The Joys of Motherhood Men and Masculinity Quotes

Like most handsome men who are aware of their charismatic image, he had many women in his time. Whenever they raided a neighbouring village, Agbadi was sure to come back with the best-looking women. He had a soft spot for those from big houses, daughters of chiefs and rich men. He knew from experience that such women had an extra confidence and sauciness even in captivity. And that type of arrogance, which even captivity could not diminish, seemed to excite some wicked trait in him. In his young days, a woman who gave in to a man without first fighting for her honour was never respected. To regard a woman who is quiet and timid as desirable was something that came after his time, with Christianity and other changes. Most of the women Nwokocha Agbadi chose as his wives and even slaves were those who could match his arrogance, his biting sarcasm, his painful jokes, and also, when the mood called, his human tenderness.

He married a few women in the traditional sense, but as he watched each of them sink into domesticity and motherhood he was soon bored and would go further afield for some other exciting, tall and proud female. This predilection of his extended to his mistresses as well. (2.1-2)

One of these mistresses was a very beautiful young woman who managed to combine stubbornness with arrogance. So stubborn was she that she refused to lie with Agbadi. Men being what they are, he preferred spending his free time with her, with this woman who enjoyed humiliating him by refusing to be his wife. Many a night she would send him away, saying she did not feel like having anything to do with him, even though Agbadi was not supposed to be the kind of man women should say such things to. But she refused to be dazzled by his wealth, his name or his handsomeness. (2.5)

"In a day or two he will get better, Ona. Then you can go back to your people. We are grateful to you and to your father, I assure you. If Agbadi were to lower himself to thank you, I am sure you would stop caring for him. You need a man, Ona, not a snail. We all know you. For a while I thought we were losing our giant forever. Well, don't worry, he is still too weak to bother any woman for many days, but what he needs I s the comfort of your nearness, though he won't admit it." (2.34)

That was a quality many Ibuza men appreciated; they wanted women who could claim to be helpless without them. Nnu Ego was not surprised to see men conferring in secret with her father. This time he wanted a man who would be patient with her, who would value his daughter enough to understand her. A man who would take the trouble to make her happy. Feeling this way, he refused all very handsome-looking men, for he knew that thought they might be able to make love well, handsome men often felt it unnecessary to be loving. The art of loving, he knew, required deeper men. Men who did not have to spend every moment of their time working and worrying about food and the farm. Men who could spare the time to think. This quality was becoming rarer and rarer, Agbadi found, and sometimes he thought it was actually dying out with his own generation. He would rather give his daughter to an old chief with a sense of the tried, traditional values than to some modern young man who only wanted her because of her family name. (3.66)

This could not be the man she was to live with. How could two brothers be so unalike? They had similar foreheads, and the same kind of gestures, but there the similarities ended, for otherwise the two men were as different as water and oil. She felt like bursting into tears, like begging the senior Owulum to please take her home….

[…]

Nnu Ego held herself tight, trying to bravely to accept the greetings and not to imagine what her father would say had this man come in person to ask for his daughter. She fought back tears of frustration. She was used to tall, wiry farmers, with rough, blackened hands from farming, long, lean legs and very dark skin. This one was short, the flesh of his upper arm danced as he moved about jubilantly among his friends, and that protruding belly! Why did he not cover it? She despised him on that first night, especially when much later people began to take their exaggerated leave. (4.16; 18)

Nnaife could tell that Nnu Ego did not approve of him. But he could not help the way he was made, and what anyway was she going to do about it? In his five years in Lagos he had seen worse situations. He had seen a wife brought for an Ibuza man in Lags running away at the sight of her future husband, so that friends had to help the poor bridegroom catch the runaway bride. At least Nnu Ego did not do that. Very few women approved of their husbands on the first day. It was a big joke to the men, women from home wanting to come to Lagos where they would not have to work too hard and expecting a handsome, strong figure of a husband into the bargain. Women were so stupid! (4.17)

She would have to put up with things. She would rather die in this town called Lagos than go back home and say, "Father, I just do not like the man you have chosen for me." Another thought ran through her mind: suppose this man made her pregnant, would that not be an untold joy to her people?

"O my chi," she prayed as she rolled painfully to her other side on the raffia bed, "O my dead mother, please make this dream come true, then I will respect this man, I will be his faithful wife and put up with his crude ways and ugly appearance. Oh, please help me, all you ancestors. If I should become pregnant—hm…" She nursed her belly, and felt her rather sore legs. "If I should ever be pregnant." (4.20-21)

"Well, your second son is at St Gregory's. Who pays his fees?"

"I do, I pay his fees with the profits I make from selling firewood and other things."

There was a suppressed ripple of laugher in the court.

"But your husband told us he pays the school feels, how is that?"

"Yes, he pays the school feels."

"Do you mean the two of you pay Adim's school fees?"

"No, I pay."

The laughter that followed this could no longer be suppressed. Even the judge smiled unwillingly.

"Mrs Owulum, will you please explain."

"Nnaife is the head of our family. He owns me, just like God in the sky owns us. So even though I pay the fees, yet he owns me. So in other words he pays."

"Oh, I see. And you clothe and sometimes feed the family, too?"

Nnu Ego nodded, not knowing that with that one nod, she had nailed the last nail in Nnaife's coffin. It became clear that she was doing nearly all the providing…(18.43-54)

And he went on probing Nnu Ego, "When your husband returned from the army did he not go to Ibuza?"

"Yes, he did.'

"What did he go for?"

"I don't know, to see his family at home. Ibuza is his home."

"Did he bring anything with him?"

"Yes, he brought a new wife."

"And did he not do something else in Ibuza, say give someone a child?"

"Yes, he made my senior wife pregnant. Her husband died, you see."

Three-quarters of the court was filled by Yorubas to whom this kind of custom was strange. They looked at the pathetic figure of Nnaife sitting there, being responsible for all these children. Even the judge looked at him with a kind of masculine admiration.

"Your husband is a very strong man," the prosecuting lawyer said cynically and the court roared in laughter.

"You say your husband is an ideal man, a very nice man."

Nnu Ego nodded.

"Has he got a nasty temper?"

"No, he hasn't. He only gets angry when he is drunk."

"And he drinks often, every day?"

"Well, he is a man, isn't he? Men are expected to be like that. My father—"

"Ahem. We are talking about your husband, not your father."

"My husband is like any other man. I would not have married any man who did not behave like a man." (18.55-72)

"This life is very unfair for us men. We do all the work, you women take all the glory. You even live longer to reap the rewards. A son in America? You must be very rich, and I'm sure your husband is dead long ago…" (18.113)