In the past, our women are known to have an elaborate code of modesty in all their socio-cultural dealings. This gesture has been the practicality of their social engagements which is more profoundly sound in exhibiting their perception of love and marriage. But today, a shallow check into the world of our women will doubtless reveal their detached and lustful dissection of romantic excess stands (Gurney, 39). This is to say, undisputedly, that these days our women express singular mutuality in their romantic longings for happiness which
marriage, and the world in general, can never satisfy. The idea of romantic extravagances – desired frequency of coquetry, desired voluptuous acts, preferred context for romantic behaviour, types and frequency of fantasy, and judgement of desirable partner characteristics (Diamond, 2010) – have filled the hearts of many young women in our society, which at the end, consequently, lead to disappointment, resentment or even lobotomy. However, the question of what drives our women into those wishful desires remains dubious as most social commentators fail to account for the explicit models responsible for them. What are thesenmodels? Come with me.
Invariably, we can talk of wishful desires in the light of ‘Mimetic Desire’ – a concept first developed by Rene Girard in his classic text, ‘Deceit, Desire and the Novel’. Girard bases his theory on the notion of imitation, which he refers to by invariably invoking the Greek term – ’mimesis’. Pointing to the obvious centrality of imitative behaviour in human, social and cognitive development, Girard makes the point that, without the ability to copy the behaviour and speech of others – what he calls a ‘mimesis of apprenticeship’ – human socialization, our capacity to inhabit a culture, would be impossible (Girard, 15). This is to say, desire is based on wanting what another individual has. For instance, if a child of house No. 3, block D of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Estate, Bauchi, has a ball and seems to be enjoying his/herself, suddenly the child of House No. 4, who may have shown no interest a minute previously, will want the ball as well. The child of House No. 3 becomes the mediator of the child in house No. 4.
This postulation of Girard’s mediation can be illustrated by our women’s open imitation of.romantic frenzies of Hausa romance fictions. In his classical text ‘The English Novel: An Introduction’, Terry Eagleton posits a danger that comes with reading fiction(s). He contends that “reading fiction can drive one mad. In fact, it is not the fiction which leads to madness, but forgetting the fictionality of fiction” (10). It can beconveniently argued that most of our women fell victim to this danger. The mediator of our women’s desire ultimately comes from reading fiction…Hausa Romantic Fictions, as it is the most common book they have access to. They confuse those romantic imaginative narrations they read to reality, and, therefore, aims to see them reflecting in their life. These romantic fictions give them conception of love that is clearly orgasmic— “a desire to dwell in
an infinite extension of quickening caresses” (Gurney, 48), of moonlight meetings and bed marathons. Here, the romance fictions undoubtedly become the mediation of our women’s desire and hold firmly to the illusions of the authenticity of their imitated desire.
Those Hausa Romance Fictions mostly featurencouple that are wildly romantic, sincerely intimate and, most of the times, successfully rich. Our women cherish the romantic poses and experiences of those couples and, therefore, largely form their
imaginations from them, and concentrate on making them reflect in their life. It is common to hear soon-to-be married girls yearning for men that would introduce them to new coquettes and inspire them to the fullest of their heart’s wishes; men that
are typical to those of Hausa Romantic Novels. Isn’t it why our women these days become so desperate to look sparkling in order match the standard outlooks of – let’s say, Ummi in ‘Rubutaccen Al-amari’, Fannah in ‘Tana Tare Dani’, Hanfa in ‘Wa
Yasan Gobe’ – to impress their future husbands, whose chests, in desirable anticipation, become the fortress of their romantic nymphs and at the same time represent the symbol of masculine handsomeness akin to Umar Faruq in ‘Fuska Biyu’, Aliyu in ‘Allurar Cikin Ruwa’ or Nawaff in a book with the same title?
Our women dissatisfactions with marriage begin immediately after they cross their legs into matrimonial homes. Having read what matrimonial love should be in Hausa romance novels, they
become disillusioned by the reality of marriage. Their plight is somehow represented by Gustave Flaubert in his realistic fiction, Madame Bovary: “Before she had married she thought she was in love. But the happiness that should have resulted from this love had not come; she must have deceived herself, she thought. (She) sought to learn what was really meant in life by the words “happiness,” “passion,” and “intoxication” – words that seemed so beautiful in her book” (55). Isn’t it common to hear ourwomen, dejected and dissatisfied with marital life, constantly asking.themselves: “My God, why did I get married?” (Flaubert, 63).
Aminu Nuru wrote in from Bauchi.
