The Joys of Motherhood

 The title Emcheta's novel patently ironic, for it would seem that there are few joys associated with motherhood after all ?explain

About Buchi Emcheta

Buchi Emecheta, in full Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta, (born July 21, 1944, Lagos Nigeria—died January 25, 2017, London, England), igbo writer whose novels deal largely with the difficult and unequal role of women in both immigrant and African societies and explore the tension between tradition and modernity.

Most of Emecheta’s other novels—including The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977), The Joys of Motherhood (1979), Destination Biafra (1982), and Double Yoke (1982)—are realistic works of fiction set in Nigeria. Perhaps her strongest work, The Rape of Shavi (1983), is also the most difficult to categorize. Set in an imaginary idyllc African kingdom, it explores the dislocations that occur when a plane carrying Europeans seeking to escape an immeniate nuclear disaster crashes.

Characters of the novel:

About the Novel 

The Joys of Motherhood is a novel written by Buchi Emecheta. It was first published in London, UK, by Allison & Busby in 1979 and was first published in Heinemann's African Writers Series in 1980 and reprinted 1982, 2004, 2008.

Summary of the Novel

The book opens as Nnu Ego runs away from her home in Lagos, Nigeria, where her first baby has just died. She has decided to commit suicide.

The story flashes back to the story of how Nnu Ego was conceived. Her father, Agbadi, though he has many wives, is in love with a proud and haughty young woman named Ona. Ona refuses to marry him because she is obligated to produce a son for her father's family line, and not a husband's. But when Agbadi is almost killed in a hunting accident, Ona nurses him back to health and becomes pregnant with his child. She agrees that if it's a daughter, the child will belong to Agbadi. Nnu Ego is Agbadi's favorite daughter and she grows into a beautiful young woman. Her first marriage is to the son of another wealthy and titled family. Unfortunately, the marriage soon grows sour because Nnu Ego fails to have children. Her husband takes a second wife, who quickly conceives. Nnu Ego grows thin and worn out because she's so unhappy. She goes back to live with her father, who arranges a second marriage.

Nnu Ego's second marriage is to Nnaife, a man who works in Lagos as the washer for a white family, Dr. and Mrs. Meers. Though Nnu Ego is disappointed with Nnaife – he isn't her ideal man – she quickly becomes pregnant. This is the child that dies and propels her to almost commit suicide by jumping off a bridge.

When she's talked out of jumping off the bridge, Nnu Ego returns home and becomes pregnant again rather quickly. World war second interferes in Nnu Ego's and Nnaife's happiness. The Meers return to Europe, and Nnaife is out of work for months while Nnu Ego supports the family through petty trade. Nnaife eventually gets work on a ship, which means he's gone for months at a time. Nnu Ego struggles to make ends meet while he's gone. When he finally returns, it's only to be greeted by the news that his elder brother has died and Nnaife has inherited all his brother's wives and children. Most of the wives remain in Ibuza, but Adaku comes to Lagos and moves in with Nnu Ego and Nnaife.

Nnu Ego learns to become the senior wife, and to share Nnaife's pitiful salary with Adaku and her children. Life is a constant struggle for survival, but it only gets worse when Nnaife is conscripted into the army and sent to fight in world war second  He's gone for four years. His wives must wait patiently with no news and no salary.

Adaku takes up trading to support herself and her two children, while Nnu Ego struggles to support her four children. Nnu Ego goes home to Ibuza because her father dies. During her long absence, Adaku's trading becomes very successful, while Nnu Ego's dwindles to nothing. Nnu Ego has to start all over again, but she is jealous of Adaku's success. The two women have a conflict, and the family men settle in favor of Nnu Ego even though she's wrong. It turns out that the men side with Nnu Ego because she is the senior wife. Adaku finally recognizes that because she is the junior wife and has only has daughters, her position in the family is nothing. She leaves to become a prostitute.

After many years, Nnu Ego discovers that she has been sent three years of Nnaife's salary. She is finally able to pay her children's school fees and feed them well. Nnaife arrives home not long after. The war is over. He apparently feels the sting of Adaku's defection because he decides to go home and assert his rights of inheritance with his brother's eldest wife, Adankwo. He gets her pregnant and brings home yet another wife, a young girl named Okpo.

Nnu Ego is frustrated. They can hardly afford the children they have, yet Nnaife keeps fathering more children and demanding more wives. Yet Okpo is a good girl, and has the same traditional values that Nnu Ego has, so their relationship is a good one, almost like that of a mother and daughter. Nnaife surprises everybody when he offers the rest of his military money to pay for Oshia's expensive schooling. (Oshia is Nnaife and Nnu Ego's second child , but the first to live.) The expectation is that Oshia will graduate and get a good job and help pay for his younger brothers' schooling, as well as provide for his parents in their old age.

Oshia has other ideas, however. He wants to continue with university in America. His disregard for his own duties as the first-born son causes his parents great anguish. Nnaife is never the same again after he feels betrayed by Oshia. When his daughter, Kehinde, breaks his rules by running away with a Yoruba man, he assaults the father of Kehinde's husband. Sent to prison, Nnaife blames Nnu Ego for all his problems. Whatever love he once hand for her has turned to bitter hatred.

With Oshia in America, and Adim (Nnaife and Nnu Ego's third child and second living son) working and paying for his own schooling, and her two oldest daughters settled in marriages, Nnu Ego moves back to Ibuza. She is not welcome on Nnaife's family's compound so she moves into her father's old household with her youngest children. She lives out the rest of her days there. When she dies, her children finally come home – Oshia from America and Adim from Canada – and throw her an expensive funeral.

Title of the novel is patently ironic 

The title Emcheta's novel patently ironic, because through out novel there is nothing about joys which is related with motherhood after all. As in the novel Nnu Ego  has giving birth after birth to children These joys include being taken care of in her old age, being surrounded by grandchildren, and being honored as a wife and mother. Nnu Ego struggles with infertility in her first marriage, and consequently feels like a failed woman. Not surprisingly, she is delighted when she gets pregnant immediately after marrying Nnaife, her second husband.

Child after child is born over the ensuing years, and each time Nnu Ego is grateful, until she realizes that her children are the chain around her neck. She ekes out a living through most of her life, investing in her future by paying for her children's education. But her children fail to reciprocate their mother's sacrifices, even though she does her best to set them up well in life.

Fertility is an extremely important aspect of any African society. Children are not only an important social security system, but are also an important source of labor power. In West African societies, people are wealth and are more valuable than money or material items. Because it is difficult to clear land for farming, and because farming is essential to survival, West African societies evolved an intense need for people. The more access you had to people, the more labor power you controlled and, thus, the greater tracts of land you could successfully farm. Anthropologists use the term "big man" to describe those men in West Africa who commanded political power by accumulating the labor power of people through marriage, slavery, and having children.