Tradition, Modernity, and the African Woman: The Writings of Buchi Emecheta and Bessie Head
Two authors who do address this problem are Buchi Emecheta and Bessie Head. Both Emecheta and Head, in their works The Bride Price and “Snapshots of a Wedding,” respectively, look at the conflicts that arise when modernization clashes with traditions from a feminine perspective, addressing particularly how modernization has opened up new options for African women, but at the same time created fissures between those new models and old ones.
In order to understand how those conflicts come about, it is important to look at the contradictions in both modern and traditional roles for women. The role women play in traditional African societies is that of subordination to their male counterparts. While African women can attain certain degrees of power and wealth within their communities (for instance, in many villages, women control the marketplace and are able to generate great wealth and power), their role within the village and home is still to support and be secondary to men.
This plays itself out in a number of different ways, particularly in terms of proper behavior and composure and marriage. Proper feminine behavior-meekness, subordination to male intellectualism and power, and acceptance of male behavior-perpetuates the hierarchical models found in traditional African societies. It also ensures that these models will not be challenged and therefore passed down from generation to generation. On the other hand, modernity places higher values on individualism, free will, and self-determination. While modernity does not eliminate traditional models of female behavior (particularly in European models), it does offer more flexibility in options of self-definition, whereas in traditional models identity is defined in relation to what is necessary for the community.
In traditional African societies, mothers or mother-figures play an important role in passing down those traditional models to their daughters. In Bessie Head’s short story, “Snapshots of a Wedding,” Neo’s aunt performs this role (ironically, the character’s mother is the only one who tolerates Neo’s modernized feminine behavior and welcomes the new wealth her daughter’s education will bring to the home). Modernization has enabled Neo to gain an education and to provide a comfortable financial means for her family.
Yet it has also introduced individualization (placing one’s own needs above that of the village), which, more than anything, causes the most conflict within the story. Neo, who is more educated than anyone in her village, has taken on airs and must be brought back to her proper place. Her aunt cruelly reveals to her that the other villagers hate her, causing Neo to suffer a collapse in esteem which leads to an unplanned and, by all accounts, unwanted pregnancy by her fiancÃ?© Kegoletile: “She developed an anxiety to greet people and also an anxiety about securing Kegoletile as a husband-that was why she became pregnant six months before the marriage could place” (par. 13).
Kegoletile has not been faithful to Neo, and has impregnated another girl, Mathata. Though Neo initially accepts her fiance’s behavior, she also looks down on Mathata for being uneducated. Both Neo and Mathata provide opposing models of feminine behavior. While Neo is arrogant and proud, Mathata is is meek, acquiescent, quiet-the perfect model of the nurturing mother and subordinate wife. By becoming pregnant, Neo is placed in the same position as Mathata, thus assimilating her back to the role women hold in traditional African societies.
Yet, Neo’s transformation will not be complete until she accepts her subordination. Despite her pregnancy, her relatives “were still debating whether Neo was a suitable wife for any man” (par. 13). The story ends when her aunt pleads with Neo at her wedding to “‘Be a good wife! Be a good wife!'” It is only when Neo accepts her place in traditional African society, that the conflict she brings to the village-modern values over traditional values-can be snuffed out. This is especially important since mothers and mother-figures are expectant role models. If Neo does not accept her own subjugation, then she still poses a threat: she will become a poor model of feminine behavior for her child.
Women are also viewed as property within traditional societies, inhibiting self-determination and freedom. The title of Emecheta’s novel addresses this issue. Bride prices are compensations given to the bride’s family as reparation for the loss of a productive member. Yet such arrangements don’t allow for personal choice and free will. Modernization, though, values individuality. Therefore, those with a modern or Europeanized education will find conflict in reconciling their own individual desires within a traditional matrix. Emecheta addresses this conflict in The Bride Price when Aku-nna falls in love with and marries Chike.
Emecheta reveals how bride-prices often benefit or are easily exploitable by the male members in the family. Okonkwo, Aku-nna’s uncle, sees in her an opportunity to generate enough money to become an Obi. Aku-nna’s education ironically adds to her bride-price value. Okonkwo allows her to remain in school precisely because he will be able to marry her off to a “rich man, from one of those newly prosperous families springing up like mushrooms all over Ibuza” (75). When Aku-nna is kidnapped and forced into marriage by Okoboshi, her family expresses anger and desires for revenge, but no one challenges this act.
In fact, her uncle, after being plied with gin, agrees “to the minimal amount [for a] bride-price for Aku-nna. After all, she was just like any other girl. All this modern education did nothing good for any woman…” (133). Here, Aku-nna’s “modern education” poses a threat to the social order. Just as Neo’s aunt must enforce the values and traditions of a woman’s place in the village, so too the women in Okoboshi’s family. Her sister-in-law “assure[s] Aku-nna that marriage was a pleasant and relaxing way of life for a girl, especially if the husband was surrounded by relatives as Okoboshi was” (134). Though some of the women in Okoboshi’s family criticize the kidnapping, they do not question nor challenge the practice. Aku-nna, like the other women, is expected to accept such behavior from men. The women must obey and accept their position in African society and ensure that those values are passed down through their children.
Yet, Aku-nna’s education does open her up to other options of possibilities. It is telling that the man Aku-nna chooses to love is both a teacher and a descendant of slaves. In some traditional African cultures, slaves are seen as inferior to free men, and therefore do not make suitable husband’s for girl’s like Aku-nna. Chike’s profession and his family’s wealth are evident of Africa’s colonial past. Colonialists often converted and educated the outcasts or misfits of African society because they were more receptive to the colonialists and because those within the higher social order offered them to colonialists as a means of pacification. Yet this created more divisions between the free men see the descendants of slaves as lackeys for the white man, taking “up commanding key positions” (74) in society to destroy African traditions.
Yet, despite his family’s wealth and educated status, Chike is still considered an outsider in Ibuza, a descendent of slaves, making him an inappropriate choice for a husband. Aku-nna’s lack of free will in choosing whom to love parallels that of Chike. Yet her desire to love whomever she wishes provides the conflict that drives the narrative. Her individual desire threatens tradition.
Head’s story also deals with how education changes those who are educated. Neo’s education allows her to reject the limitations imposed on her. She sees this in the differences presented between herself and Mathata. While Neo’s education opens up opportunities to become a typist or bookkeeper, Mathata is suitable to become only a housemaid (par. 5). But education also makes it impossible for Neo to ever find happiness in marriage. While Kegoletile prefers Mathata because she conforms to the traditional models of femininity, he knows marriage with Neo will bring more wealth into his family. Men like Kegoletile who want to be successful in life, must not “look too closely into his heart.
They all wanted as wives, women who were big money-earners and they were so ruthless about it” (par. 9). One might see education as a trap for Neo, but what has entrapped her is marriage, since it does not allow the flexibility for her to express herself without conforming to traditional values of femininity. Though modernism is accepted in the sense that it provides an opportunity for financial gain, traditional values still trap women in a matrix of subjugation and unhappiness.
Both Emecheta and Head’s stories end on unhappy or ambiguous notes. Aku-nna is able to escape from Okoboshi and run off with Chike where they settle down into a life together. But when Chike’s father is unable to pay a bride-price for her, their future is in doubt. According to traditions, a young woman whose bride-price is not paid for will die in childbirth. Ironically, Aku-nna does die after giving birth to her child, but she is more a victim of a poor diet than superstitions. Still her death causes a firm hold over generations of young girls who, if “wish[ing] to live long and see her children’s children, [she] must accept the husband chosen for her by her people…” (168).
Likewise, Neo marries Kegoletile, but there is no indication that her marriage will be a satisfying or fulfilling one. Her aunt’s admonition for her to “be a good wife” is a plea to honor traditions that neither suit nor benefit Neo. Both stories suggest that the struggle for liberation of African women will be a hard one, but do bring attention to the very complex issues that are being raised in a modernized Africa.
