Igbo Women Significance

The Significances and Insignificances of the Ibo women

To begin with, women are treated horribly, they are mistreated and have no voice, they are subservient to what their husband says to do or else they are beaten to death. They are bought for a bargained price with a stack of sticks from the woman’s family and then taken to live with her new husband, never to return to her family until she is dead and sent back to her family to be buried or if they are beaten almost to death they are allowed to leave their husband and flee back to her family leaving her children with her ex-husband. Keeping all these things in mind, there are still a few roles that some women play that are highly respected and significant. Unlike these revered women, the
In fact, women hold more power in some roles they have then men do, which means that men do not hold all the power. On the other hand, men have more power in some areas such as that they can have more than one wife, which shows status, but women can only have one husband. Also, men get to choose who they marry, but women do not get to choose, but her family does decide if her suitor is tolerable. On the topic of farming, both men and women take part in the planting and harvesting of crops, but different ones. Women only plant crops that such as melons, beans, and cocoa yams which are called a “women’s crops”, whereas men plant crops such as yams which is called a “man’s crop”. Besides farming, a woman cooks for her husband and her children, even if a man has multiple wives, they all are expected to prepare him a meal, and so a man would eat one meal after the other. If a woman does not cook a meal or is late for preparing a meal she is brutally punished. Another example of a man holding more power than women is that a man can beat his wives whenever he wants except during the Week of Peace, which Okonkwo breaks and gets punished for. Some important roles women have or are represented by are a priestess, oracle, and a goddess. In addition to these things, they teach their children stories about their culture which is how stories go from generation to generation, also even though their crops are not as important as “man crops”, without their crops their families would have less to eat. When they talk about “women crops” they are really symbolizing a weaker and lesser job. This goes along with motherly qualities, women are supposed to be sympathetic, weaker, hold lesser status, and show compassion to others, so when Nwoye was showing effeminate traits his father was ashamed and viewed this as a negative trait that he got from his mother, because it means that he was