Autodefinición del rol que cumple el docente en el establecimiento educativo

Igbo has respect for marriage and family. Marriage has a unique place in the social life of the Igbo. If a man fails to marry when he is old enough to do so, he is seen especially among members of his age grade as an irresponsible man. In a similar way a girl who is not married when she is old enough to be a mother is looked down by the society. Therefore, the institution of marriage is highly crucial among the Igbo.

Marriage in Igboland is not just an affair between a man and a woman. It involves the whole family uimmna and to some extent the whole village of both the prospective husband and the wife. The expression, out contracted by an individual sums up the peoples attitude to marriage. Arinze (1970) affirms that "marriage is not the affair of young man and his fiance but along process between both families entailing the payment of dowries by the finance, religious ceremonies and sacrifice and the celebration of the marriage itself, (p.3). This implies that marriage is a community affair in which the families of the fiancee and fiance including their villages are involved. This goes further to mean that a child does not belong to his family alone

but to the generality of the entire community. Beside the choice of a wife is not just the business of the man but that of the whole family whose approval must be realized.

When a family finds a girl to be married to one of the members, secret investigations are carried out as to the lineage, the morality of the girl and her parentage was sought. In this all important enquiry the askers considers her mj3ral quality through character, sense of deity, ability to work hard, intelligence and excellent behaviour. They also discover whether her fore-bears or ancestors had hereditary diseases like leprosy and epilepsy. When the family of the intending husband was satisfied about the background of the girl, a man was sent to the girl's parents to open up marriage negotiation. In many parts of the Igbo, this man was seen as the intermediary (onye aka ebe/mbe) in the marriage transaction. According to S. Maduagwu (personal communication, 22^nd Nov, 2014) the man should be a good orator who is well groomed in matters concerning Igbo traditional marriage and its customs. He must also be a man who understands other people's cultures.

In some part of Igboland, it was the deity of the intermediary (onye aka mbe/ebe) to go with a jar of wine alone. In some parts like Ihiala, the intending husband and one or two other members of his family shall go with the person. The girl's parents must be informed of the visit. The girl's parents though may feign ignorance of the visit. This first visit was an introductory part of the marriage arrangement. In Ihiala area, a second visit to be made must involve the intending husband and his kinsmen to the girls place. The kinsmen must involve the boy's father, members of the family and friends bearing all the required items for the dowry and bride-wealth. The girls consent and intent to be married being obtained during the first visit, the kinsmen now goes on and the marriage procedures began. As all other invitees of the man and the boy himself stayed outside, the middleman onye aka ebe/mbe of the boy along with about two men from the

boys immediate family goes into the.inner room with the selected members of the girl's family to bed and settle the bride price. In Ihiala area, they use pieces of broomsticks tied (about forty piece) each piece representing certain amount of money. The transaction involved adding a piece by the girl's relatives and subtracting each stick by the boy's kinsmen until a certain number of sticks were settled. A kinsman of the boy wjill now come out both to inform the boy and collect the agreed amount of money from him. The intermediary now handed the money over to the intermediary of the girl's family. It was the responsibility of the intermediary, onye oka ebe of the girl's family to hand-over the bride price to the girl's father. This transaction was symbolic.

Marriage in Igboland was not a strait jacket issue. It must be contracted through intermediaries who represent the generality of both the man's family and his in-law. If there was an occasion of the divorce, it was the intermediary that was sought to bring back the dowry from the family of the girl and that reflected the dissolution of the marriage igba-aluhvaghim.

The bride price does not reflect an outright selling of the girl by the parents. According to Mbagwu V.C. and Igwenazor Clement (personal communications, 12^th April 2015), the bride price represented or symbolizes a token and a seal of marriage. It has a ritual sign, that a transaction between two communities had taken place. Moreover, a girl was not just taken a way, the transaction gives her the pride of place in her husband's house (that she was legally married, and that she did not run after the man).

The Igbo have a great love for children. A family without a child in Igbo is like a home without a future. According to Arinze (1970), "the traditional number which will make a couple contended is nine children; a family without children has little or no meaning to the Igbo". (p.3).

The awareness on the need to raise children according to the number one is able to look after has changed this idea of having many children. Many families are contended with having lesser

number of children like three or at most four or five. The Igbo people are egalitarian. Equality or near equality ensures that no one person or group of persons acquire too much control over the life of the other. All human beings are created by God and should be given the same treatment. The Igbo believed that the great God Chi-ukwu has provided numerous things for man and should be enjoyed by every member of the -society. Nobody should kill the other person just to eliminate him from the world of the living. That informs the Igbo maxim - "onye anwula, ma ibe ya efula" (let nobody die, and let nobody be lost), "ukwa daram ya dara nwunye dim" (let bread fruit fall for me and also fall for my co-wife). These maxims reflect the Igbo as people who strongly believe in equality and/or fairness to all people. The Igbo express the principle that justice requires that all men be given equal opportunities or equal distribution of gains of the community. However, no human society achieves absolute equality among her citizens and the Igbo are not different.

CHAPTER FIVE

IGBO FAMILY AND GLOBALIZATION

The concept of globalization and its explanation exposes the fact that all sectors and cleavages of life have been touched. Globalization is a process of change which started with things. As the world increased in thinking and opens her way to advancement, men continued to open up several ways of achieving maximum results through discoveries. Many new methods of improving life's health and tackling unwholesome challenges were discovered and given prominence. Simply put, Okpeh (cited by Olayemi, 2010) sees globalization "as a process of change in which countries and their economies are increasingly integrated as a function or rising cross-border economic and other activities" (p.l). In this chapter the effects of globalization will be discussed.