The heritage of Igbo religion: Challenges to the Hotchpotch of values to women

Abstract

This work sets out to investigate the original understanding of the dignity of women in traditional Igbo socio-religious world (before 1900). This is engendered on the one hand by the extreme misinterpretations leveled against the traditional societies especially the African nations on the  dehumanization of women; and on the other hand by the scandalous advances of the contemporary feminists' campaign and advocacy for an equality that sets aside the dignity of the sexes, ranging from single parenting to masochism, deformation of the natural family setting and widespread abortion. The method employed for collection of data was mostly through literary survey and partly through examination of some resilient  language culture and mythical stories. The phenomenological method was the tool for an encounter of the Igbo traditional life without preconceptions. Oppression of women was not a fact in Igbo traditional society nor were they mere appendages of men; but they complemented men. Women were rather at the centre of the culture of life, which was the priority of the traditional Igbo ideology. The woman was a messenger of the supreme goddess of life and morality, Ala. As long as she fitted into this ontological woman-Being, she was fulfilled and dignified since dignity for the Igbo rested on nd. na afa – life and life fulfilling response-ability. The autonomy of the two gender worlds in Igbo society and respect for women as sharing in the divine motherhood of Ala enables their caring and fending for life. It negates the feminist theory of patriarchalism and  masochism and shows a way out of the chaotic imbalance of gender relations in the contemporary world.