During her wake keep, he was seen smiling at some guests and dancing while friends sprayed him money. Now people are @ççūsīng him of double standards in how men and vvomen are allowed to grieve, with some even @lleging he had something to do with her death.
The double standard becomes clear if you reverse the situation.
If the man had diiiieeed, I’m sure many vvomen would be defending the vvidovv with arguments like:
“We don’t know what led to his d€@th.”
“We don’t know whether he was a good husband to her.”
“Maybe he diiiieeed while ch€@ting.”
“No woman would be laughing during mourning unless the man was t€rrible to her.”
“Is she supposed to cry just to make us happy?”
I remember when May Edochie l0st her first son and @llegedly had a tummy tuck. VVomen defended her by asking if her life was supposed to end just because she l0st her son.
Here’s my point:
We don’t know the circumstances of her d€@.th.
We don’t know if she was ill for a long time. When someone diiiees after a long illness, their loved ones often grieve long before the actual d€@.th.
We don’t know how long she was in the mortuary.
You can’t compare the emotional intensity of a fresh death to one where the body has been in the mortuary for weeks or months.
Smiling doesn’t mean he isn’t hurting.
Men and women don’t grieve the same way, and there’s no rulebook for grief. A woman might wail on the floor while a man smiles, it doesn't mean he is not breaking on the inside or that she’s hvrting more than him.
A picture or a few seconds of video can’t tell you the full story.......whether he’s innocent or guilty, hurt or happy, bothered or detached.
Where do we drew the line between performance and genuine grief? We see people at funerals fighting for food and drinks just after wailing. How can we tell between people who cry just to avoid prejudice and those who are sincere?
I think that criticizing him for smiling and serving suya at his wife’s wake keep while we still uphold expensive funeral practices that sometimes push people into debt feels like we're focusing on the vvr0ng things. Funerals have become more expensive than weddings in many places.
By the way, laws have been enacted to scrap some of the dehum@nizing funeral rituals against vvidows, at least, clap for men.
