The union of man and woman is universally and socially acknowledged by the institution of marriage. It is one of the oldest rituals to be practiced even today in every parts of the world. Marriage is an important part of the traditional African society and is one of the largely reflected issues in African literature. According to Lauretta Ngcobo, in her essay entitled “African Motherhood-Myth and Reality” which appeared in Criticism and Ideology: Second African Writers’ Conference, Stockholm 1986 edited by Kirsten H. Petersen, the concept of marriage in African context is similar with any other community:
As elsewhere, marriage amongst Africans is mainly an institution for the control of procreation. Every woman is encouraged to marry and get children in order to express womanhood to the full. The basis of marriage among Africans implies transfer of a woman’s fertility to the husband’s family group. (1986: 141)
Helen Chukwuma claims in her article, Positivism and the Female Crisis: Novels of Buchi Emecheta, that in Emecheta’s novels:
The true test of woman continues to be the marriage institution (. . .) Through it a woman attains a status acclaimed by the society and fulfils the biological need of procreation and companionship. (1989: 5)
In one of her novels, The Slave Girl (1977), Emecheta has also emphasized the need and compulsion for marriage in the context of an African slave girl Ojebeta Ogbanje:
Every woman, whether slave or free, must marry. (1977: 113)
Marriage in the traditional patriarchal society of Africa is performed with great importance and dignity. The bride and the groom marry for further lineage of the groom’s family. The duties of the newlywed wife and husband are to procreate and provide for the family. But w...
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...one, 1956. Print.
Emecheta, Buchi. The Bride Price. London: Oxford University Press, 1976. Print. All further references to the text of the novel are from the same edition.
----------------------. The Slave Girl. South Africa: Heinemann, 1977. Print.
Ngcobo, Lauretta. “African Motherhood-Myth and Reality”. Criticism and Ideology: Second African Writers’ Conference, Stockholm 1986. Kirsten Holst Petersen. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1988. Print.
Ogunywmi, Chikwenye Okonjo, “Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female Novel in English”, Signs, Vol. 11, No. 1. Autumn n.p.: The University of Chicago. 1985. Print.
Sircar, Roopali. The Twice Colonised: Women in African Literature. New Delhi: Creative Books, 1995. Print.
Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. Orlando: A Harvest Book Harcourt, Inc., 1983. Print.
All the way through Migdim's incident with arranged marriages, we can understand the old customs that has to do with marriage. It is obvious that, although women were believed to be obedient, they were capable to effectively convince men. Yet, today there seems to be a sign toward polygamous marriages that are eventu...
The center of discussion and analysis about the sex/gender system focus on the differences between African, European and Creole Women. The sex/gender system describe by Morgan focus on their production, body and kinship. European women are seen as domestic, African women’s work overlaps between agricultural and pastoral. They’ll work in the field non-stop, even after giving birth. African women hold knowledge about the pastoral and agricultural work “in the planting and cultivation of fields the daily task of a good Negro Woman” (145). While Creole women were subordinated, with the job of produce and reproduce. When it came to body, European women’s bodies were seeing as fragile. After birth the rest for a while before they could stand back again or return to their activities “European observers believed the post-delivery period of abstinence lasted three months, and others commented up two- to three year period o...
Jeyifo, B. (1993). Okonkwo and his mother: ‘Things Fall Apart’ and issues of gender in the constitution of African postcolonial discourse. Callaloo, 16(4), 847-859 Retrieved from http://www.ucd.ie/english/articles/balzano1.htm
The Yoruba Cosmological Myth accounts for lots of gender based practices and beliefs in the contemporary African culture. They have for long prescribed the level of cultural interaction between the males and females as well as their relationships when it comes to family and leadership. The cosmological narrative defines the inability of the women to access powers, either in religion or in politics. The sixteen primordial divinities excluded Osun, a woman when it came to decision making. This reflected in the contemporary African culture, where...
Awa Thiam speaks on the topic of the daughters of black Africa trying to find themselves. She also states the comparison of the black women struggle with the European women. Thiam is arguing the point that the European feminist imposed the false argument “Rape is to women what lynching is to Blacks” (Thiam 114). Women in the text suffered from double domination and double enslavement by the colonial phallocratic. Thiam explains the false consciousness of the black women as well. The goal for the women is to achieve total independence, to call man bluff and all alienating influences.
