ADULTERY: YORUBA'S VIEW

PART 1 THE NOTION OF ADULTERY IN YORUBA CULTURE Adultery is not only being focused on by religion and the society alone, it also exists in African culture, and this is why our focus in this chapter will be on the notion of adultery in Yoruba culture. Also, we were able to show the difference between polygamy and adultery, this is done because we do not want people to consider polygamy an adultery act, whereas it is being considered a type of marriage in most African countries, even though it is not common in some western countries, but it is common in Yoruba culture. So, how does Yoruba culture view adultery? Before we go into their notion on adultery, we shall firstly discuss morality in Yoruba culture which will then lead us to marriage in Yoruba traditional thought system, and this will enable us see reasons why adultery is considered immoral, and we shall also discuss the place of women when it comes to adultery, and this will also lead us to how adulterers or adulteress are being punished in Yoruba culture, since every society have their ways of punishing people involved in adultery based on their jurisdictions. Morality in Yoruba culture Morality is of outmost importance in any society or a group because it is a code of conduct that enable us to differentiate what is right from what is wrong and what is good from what is evil. The discourse of morality is the central aim of ethics, and it is believed that every society have their different ways in which they examine their moral lives. Peri sees morality as: Something which goes on in the world…nothing is more familiar, nothing is more obscure in its meaning…But it cannot be denied that morality exists as a pursuit. From the above assertion, morality is seen as a man’s endeavor to unite different interests of individuals. Morality can therefore be seen as an Action Guide of a certain sorts, different in important ways from other nonmoral and amorals. We always think that morality is only meant for a group but it is also meant for tribes and society at large. In other words, morality can be of a socially defined one or individually defined one. Every individual has natural instinct and it is on this that morality becomes a set of duties that requires us to subordinate our natural instinct in order to obey the moral. This means that every individual has natural instinct and for moral instinct to take place, every individual have to give their natural instinct a less concern. It has been said in the previous chapter that morality can be used either descriptively to refer to some code of conducts that is put forward by the society or some other group such as religion, or accepted by an individual for his or her behavior, or normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given a specified conditions would be put forward by all rational pursuit. In Yoruba culture, morality can be understood from the religious perspective and from the societal perspective as well as stated earlier in the previous chapter. Here, we are not saying that religion is the basis for morality per se but in African morality, some scholars like Bolaji Idowu, John Mbiti, hold on to the position that morality springs from religion. Nonetheless, morality can be viewed from the religious perspective because religion holds an important key in human life, and this is not left out in Yoruba worldview. The Africans believe in communalism, which means people living together in order to reach or achieve the common goal of the community.