Feminist Contestation of Child Marriage in Omoni Oboli’s Wives on Strike: A Stylistic Analysis

Abstract

The present study explores a feminist contestation of child marriage in Omoni Oboli’s film, Wives on Strike. The study analyzes performance data purposively selected from the film to justify the feminist challenge of child marriage as a form of patriarchal violence against the girl-child and support a feminist advocacy of appropriate reforms to end its practice in Nigeria. Deploying a stylistic approach, the study engages the Conversation Analysis (CA) theoretical framework notable for defining the significant role of talk and its linguistic resources in enacting social action to effect change. Showcasing the perceived Nigerian experience, the study establishes that child marriage violates the rights of the girl-child to health, education, and consensual marriage. It argues that patriarchy and its manifestations, including wrongful gender stereotyping and resultant disempowerment of women, apathy, and lack of political will to protect the girl-child are inflexible drivers of child marriage, unacceptable, and contestable. The study concludes that social action is a feminist catalyst for positive social change and concomitant reforms to eliminate child marriage in Nigeria.