"My cousin took my daughter," the woman answered, "he said it was his right, because he is my only living male relative. He has given her to another man as wife, and that man insists she be circumcised in the traditional manner. My daughter refuses and they say she cannot. They will do it by force if they must."
Samuel knew of the tradition among some of the people to circumcise their wives. There had been laws passed forbidding the practice except in hospitals under sterile conditions, with the woman's consent.
"Is your daughter here?" he asked.
"Yes," the woman answered. She motioned and the young woman came up an angry young man grabbing her arm trying to hold her back.
"Let go of her!" Samuel snapped.
"She is my wife!" the man answered. "You have no right to interfere!"
"If she is your wife against her will," Samuel answered, "I have every right to interfere. I have the right to arrest you and send you away. What do you say, woman, are you this man's wife freely or not?"
"I would LIKE to be," the woman answered, "if he did not want to hurt me. But he wants to prove his manliness by having me suffer, and I will not do that."
"Submission shows obedience and loyalty," the man answered. "If you truly care for me, you will show your respect."
Samuel shook his head. "Submitting to torture," he commented, "does not show respect, it shows fear. Any man that expects a woman to go through such indignity to prove her loyalty does not deserve her affection as you do not really care for the woman, seeing that you only want to use her to prove yourself to your friends. I take her from you. Perhaps another man will come along that truly cares about her and will treat her honorably."
The man looked to the young woman. If she stays she will not have to be circumcised," he finally muttered.
"What was that?" Samuel asked.
He spoke up, saying it loud enough that all could hear it.
"There!" Samuel remarked, "Now, that wasn't that hard, was it? Now let's have no more of this! I won't demand any charges this time, but no more young ladies are to be taken from their mothers against their will. In the future any men that do so will be charged with rape and you know what my people do to rapists."
The look on all the men's' faces assured Samuel they did.
"Now," Samuel concluded, "I've got to get back to other duties. Remember, no more trouble! Let's go home. Come on! Everybody move along!"
After everyone was moving off Samuel went over to the good Father. "What's that thing the woman called me," he asked, "Shabadea?"
The priest looked troubled. "Well," he finally managed, "it means 'husband of husbands, father of fathers.' In the old ways, long before Christianity, or, Islam came here, the people believed in something akin to Adam and Eve, The First Parents that made mankind and taught them the ways of life became The Husband Of Husbands, The Father Of Fathers, Shabadea. Apparently they are comparing you to those old legends."
Samuel laughed. "Oh well! I suppose it's harmless!" he commented.
A group of the women came over. "If you are taking the duties of a husband," their leader remarked, "we must pay you a percentage of our income according to tradition."
"Oh, we don't have to worry about anything like that!" Samuel answered.
"But it would not be honorable," the woman complained, "if you take care of us and we give you nothing in return. We would be looked down upon by other women!"
"There's always something!" Samuel muttered. "All right. Each month you may give the priest one per cent of what you make. He will put it in a special fund and we will use it to finance different projects. Is that satisfactory?"
The women looked at each other and all nodded. Samuel got back to his regular projects. But soon his office was flooded with requests for help from women in the district.
Samuel's clerks couldn't handle it, so Samuel put Sharon in charge, giving her authority to issue orders in his name. She soon had agents throughout the district and the conditions for widows and orphans began to quickly improve.
Soon women from other districts were asking for help and the organization rapidly spread to cover the entire country.
Other district commanders preferring just to do the leg work and not get involved themselves, left it to Samuel. Though he was in command of only one district he was having an effect on the entire county. Things went smoothly for several months then trouble came.

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