IGBOSCHOLARS INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF IGBO SCHOLARS FORUM, NIGERIA

From time immemorial, women have been so subjugated to the extent that in some cultures an example of which is the northern district of Indian, female foetuses were aborted because the people preferred the male child. However, due to changes in people’s view of life, globalization, and civilization and so on, the intensity of this subjugation has been declining. That can explain why in Igbo land of Nigeria, such accusations as widows drinking the water with which their husbands’ corpses were washed, wife battering, inheriting wives of dead men and so on are now anachronistic. In spite of the current situation, some writers are still retelling outdated happenings as if they are current ones. But for this paper, the researchers had to make use of the proverbs of the people, published sources and interviews. It was discovered that the ancestors of the Igbo nation established such women organizations like Umuada (society of the daughters of a particular locality), Inyomdi (married women of any place) and so on. The church then came up with some women organizations and the two sources merged so as to give voice to the women. But ab initio, the Igbo have been seeing women as acquiring both wisdom and masculine attributes with increasing age. That can explain why old women have the same right with old men. In other words, talking of women subjugation among the Igbo is anachronistic. In few cases where it is seen, it only affects few unfortunate and sometimes guilty women thereby making it laughable to generalize that Igbo women are marginalized or subjugated.

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