First, I will look at the enslavement of Africans in the New World. During this period women of African descent were raped and abused. They were deemed as sexual beings and were used not only as producers but also as reproducers, to replenish the enslaved population. This latter role was also perpetuated through the rape of enslaved African women by their white slave masters. Thus, the health of these women was negated for the welfare of the plantation system. This system was justified by scientific racism and my essay will show how Europeans came to the conclusion that this was morally permissible. I will also explore how this has affected the idea of motherhood, showing the eurocentric view of African motherhood and contrast this with
Chinua Achebe analyzes a culture he is not accustomed with. The Madwoman in the attic theory comes into play as a westerner writing about “savage Africa”. Things Fall Apart provides an important understanding of Africana identity and history for those in the West who may be unfamiliar with African culture. Achebe tackles female identity within this book with delicacy keeping with the Ibo view of female nature in the background of the story but the forefront of the reader’s mind. A discussion of womanhood must touch upon manhood because they operate as a complementary, opposing, and equal entity.
Aldridge, Delores P., Carlene Young. "Africana Womanism: An Overview." Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies. Lexington Books, 2000: 205-217. The University of Missouri-Columbia. Web. 11 April 2014.
Three different Western marriage customs have influenced the characters in the story "Marriage is a Private Affair" by Chinua Achebe. It is about a Nnaemeke and Nene. Nnaemeke was an Igbo but Nene was from a different part of the country. They fell in love and Nnameke proposed. Then Nnaemeke got a letter from his father telling him about an arranged marriage that is being planned. Very disappointed, Nnaemeke comes home and tells his father that he will not get married to anybody, except Nene. Nnaemeke was kicked out from his father's house and wasn’t wanted there anymore. Happily married, Nnaemeke and Nene, had two sons. They wanted to see their grandpa and wouldn’t stop asking to visit him. When Nnaemeke's father read the letter about his grandsons he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about them. At last he was beginning to open his heart for his son, daughter-in-law, and his grandsons. The first custom was that the parents arranged marriages for their children. Nnaemeka's father had arranged a wedding for him with a girl from his culture. The second custom was that love was not part of the marriages. All that mattered was that she had to be a good Christian and had the potential to become a good wife. The third custom is that the woman had to be raised from the same culture. Women from other cultures were not welcomed in Igbo culture and families. These three customs had a huge affect on Nene's and Nnaemeka's lives.
Erulkar, Annabel. "Early Marriage, Marital Relations and Intimate Partner Violence in Ethiopia." Guttmacher Institute . N.p., 10 Mar 2013. Web. 14 Nov 2013. .
Whitted, Qiana. "Alice Walker (b. 1944)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. N.p., 4 Sept. 2013. Web. 9 Oct. 2013.
Kaduna: Baraka Press, 2004. Magesa, Laurenti. A. African Religion: The Moral Tradition of Abundant Life. Nairobi: Pauline Pub., Africa, 1998. Mbiti, John S. Introduction to African Religion.
“Polygyny is the marriage of one man to more than one woman at the same time” (Powell 167). This structure of marriage is prevalent among the families of Okonkwo’s village, and Okonkwo himself has three wives. A man with many wives was looked upon in a better light than a man with only one wife or no wife at all. In the novel, Okonkwo is said to have had a hard start as a young man because “he neither inherited a barn, nor a title, nor even a young wife” (Achebe 18). Men view wives as a means to gain titles and respect as well as extra labor power for thier combines. Women bring a number of benefits to a man: sexual services, reproductive power, labor, farms for women’s crops, in-laws with goods, land, and livestock. Men typically have only one wife if they lacked wealth (Amadiume 30-31). This is a feminist issue because the people of the village treat women as property that can be inherited. A feminist critic sees how polygyny devalues women and treats them the same as animals. According to Nigerian law, a woman is categorized “as an object who is not quite human” (Bazza 176). In Nigeria, if a woman is involved in polygyny and her husband divorces her for whatever reason, she cannot remarry and often turns to prostitution or extreme poverty for herself and her children (Kunhiyop 44). There is no good that comes from polygyny for
Nnoromele, Salome C. "Representing the African Woman: Subjectivity and Self in The Joys of Motherhood." Critique 43.2 (2002): 178-190.