Who is Hon. Sylvia?

When I look back, I see many girls that I grew up with who never stepped in school or who dropped out of school and were married off at a very tender age. By then I didn’t understand how society perceived girls, but I remember so well that even as my own young sisters and cousins dropped out of school due to teenage pregnancy, my relatives never appreciated me for staying in school. Actually, my paternal Aunts used to remind me that “the worth of a woman is in marriage and not education”. Three of my young sisters got married before me while I was still pursuing my Bachelor’s Degree at Makerere University. In the eyes of my Aunties, it was a wastage of time and resources to keep a girl in School. Yes, Aunties were very important in the traditional family set up! Traditionally, among other roles, aunties had the special duty to guide & prepare their brothers’ daughters for marriage. They would ‘walk’ with the girls from a very tender age preparing them on how to be proper wives – after all society asserted as the rat is for the cat, the girl is for a man! Among the things that constituted dowry traditionally was sugar. When a child was born neighbours would rush in to congratulate the family and share in the joy of a new member born into the wider family of the community. Interestingly the first question they would ask is the baby boy or girl? If the baby was a girl, the answer would always be “sugar” because she would later bring sugar into the family! The earlier the girl would marry, the earlier she would seem to be bringing in ‘benefits’ to her family. As such, my long journey of education didn’t seem to promise ‘sugar’ any time soon!