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The roles and duties of women in traditional Igbo culture
The roles and duties of women in traditional Igbo culture
+what were some negative and positive affects of gender roles in the igbo culture
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In this essay, the two novels under review are Chukwuemeka Ike’s Conspiracy of Silence and NgugiWaThiong’o’sWizard of the Crow. These novels are chosen because the authors make extensive comments on human conditions in societies. Chukwuemeka Ike uses Conspiracy of Silenceto attack the Igbo tradition which attaches undue importance to children especially the male children. This undue importance makes it possible for the society to be flooded with children who find it problematic either to live with or even to identify their biological fathers. Ike exposes different causes of fatherlessness for the general public to see and make mockery of. The Igbo tradition encourages a childless or sonless woman to marry her fellow woman, so that she will bear her children who will perpetuate her dead husband’s lineage. The questions that quickly come to one’s mind here are: How can a woman marry another woman? Can she impregnate the wife? The answers are obvious. A woman cannot impregnate another woman. The novel makes us to understand that what the “woman husband” does is to identify a man within the extended family to produce the babies, and warns the young bride not to stray. This arrangement has to be done secretly so that the man’s wife does not know about it. No wonder, then, that the children produced out of this type of arrangement are usually deprived of father-child relationship. Since they cannot identify openly with their fathers, even when they have the special grace of knowing who their fathers are, for many are not let into the secret. This makes them to grope around in ignorance. It is important to note the problem this tradition has created for such children: to deprive them of the knowledge of or the association with their biol... ... middle of paper ... ... African Literature.” Maxism and African Literature. Ed. Gulberger George. New Jersey: African World, 1985. 50-63. Print. Oriaifo, Sylvester. “Science, Technology and the Arts in National Development.” Nigerian and African Education: Crucial Issues. Ed. Anthony Ali. Awka: Meks, 1997. 109-122. Print. Osofisan, Femi. Insidious Treason: Drama as Post-Colonial State. Ibadan: OponIfa, 2001. Print. Sashkin, Marshall and Molly Sushkin. Leadership That Matters. Benin: Gospel, 2003. Print. Soyinka, Wole. “The Writer in the Modern African State.” Writer in Modern Africa. Ed. A. Wastberge. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1966. 15-24. Print. Sullivan, D.J. Introduction to Philosophy. New York: Bruce, 1957.Print. Umukoro, Simon. “Literature as an Inquiry into the Meaning of Life.” Journal of Literary Society of Nigeria (JLSN) 3.1 (2011): 1-16. Print.