Like most traditional societies (and Markan community) the Igbo world is a patriarchal world. However, it is not androcentric as could be expected in a patriarchal set-up. On the contrary, it is a feminine-oriented patriarchy. Hence, it is a patriarchy that is paradoxical. At the level of the deities, the male deities appear to occupy a predominant place. For instance, the sky god, Chukwu, has the father figure and is male. Similarly, the ancestors who occupy the earth-beneath are male and there seems to be no women ancestors. However, notwithstanding this apparent male predominance, “the traditional religion (Omenala/odinala) is based on the worship/reverence of “Ala”, the earth goddess” and great importance is given “to the tie which keeps all together in the form of Mother Earth – the mother of all.”109 In fact, one would even get the impression that greater
prominence is given to the mother earth, a female deity. According to Nneka Okafor, “In giving prominence to the god-mother, the Igbo wish to say that women are important in its society as they are the gate between the ancestors gone and our world; it is this mother who is fruitful that
108 Ibid, 309.
109 Nneka Ifeoma Okafor and Felix Munyaradzi Murove, “The Nwanne Paradigm as Liberative Panacea to the Patriarchal Nigerian Igbo Society,” 46.
45 complements the actions of the male deities in Igbo society.”110 But what is at stake is the balance
that is to be maintained in the roles played by the female and male deities in the dynamics of the Igbo cosmology. At the core of Igbo religion, Nwoye stresses, “is the polarity between Chukwu and the Ana (or Ani) – a polarity in which both poles are, necessarily, crucial.”111 The maintaining
of the balance of the polarities between the deities and their mutual complementarity is what guarantees the well-being of the cosmos as well as that of human beings.
At the level of human existence, Igbo patriarchy is expressed in the fact that it holds the male child at esteem as he is the one who perpetuates the clan name by inheriting the father’s patrimony. This means that kinship is primarily traced in the male line and the individual belongs to a group of relatives, the agnate (Umunna).112 In the family the husband is projected as the head
of the family and represents it in the family rituals that are offered to the deities. At the clan, village, and town leadership it is the most elderly man that is in charge. That is the patriarchy in principle. Nevertheless, in reality the understanding of a strong bond of kingship and relationship is based on the female – the mother. The symbol of Nne (mother) is the ultimate and the bond of
Umunne (children of the same mother) is stronger than that of the Umunna (children from the same
father). In addition to its strength, the “umunne kinship bond is a permanent one, unaffected by the marital status of the mother and unchanged when she dies.”113 As a matter of fact, one’s Ikwunne
(mother’s lineage) is the safest haven for that person. That is where one is most welcomed and recognized.
110 Ibid. 46
111 Nwoye, “Igbo Cultural and Religious Worldview,” 309. 112 Ibid, 312.
46 In terms of family responsibility and leadership, the man’s “headship” is more of a title and his powerfulness in most cases is blown out of proportion. In actual operation most women are the key players in their families through the strong influence they wield on their husbands. Phanuel Akubueze expresses this paradox in the following way:
“The man’s power is basically a rehearsed external show which is not sustained by internal reality.” An Igbo husband is given to dramatic and theatrical display of power, especially when there is a third party. Most of the time the woman play along with this ego-boosting antics. Women go along with the acting because tradition demands that they prop up the men as the family heads, even when the women are the main breadwinners. For the Igbo woman, it is not a matter of pride to boast that she plays the role of husband instead of a wife; she does not want to be identified as a wife who husbands her husband.114
Eugene Uchendu’s findings in Uturu115 town supports this paradox of men’s power. The
women he interviewed acknowledged that their husbands are the head of the family since that is the traditional belief. This notwithstanding, some of the women expressed that the women are the ones ruling in their homes through the way they influence the decisions of their husbands and sons. By so doing the voice of the women is heard through the mouths of their husbands. “For me,” one of them airs, “ruling at home is more important to ruling outside the home. The important thing is that we, the women should never underestimate the influence we have in our families and at home.”116 Uchendu sees a kind of “invisible matriarchy” at work despite the patriarchy and
patrilineage that one sees on the surface. This concurs with the view of Joseph Agbasiere who argues that the “external features of patrilineality and ‘patriarchy’ are but social mechanisms for
114 Egejuru Phanuel Akubueze, “The Paradox of Womanbeing and the Female Principle in Igbo Cosmology,”
in Nwanyibu: Womanbeing & African Literature, ed. Phanuel Egejuru A. and Katrak Ketu H (Trenton, New Jessy: Africa World Press, 1997), 16.
115 Eugene Uchendu’s research aims at getting the views of women as regards the roles they play in their homes and in the society at large. His finding shows that there is a kind of “invisible matriarchy” that is operational despite the fact that what is seen on the surface is patriarchy and men’s predominance. See Uchendu, “Repositioning culture for development, 334-350
47 maintaining an equilibrium between the interplay of this intrinsic factor of female-orientedness and the religious notion of the worth of the human person, male or female, in the dynamics of relationship.117 By putting patriarchy in parenthesis, I suppose, Agbasiere wants to make the point
that it is a patriarchy in disguise – the one that is feminine in orientation.