My paper
Mood:  lazy
Justin Gray
Ms. Davis
IB English 11
October 10, 2005
Agbala of Ibo Society
“Agbala”, women in the English language, seemed to lack much importance within Things Fall Apart. However, the women of the Ibo society were the most important characters of all. The novel continued to degrade and criticize the character of Ibo women. Ibo women had many and more numerous tasks than any other type of character. The Ibo society’s nature was that of men were superior to their women. Okonkwo’s view of the women society seemed to be a bit more degrading than that of the Ibo society as a whole. Agbala maintained the feasts, children, and the livelihoods of their families.
Women were often beaten and verbally abused by their husbands, but that did not appall the Ibo society. Women were meant to be inferior to the men in their culture. Women were commonly described as weak, incapable of hard labor, and only the homemakers in the huts of the Ibo people. A women’s character was so degrading, that the men were able to possess more than one wife, making their importance even smaller. Achebe surely, “Even as a little boy he had resented his father’s failure and weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him his father was agbala. That was how Okonkwo first came to know that agbala was not only another name for a woman, it could also mean a man who had no title” (Achebe, 13), reveals how Okonkwo along with his society felt about agbala.
Weakness was the exact opposite term to express the women of the Ibo society. Women were and had to be the strongest to go through what no man had to ever go through, as far as life processes. Women had the natural bodily processes such as their births, menstrual phases, and their side effects. Though no quite often mentioned in the novel, these processes had to have been implied if not discussed throughout the work. Their experiences took much strength which no male of the Ibo society would have ever understood. In addition to the unmentioned details that heightened the importance of the Ibo women, they did much to contribute to the future survival of Ibo people. Women were nurturers, story-tellers, advisors, cooks and general educators of life and basic emotions. Women had a strong involvement in the developing stages of Ibo children, which were later to become grown men or women. Those very grown men and women who were raised by a mother and a father become people of importance through their achievements or even their ancestors regardless, but life would not have been possible at all if it were not for the mother.
It was easy to praise with the winner and shout out victory, but it never seemed to be easy to calm down or soothe the difficulties a child may possess. Uchendu’s explanation of why mother is supreme,
“It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme. It is right that you, Okonkwo, should bring to your mother a heavy face and refuse to be comforted?” (134), states another task of women in the Ibo society.
The women had to protect their children in every way they could, psychological protection was most emphasized in the Ibo society. They had to verbally battle the negative ideas of their children to better their emotional status, which is another task men would not have been able to do. The Ibo society praised the fact that mother was supreme, which gave mothers in general (women with children) a more important role in the Ibo society.
In the developing stages of Ibo children, a father’s story compared to a mother’s was much harsher rather than amusing and emotional. Traditionally, Ibo women wanted to raise her daughter to be lady like, responsible and a good wife in general. The fate of the average Ibo son would have been to become someone strong, powerful, wealthy, and successful and a great man to maintain his family. With traditional ideas in mind, some Ibo children would desire their parents or tradition had for them. Some Ibo children steadily chose their own desires from the stories their mothers or fathers recited. Nyowe possessed feminine traits and took a favor in the stories his mother told, not Okonkwo’s. Okonkwo’s daughter Ezinma had the traits he wished Nyowe had. “…She should have been a boy,” (64) Okonkwo said to himself again, emphasizes the semi-male traits Ezinma possessed, Nyowe’s characteristics were degrading to the Ibo society and tradition. He was too lazy, lacked ambition and overall feminine to have been a male.