Peer-reviewed article
Objectification, patriarchy and child marriage in dry- a film by Stephianie Linus
Lilian Eguriase Bakare, Kazeem .O. Azeez, Rasaki Ojo Bakare ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This academic study uses the film 'Dry' by Stephanie Linus to examine the causes and consequences of child marriage in Nigeria. The research identifies poverty, illiteracy, culture and tradition as key drivers of the practice, which disproportionately affects girls married to much older men. The study documents severe health consequences including obstetric fistula, stillbirth and maternal death. The authors recommend government action, legal reform, community theatre programmes and health worker engagement to address the practice.
Key points
- Objectification of girls and patriarchal systems in Nigeria enable forced early marriage of adolescent and teenage girls to significantly older men
- Poverty, illiteracy, culture and tradition are identified as causal factors behind child marriage
- Child marriage leads to serious health complications including vesico-vaginal fistula, stillbirth and maternal death due to forced pelvic expansion
- The study recommends government campaigns, legislation to ban forced child marriage, theatre-based community education, and partnerships between civil society and health workers
Limitations
This is a qualitative and content analysis study using a single film as a case study rather than direct empirical research with affected populations. The document does not provide quantitative data on the prevalence of child marriage or the magnitude of health outcomes described.
Abstract
This paper aims at investigating the causes of child marriage in Nigeria and its consequences on the girl child and society at large using Stephanie Linus’s film; Dry as a case study. Objectification is the inhuman treatment of the feminine gender as mere objects or instruments of manipulation without giving consideration to their preferences and opinions. This trend which is common in Nigeria is worrisome due to the overbearing influence of patriarchy one of whose consequences is the forced marriage of adolescent and teenage girls to older men in their quinquagenarian, sexagenarians and septuagenarians. The study anchors on Womanism, and adopts a mixed method of Qualitative, Quantitative and Content analysis to discover the underlying motifs and images inherent in the movie understudy, as well as deduce facts from social respondents. The study thus concludes, that increased poverty rate, illiteracy, culture and tradition among others, is a causal factor behind this phenomenon and this has led to infections such as vesico vaginal (obstetric) fitsula due to forced expansion of the pelvic muscle, still birth, and in most cases death. Against this background, the study recommends that, government should embark on a nationwide campaign to curb this excesses and pass the forced early child marriage bill into law to check the menace. The paper further recommends that applied theatre Workshops through Theatre for Development should be taken to these villages/towns to enlighten, conscientise and re-orientate them about these practices. Civil society groups/org should also partner with health workers in the rural suburbs to embark on routine awareness and enlightenment on the aftereffect of such obsolete cultural practices. Keywords: Objectification, Patriarchy, Child Marriage, Womanism, Intra-Subjugation.