The issue of child marriage across the world is a topic many are aware of, yet know very little about. With an estimated 14.2 million girls being married off “too young” at alarmingly early ages, questions arise of how more people are not educated or even aware on the reality of child marriage. This is due to the fact that child marriage—also known as “early marriage”—has been incredibly under-researched, with the limited literature available being provided by international charities or global development agencies (Callaghan 507). Specifically, in Nigeria, about 17% of girls in the country are married before turning fifteen—even though child marriage was made illegal in 2003, along with the Children’s Right Act stipulation in 2004 that made the minimum age to marry eighteen (Daré 229). In developing more studies on child marriage, it has been found that the already absent voice of these women is much harder to attain than previously imagined; women being too afraid to speak out against early marriages, in fear that it will make them disobedient to their husbands. Through The Girl with the Louding Voice, Abi Daré aids in providing a narrative for these women who are too afraid to speak out for themselves against child marriage.

In February 2020, Abi Daré released the debut novel, becoming an immediate New York Times bestseller. The Girl with the Louding Voice tells the story of a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl named Adunni, who has a dream of furthering her education that will give her a “louding voice” and achieve freedom from the fate of many Nigerian girls, who are married off as children. Before her mother’s death, Adunni’s father promised that he would allow Adunni to continue her education. Although, his promise is short-lived when he essentially sells her to be the third wife of an older local man named Morufu. Adunni attempts to be a decent wife for the sake of her family, but after witnessing the death of Morufu’s second wife, she runs away in fear of being accused of murder. She soon finds herself in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, where she begins working as a maid for a wealthy businesswoman named Big Madam, who abuses her daily. During this time, Adunni comes across a scholarship application that would give her the opportunity to continue her education—leaving Adunni with the decision on if she should follow her dream that would help her in developing a “louding voice” or if she should remain at the only place that would take her after escaping her marriage.

Abi Daré’s own life history helps in understanding the narrative that she created through Adunni. Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, later moving to the UK, now living there for eighteen years with her husband and two daughters—who she says was the inspiration behind her novel. In addition, Daré is an incredibly educated woman, having degrees in law, project management, and creative writing. In ways, Adunni mirrors Daré through her immense devotion to continue her education, wanting to develop a “louding” voice for herself that has been given to her through this novel. In fact, the aspect of Adunni’s desire to learn is even shown through the form of writing Daré uses throughout the novel. This unique style of writing starts the novel with a writing form that emulates conversational broken English from the narrator, Adunni. As the plot proceeds and Adunni learns more of the English language, the reader is able to see improvement in her written narration.

Daré uses the theme of education as a way to gain freedom from the cruel fate of child marriage, providing girls with their own voices in a culture that expects them to be nothing but silent and obedient. Throughout the novel, Adunni repeatedly speaks of her mother and how much she instilled the importance of education in her, being told from a young age that “if you go to school, no one will be forcing you to marry any man. But if you [don’t], they will marry you to any man once you are reaching fifteen years old. Your schooling is your voice… It will be speaking for you even if you don’t open your mouth to talk” (Daré 25). From her mom ingraining this idea into her head, Adunni sees education as a necessity for her future, never truly giving up on the idea that she will continue her education and one day become a teacher, rather than remaining Morufu’s wife. An example of this is when Adunni is having a conversation with Morufu’s second wife, Khadijah, on not wanting to have children immediately after getting married to Morufu. When Khadijah asks Adunni why she wishes to not have children, Adunni explains, “my stomach cannot be swelling every year because I am looking for boys to give Morufu. The only thing I want to be swelling is my head and my mind with books and educations” (Daré 60). Something that Adunni could never understand about the other girls and women in her village was that they were happy with the idea of marrying instead of getting an education like herself. 

In connection to this, from a research study based on early marriages, a group of women were asked about their experiences and thoughts on their marriage.  Interestingly, in opposition to the fictional women of Adunni’s village, most of the women that were part of the study agreed that girls should wait till later in life to marry. However, they believed that children should go to school to grow before they are married, in order to “increase in knowledge and for the girls when they are married they should respect their husbands, do all the domestic chores, washing, sweeping and cook food so they can stay in happiness” (Callaghan 521).

Though Adunni appears to be alone both fictionally and realistically for the reasoning behind her desire to receive an education, she never gave up trying to attain her dream, which remained evident in time working for Big Madam later in the novel. When Adunni is given the opportunity to earn a school scholarship through an essay contest, she garners the help of a woman named Ms. Tia, who helps tutor her in English. Aside from knowing that Big Madam was extremely abusive towards Adunni, Ms. Tia was curious to why Adunni is so adamant on the scholarship, believing that she was already in school. Adunni explained this through what her mother had taught her before she died, that “education will give me a voice. I want more than just a voice… I want a louding voice…I want to enter a room and people will hear me even before I open my mouth to be speaking” (Daré 263-264). While Adunni had succeeded in escaping her marriage to Morufu, where she was oppressed from being anything but a wife and future mother, she had yet to earn her independence—having to obey her employer, Big Madam, who beat her simply because she could. By earning the scholarship, Adunni would finally have the freedom that her mother had taught her in the years before her passing—a freedom that only education was willing to give a girl in Nigeria.

