Love, Motherhood and the African Heritage
Forty years after the restoration of independence in Africa following decades of European conquest and occupation of the continent, there has been little positive impact on the quality of life of most Africans in virtually every sphere of social, political, economic or spiritual existence. During the period, African governments have failed to establish effective socio-economic systems to counter the deleterious consequences of the occupation. One such consequence has been the impact on women, who, prior to the occupation, played a central role in the life of their societies. The aftermath of European hegemony on the African scene has been the displacement/marginalisation of the power, position, participation and contribution of African women in the social ordering and overall advancement of their society. Unfortunately, African governments, through their policies, have ensured that this crippling dis-equilibrium in society has become further entrenched. This is a subject that has been of major concern to Flora Nwapa, one of Africa's leading women novelists. Through Nwapa's writings, we examine the historical role which Igbo women exercised in their society; the pivotal and highly revered role of motherhood as an all-encompassing ideological framework of social ordering of the nation and the philosophical ethos which governed women's social, cultural, political, economic and spiritual life, the basis of which was the 'dual-gender' complementarity in place in society. The study concludes by demonstrating that only through a return to these time-honoured proven values of social co-existence can Africa extricate itself from the present state of human privations.