domestic violence, and deprives her of her girlhood and right to education. In most developed counties, child marriage has been declared as a crime and laws made to deal with defaulters. In developing countries, though laws are there, they are hardly executed for one reason or the other. It is therefore recommended that the appropriate
authorities close all possible lacunae in the extant laws against child-marriage and strengthen them to be able to take their full courses against defaulters, not minding their social statuses, political positions or religious inclinations. |
EBONYI JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE
