Texto Unificado de Legislación Ambiental Secundaria, Libro IV de la

Eke Nwaeku (Personal Communication 26^th November, 2017) said that the major women especially those who have female children are the people who usually maltreat the minor women. A major woman may become sad about the possibility of the younger wife relegating her to the background and inheriting her husband’s property through her biological children. This thought may induce the major woman and her female children to start withdrawing their support for the minor woman after she has given birth to male children for the family. They make life so unbearable for the minor woman that she may run away from the marriage. When this happens the major woman will train the male children as her own and inherit her husband’s property through them. Olovo Ali, Nwaebia Utamdi, Nwosu Uzo, Simon Dibie and Atavi Ele supported the above assertion.

Nkalele Nwamaku (Personal Communication 29^th October, 2017) on the other hand, said that many of the minor women maltreat the major women especially those childless major women. They fail to take care of them in old age, as they are only interested in the marriage for the opportunity afforded by the land properties they will inherit. Some minor women go to the length of poisoning the major women so as to own every property belonging to the major women and their husbands.

130 4.7.5 Separation and Divorce

Atavi Ele (Personal Communication 5^th January 2018) explained that most of the major women want separation or even divorce after the minor women have given them children. This is noticeable from different behaviours exhibited, like maltreating the younger women, withdrawing their support to them, hiding most of their husband’s land properties from the minor women. Any slightest provocation from the minor woman attracts angry outburst reminding of their age difference, and an option of opting out of the marriage. This ordeal of the minor woman is mostly noticed in a wealthy home where the husband of the major woman is late. The major woman goes to any length to push the minor woman away so that she will inherit the properties of her husband through the children of the minor woman. In this case, the community will look into the predicament of the younger woman. If the major woman is maltreating her because she wants her to leave they will force the major woman to give the minor woman part of their husband’s wealth in order to leave on her own. Iweolu Nwaobu, Egwuoke Onu, Sunday Ikoh, Nwaebia Utamdi, Mgbavo Oge and Nwangelike Okolie agreed to the above explanation.

An example is given about one major woman that forced a minor woman to separate from her by accusing the minor woman of theft. This was because she knew that the minor woman was from a very poor background and no one would have the effrontery to challenge her decision from the minor woman’s home. The community aware of the machinations of the major woman compelled her to build a separate house for the minor woman or they would advise the minor woman to take all her children with her as they are still too young. This is the tradition in Awgu. When a wife leaves her husband’s house because of maltreatment she is expected to go with her children.

Wanting to be with his children forces a man to mellow down and beg his wife to come back. The major woman was cowed into building a separate house for the minor woman as she was aware of

131 the implication: loosing entirely the children and denying herself the inheritance purpose of their procreation. The community’s intervention in this case is in line with Doniger (2013) He observes that Talcott Parsons enunciated the “functional prerequisites” that any social system must meet in order to survive: developing routinized interpersonal arrangements (structures), defining relations to the external environment, fixing boundaries, and recruiting and controlling members. The Awgu community recruits their new members through gynaegamy when childlessness or lack of male children occurs in a marriage. It also controls the behaviour of the two women that engage in this marriage by ensuring that they follow the law of the land. The above example was corroborated by Nkechi Ejileka, Agbidi Okeke, Eke Nwaeku, Oyibo Ojidi, Agwade Udeji and Onyema Uduji.

From the above ideas, it is clear that the normal problem experienced in polygamous marriage is also present in gynaegamy. The rule that applies to other types of marriage in Awgu is applicable here in terms of separation and divorce. The research question which states: What are the problems that are envisaged from gynaegamy has been answered by the above data sourced from respondents and literature review. This is done by stating the problems that are envisaged:

stubbornness and promiscuous life style on the part of the minor woman, maltreatment and urge to separate or divorce on the part of major woman.

132 CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

This chapter comprises the summary of the work, the findings, the recommendations and suggestions as well as the conclusion.