Role Of Women In Igbo Culture

Exit of a Cultural Icon

Dr. Alexander Ginikanwa Agams, retired as Director of Arts and Culture, Imo State. He was famous for his fierce nationalism and cultural advocacy. He died recently. In this piece his daughter, poet and legal activist, Lesley Agams, remembers the cultural icon.

My father was different things to different people.  He was a proud son of a proud and ancient lineage in Umuaka, Imo State.  He was a proud and professional public servant to his beloved Imo State.  He was brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle, cousin, mentor, role model, and censor.  He was a maverick; articulate, well read, engaging and cosmopolitan.

He grew up in a well-to-do family but had a challenging childhood after losing his mother early and growing up in a competitive polygamist homestead without her protection.  Life can be harsh in rural Igbo Nigerian villages for juveniles that lose the protection of their mother too early.  He developed a fierce personality.

He spoke with deep love for his mother and great reverence for his father.  He used to recount stories to me of waiting for his mother at the village border to return from the neighbouring markets to help her with her load.  He narrated to me the story of her death from cholera when he was 10 with tears not only for her death but for what he understood to be backwardness of a time when cholera killed.

I met one of his primary school teachers when I was teenager.  The man seemed surprised to learn my father had been abroad.  Apparently, my father would have got his likeliest-to-drop-out-of-school vote. He told me a story about my father beating up the head master for unjustly punishing his elder sister, Alumma and not coming to school for weeks after that.

He was stubborn, imperious, and quick-tempered but he was also very intelligent, compassionate and easily aroused by injustice or ‘mmegbu’.  He stood with many groups, men and women to protest and resist injustice and exploitation. 

Little wonder he joined the Nigerian Youth Movement, Nigeria’s first genuine nationalist organisation in the late 50’s, from where he later collaborated with local women’s groups to support the nationalist cause.

Essay or TermPaper about The Role of Women in Chinua Achebe`s ...

[Writer 's Name] [Professor 's Name] [Course] [Date] Things Fall Apart Thesis Statement Even though women in Ibo culture having only a small number of rights and serving their male counterparts , are significant and absolute parts of the tribe and its religion .Chinua Achebe ‘s original narrative Things Fall Apart is a story regarding an Igbo community in the late 1800 ‘s , and is one of its central men , Okonkwo . The story considers the obliteration of African traditions when the white man emerged . Achebe writes in a mode that is interpretive rather than intentional , and imitates the socio-cultural organization present in Africa during that epoch . Achebe emphasizes the responsibilities of women in pre-colonial Africa . The female personalities in the novel are key figures whose lives are not just influenced by the wishes of their husbands or fathers the women equally affect the husband and fathers lives . Igbo society highlighting is put on sex-roles , typecasting , gender prejudice and the consequence of manliness and brutality , which result in the ill-treatment of the female ‘s character . In Igbo culture patriarchy rules in each aspect of continuation , connoting women are eliminated and men are better . Women were viewed as men ‘s belongings and wives came in various numbers . Women were acquired and sold into marriage and once she became a man ‘s assets she became a bit more than an entity . The first partner of a man was rewarded more deference than others demonstrated by the palm wine service . Anasi , Nwakibie ‘s first wife had not got there and the others could not consume before her (14 . Women were among one of the uppermost divisions for a young man in conjunction with yam barns and social designations . Okoye , a companion of Okonkwo ‘s father , trained for these high dissimilarities because he had a huge store packed of yams and he had three wives (5 . The yam denotes prosperity and is an indication of a great man . The women of Igbo supplied the personnel to produce yams as well as tend to beasts and look after children . Thus a well-to-do man has several wives and a bountiful production of yams . The coco-yam was seen as womanly because of their smaller mass and minor value adding to the poor value consigned on women .Women were to be distinguished and not listened to and were believed to bring water , kola as well as foofoo for the men . Other major tasks of women were to coat the houses of the egwugwu the masked morale who symbolized the familial spirits of the town . Women were unexpectedly found imperative in the continued existence of the village and communal norms . Women were basically educators and by way of narrating they taught the children about social ethics , associations and the human stipulation . During dialogues and meetings of war women were not permitted to be encircling men .

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