One of the other prominent themes in the novel is child marriage and the objectification of young girls in Nigerian culture. Adunni’s marriage to Morufu is a prime example, with Adunni’s father breaking her mother’s promise of an education by marrying her off to Morufu after he was given an offer of financial support—especially if she were to give birth to a boy. The reasoning for this is based on the idea that in an area where there are high levels of poverty, families view early marriages as “a way of placing daughters in trusted families, constructing reciprocal networks and extending access to resources” (Callaghan 508). By marrying their daughters off, parents believe that they are doing the best for their children, “early marriage [being] seen as a way to improve the economic status of the family and is not regarded as a problem, if successful” (508). The people of Nigeria already see girls as lesser than boys, being a “bad gift from the gods” (Daré 43), therefore, marrying them off makes them of use to the families. Morufu supports this theory, telling Adunni that “girls are only good for marriage, cooking food, and bedroom work” (Daré 44)—which is why he wanted her to give him a son to make up for his other wives only giving him girls.

More specifically, the objectification of girls in Nigeria is briefly displayed during Adunni’s wedding, someone cheering to Morufu during the ceremony that “this is your wife now, from today till forever, she is your own. Do her anyhow you want. Use her till she is useless! May she never sleep in her father house again!” (Daré 37). Even though Adunni is just fourteen, there is a common belief in Nigeria that when a girl is married, she becomes a woman no matter how old she is—with there being no room for resistance from the young wife. Along with the wedding, sexual objectification of Adunni in particular is also shown through her encounters with Big Madam’s husband, Big Daddy.  In Adunni’s brief encounter with Big Daddy, he asked her for her age.  When she told him she was fourteen, he replied “fourteen going on fifteen, eh? That makes you what? Nearly sixteen going seventeen? Almost an adult. Not so innocent” (Daré 166). This interaction is another example of how many men in Nigerian culture see girls as women from the time that they are of age to marry—that being around the age of fourteen. An aspect about this novel that is important to mention to readers is that Daré does briefly allude to the physical violation, as well as the discussion of rape present in both child marriage and unequal power dynamics in a work place. While the scenes may be less explicit, they are still exploring the heavy matter of rape that millions of young girls in Nigeria still face, which might be triggering to some readers.

With the objectification in mind for girls in early marriages, comes the issue of Nigerian girls and women lacking a voice to share their experiences. In the research study based on early marriages, they interviewed six anonymous women who were married from the ages of eight to fifteen. In these interviews, they discussed the concerns of early marriage in terms of their experience as a child bride, their perception of marriage itself, the aspect of running away in the first years of marriage, the limitations of marriage, as well as becoming a mother at such young ages. An interesting element in these discussions with the women was just how prevalent running away was for the young wives in their first years of marriage. One woman in particular described her first year of marriage as difficult, saying “I was not happy because I was not used to it, for one year I kept running away. It is something new to me and you know you have to get used to everything and when you are used to it you will not run, isn’t it? When you don’t know someone, you must run away from that person” (Callaghan 517). Another woman added to this, explaining that “running away here [is] an immature choice, something that teenagers do… a mature woman is married, ‘knows her place’ and is ‘happy’. A mature woman does not ‘run away’” (Callaghan 516-17).

Then, the women were also asked about their experiences with motherhood at such young ages—being a common basis for why they believed in allowing girls to “grow” before getting married. As for the reasoning, the women attribute this to avoid difficulties in childbirth and negative health consequences that come from pregnancy at an early age. A key factor to note is that all six women interviewed were in the hospital, being treated for fistula, due to severe ripping during childbirth. Upon being asked about advice for parents considering on marrying off their daughter, one of the interviewees answered specifically to the mothers, responding that “every mother should allow their daughters to reach at least 15, 20, or 25 years before marriage… because when they are grown up, they won’t have much problem, especially during childbirth. And for the girls” (Callaghan 521). Ultimately, all the women agreed that by allowing young girls to grow before getting married, they are being given “an alternative to early marriage—the possibility of a more successful marriage for slightly older women, who are more able to successfully bear offspring” (Callaghan 521).

What can be noticed about these study interviews is that while the women were open to answering the questions, they typically stuck to using formulated and cliché answers, where they spoke against early marriages, but not towards men who continue this cultural practice or the dynamics of the marriage itself. The problem with having women who are in or have been in early marriages speak out is that obedience and respect towards their husbands are expected. In the eyes of the women, speaking out against it would be disrespecting their husbands. This is why Daré and other Nigerian women writers’ contributions to literature are so integral in correctly portraying these narratives, as well as helping to change these narratives overall. 

Much like Daré’s The Girl with the Louding Voice, modern Nigerian women’s literature is beginning to focus on representing African womanhood as having sisterhood, wifehood, and motherhood still remaining important to their representation, but not as solely an “inescapable parameter” like before. Strategies for how they do this is through “fronting female subjectivity and relegating, even discrediting, the male subject” (Oloruntoba-Oju 9). By fronting female characters, they are making them “the subject of nationalist and other narratives, while male subjects take a secondary role. The trope of wifehood and or motherhood as a ‘necessary’ identification parameter of African womanhood is equally subverted” (Oloruntoba-Oju 9). A common example of this is through narratives where women find happiness without marriage or children after a failed attempt at living within the boundary of their cultural norms—such as Adunni and her story of escaping marriage to follow her dreams of getting an education.

Abi Daré’s novel The Girl with the Louding Voice, gives a unique depiction of a girl who fights for her freedom through the desire for education in a society where young girls are subjugated to child marriages; being nothing more than a pawn for the economic benefit of their family. The novel helps Daré in succeeding to give a voice to millions of young girls who still endure the reality of child marriages—while still providing the bittersweet hope of a better life through the story of Adunni and the chase to attain her dream.