Let’s Strip Them Naked

By Valentine Obienyem

Sometimes I love to be brutally frank. There seems to be an epidemic of stripping women naked in our society today. These unusual times call for unusual measures. I therefore suggest that all those who took part in stripping the Anambra corps members naked should themselves be stripped naked and paraded for three hours in Ekwueme Square, before the eyes of the public. Nothing else will so quickly put an end to this madness.

This suggestion is not as outrageous as it sounds. History teaches us that harsh but symbolic remedies have sometimes been the only effective deterrents. A striking example comes from ancient Miletus.

Faced with an epidemic of suicides among its women, the authorities tried persuasion, then punishment, but nothing worked. Finally, they introduced a radical decree: any woman who killed herself would be stripped naked and publicly displayed after death.

Valerius Maximus records that because modesty and honor were highly prized in Greek society, this threat of public exposure worked – the suicides stopped immediately. Plutarch, too, in his “Moralia,” reflects on similar measures and the power of shame in restraining destructive impulses when reason and law fail.

The lesson is simple but sobering: when moral decay assumes epidemic proportions, extraordinary remedies may be necessary. Public shaming, though harsh, can sometimes restore sanity faster than endless appeals to conscience.