The Masculine Focused Ibo Culture in Chinua Achebe's, Things Fall Apart

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1. In traditional Ibo culture, women are not treated as equals and are equivalent to possessions. In a family, the children always belong to the father, not the mother. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family” (74). Okonkwo appears appalled to this blasphemy. It is common and ideal for a husband to possess multiple wives, and men beat their wives for even the smallest infractions. During the Week of Peace, the goddess forbids wife beating, such as when Okonkwo beat Ojiugo. “And when she returned he beat her very heavily …It was unheard of to beat somebody during the sacred week” (29-30). To live in a culture with so many threats to them, women are required to be mentally and emotionally strong. Aside from their roles in a family, women paint the Egwugwu house, even though they never enter. The mothers are also the primary educators of their children, “each woman and her children told folk stories” (96). Despite women not fulfilling many responsibilities, they play the role Priestess. Priestesses are greatly respected spiritual l...

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