The Theme of Matrimony in African Female Writing in Ama Ata Aidoo’s The Dilemma of A Ghost And Efua Sutherland’s the Marriage of Anansewa

Abstract: This research work examines the Theme of Matrimony in African Female Writing in Ama Ata Aidoo’s The Dilemma of a Ghost and Efua Sutherland’s the Marriage of Anansewa.  The two authors are Ghanaians female writers who write on the issues of matrimony in African societies. In The Dilemma of a Ghost for instance, the issue of matrimony is seen in Ato’s marital affairs how Eulalie and his African American wife who delayed having children till they are ready to have them. This causes conflict in the family. In Sutherland’s The Marriage of Anansewa, the issue of matrimony is also seen in the life of Anansewa whose father forcefully gave her hand in marriage without seeking her daughter’s concern over her marriage process. The study therefore exposes this issue of marital conflict were parents force their children into marriages and the consequences of postponing children to be abolished for the betterment of the society as well the couple.

The Theme of Matrimony in African Female Writing in Ama Ata Aidoo’s The Dilemma of A Ghost And Efua Sutherland’s the Marriage of Anansewa

 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background to the study

One of the topical issues in recent times is the effort to emancipate women from maltreatment by the society. Discrimination and bias against women have been in the human society since early times as reflected in the teachings of the influential philosophers such as Aristotle and St. Aquinas. This attitude towards women is reflected in many societies worldwide. Women have therefore been seeking for a change of societal attitude towards them. They seek for an acceptance of the fact that women and men have equal potential for individual development. One movement behind women’s struggles is feminism. On the other hand, since primordial times, women have always been oppressed, victimized and dominated by men and the obnoxious cultural practices that see them as second class citizens.

To prove the above assertion, Female writers like Ruth and Dunker quoted Aristotle who sees the Women as so low that…he referred to them as a “misbegotten male” because they are “weak and cold in nature, in spirit and in soul” (98). He further assert that women are low because they are having a natural deficiency at the same time…they lacks “certain qualities”, so for this reason, the women are “afflicted with natural defectiveness” (99).

While Aquinas on the other hand sees the women as evil because according to him, they are “defective and sinful” and so they should only be seen as helpers’ not in cultural works but in reproduction, after all they are just biological assistants (4). He went further to opined that, God in his infinite wisdom designed that a woman shall be under the “man’s power” and this is usually used by men to mask the woman’s oppression. From the foregoing, it clear that Ama Ata and Efua Sutherland’s writings are related to the above mentioned issues affecting the female folks like in the society which consequently concerned  the researcher to examine the theme of matrimony in the two selected plays study in this research.

On the other hand, African Literature has been the domain of male writers and critics and has lacked what might be called the feminine point of view for a long time. This has been partly due to the paucity of female African novelists. The presentation of women in the African novel has been left almost entirely too male voices like Achebe, Amadi, Ngugi, Ousmane, Laye, Beti, Armah and Soyinka who were the early writers to arrive on the scene. These male novelists, who have presented the African woman largely within the traditional milieu, have generally communicated a picture of a male-dominated and male-oriented society. Among these female writers whose works helped to transform the presence of African women writers in literature include: Buchi Emecheta, Mariama Ba, Chimamanda Adichie, Ama Ata Aidoo and the rest of other female writers have also portrayed in their literary fictions on the experiences of African women in their Societies, countries and African in general.

According to them, African Women in general have suffered severe conditions such as growing and harvesting crops on farmlands during pregnancy, as well as fetching water and logs of wood with children strapped to their backs during nursing with little or no help from their husbands or guardians. It is on this backdrop  critic like Kumah, puts it, in many instances African women writers are marginalized by their male counterparts and their works either remain unacknowledged or tokenized by literary critics. In order to detect the origins of gender inequalities in the African artistic landscape, it is relevant to address the imbalances in the portrayal of female persona.  For example, Chinua Achebe, one of the celebrated novelists, presents his early women as victims of a society regulated by cultural norms and traditional values in his play, Things Fall Apart. The above mentioned issues form the background to this study.

The Theme of Matrimony in African Female Writing in Ama Ata Aidoo’s The Dilemma of A Ghost And Efua Sutherland’s the Marriage of Anansewa

1.2   Statement of the problem

This study proposes the fact that, African women writers do not write in a vacuum…they write against issues concerning their fellow women in their matrimonial homes like; patriarchal domination, sexual abuses,   oppression, subjugation, and abusive words by their husbands  and other  obnoxious cultural practices. In the same vein, their works also portrayed problems like, oppression, discrimination, affliction by mother-in-laws, sister-in-laws and co-wives. However, by speaking for other African women, these  Ghanaian writers uses their literary works as a gate way of portraying what their fellow women are passing through…and to find ways of eradicating the above mentioned issues  under investigation and for the betterment of both sexes in the society.

Originally posted on November 4, 2021 @ 6:24 am