Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017)

A moving story wonderfully written. Buchi Emecheta narrates of the woes and hardships women, particularly poor women, face in a patriarchal society.

Moving through rural to urban colonial Nigeria, this book explores the burdening demands placed on women. Nnu Ego who is the protagonist of the story lives her whole life in servitude of the men in her life, first her father then her husband and later her sons, all the while leaving her with nothing but harsh solitude and weariness.

I normally hesitate to call books powerful, but this one truly is.… (more)

Nnu Ego is the daughter of an Ibo chief and his favorite mistress, a headstrong woman who refuses to marry him or live in his compound. On the night that Nnu Ego is conceived, a horrible incident occurs which will overshadow Nnu Ego's life, for an angry spirit becomes her chi, a spiritual force that influences her life for good or ill.

Nnu Ego is raised lovingly and is married to a kind man whom she loves. Unfortunately, she is unable to conceive, even though many sacrifices are made to try and appease her chi. She returns home in disgrace when her husband takes another wife. Her father makes another match for her, sight unseen, with the son of a local family, although he lives in Lagos. When she shows up at the white man's compound where her new husband lives, she is dismayed to find that he is nothing as advertised.

Life with Nnaife is difficult from the beginning, but the one bright spot is that she soon becomes pregnant. This is the goal that she has been taught to strive for: motherhood. Her self-worth, societal standing, position in the family, everything, depends on her having children, especially boy children. Boys will grow up to take care of the family, the younger siblings, and her when she is old. Girls are helpful around the house, cheap because they don't need much education, and bring a handsome bride price at a young age. But the joy of motherhood is short-lived. Child mortality is high, poverty and malnutrition are constants, and her husband is neither supportive nor a good provider.

World War II brings great changes, none of them good. Throughout everything, however, Nnu Ego struggles to keep the boys in school. They are the future of the family and her social security. But as the years pass, traditional customs become alien to children raised in the city, and Nnu Ego finds herself struggling to understand how her life has turned out as it has.

The Joy of Motherhood is a most ironic title, both in the personal and societal sense. Nigeria undergoes tremendous change between the 1930s and 1950s, and traditional supports are undermined before new societal structures have been built. Nnu Ego is stuck between her traditional rural upbringing and the modern city in which she finds herself. While some women are able to navigate the changes, she is left behind. The novel is focused both on the micro, the life of one woman, and the macro, the place of women in Nigerian society. This is a book that I will be thinking about for a while.… (more)

The setting is colonial Nigeria, before, during and after WWII. Villagers from tribes in the interior come to Lagos, on the coast, where they may not make as much working for themselves as farmers, but the pay is steady and the work is not so demanding.

The protagonist, Nnu Ego meets her husband, arranged in marriage by her father:
P.42
Nnu Ego was grateful for it, and was just falling asleep with a full stomach when in walked a man with a belly like a pregnant cow, wobbling first to this side and then to that. The belly, coupled with the fact that he was short, made him look like a barrel. his hair, unlike that of men at home in Ibuza, was not closely shaved; he left a lot of it on his head, like that of a woman mourning for her husband. His skin was pale, the skin of someone who had for a long time worked in the shade and not in the open air. His cheeks were puffy and looked as if he had pieces of hot yam inside them, and they seem to have pushed his mouth into a smaller size above his weak jaw. And his clothes - Nnu Ego had never seen men dressed like that: khaki shorts with holes in an old, loose, white singlet.

He gives her so many children, and barely makes any money when he does work, that she has to hustle to make pennies to feed their children. She picks up pieces of wood dockside and chops them, tying them in bundles to sell. When Nnaife's brother dies, he brings the junior wife home to Live with them. Too bad if Nnu Ego doesn't like all the noise her husband makes having sex with his new wife, in the Same room. He is the man and he rules. Towards the end, he acquired a 16-year-old for yet another wife.

P.162
Nnu Ego was like those not - so - well - informed Christians who, promised the kingdom of heaven, believed that it was literally just around the corner and that Jesus Christ was coming on the very Morrow. many of them would hardly contribute anything to this world, reasoning, "what is the use? Christ will come soon." They became so insulated in their beliefs that not only would they have little to do with ordinary sinners, people going about their daily work, but even pitied them and in many cases look down on them because the kingdom of God was not for the likes of them. Maybe this was a protective mechanism device to save them from realities too painful to accept.

P.206
Nnaife is an ignorant, macho husband:
"I have a mind to tell you and your brats to leave this house immediately. I was not created to suffer for you till I die."
Understanding was gradually dawning on Nnu Ego. She could guess that his anger was connected with the children. She was becoming Fed Up of this two-way standard. When the children were good they belonged to the father; when they were bad, they belonged to the mother. Every woman knew this; but for Nnaife to keep hurling it in her face at the slightest provocation was very unfair. She decided to have her own back, not caring that Okpo the young wife was there watching and listening.
"I didn't bring the children from my father's house. You gave them to me. Leave your house? What house have you got? How many people live in mud covered houses in Lagos? I am only waiting for my share of your pension money. I worked for it as well. After that, if you don't want me, I can go back to my people."

Needless to say, the title is tongue-in-cheek. The culture this book was written about is so patriarchal, it made me feel sick to my stomach for the women characters that this book reflected.… (more)