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My first year in Belgium, I was accused of theft in a C and A shop in Turnhout (where I lived) and when it turned out that the cashier had forgotten to remove a safety tag from one of the outfits I bought, I did not as much as get an apology. Disabled by language, I took my mother-in-law to the shop the next day and she demanded to see the manager. The manager's excuse was that they had a spate of thefts (by Africans) recently.
A friend who was house-hunting was told outright that the apartment was not being rented out to foreigners.
I am angry that many societies have different rules of conducts for women.
I am angry that Igbo proverbs that deal with women tend to negate them (unless that woman is a mother. What of less fecund women?)
I am angry that in Igbo societies, a male's birth is celebrated more lavishly than a female's. That my mother told me proudly that having given birth to a third son in a row, an Igbo husband would have killed a goat for me.
I am angry that someone very close to me was sent out of her matrimonial home for having three daughters but no son.
However, I tend to focus on my positives. I did not send you my angry poems.
Nnorom
Chika, I understand some of these feelings but surely you must appreciate the psychological and sociological reason why Nigerian Igbo men societies you have cited celebrate male children the way they do.
It is in fact universal, and had its roots in the norm that existed in the past, in which women got married and adopted their husband's names and if there was no male child, the family name would be wiped off. In those days women only cared for homes and did not write books or became politicians or famous scientists.
Now that it is all happening, modern women like yourself, tend to keep your family names. You are married to a Belgian for instance but have retained your father's name Unigwe. This is still frowned at in most parts of Africa and even in Europe, and is sometimes seen as lack of serious commitment to the marriage by the women. Another thing is that divorce rates are so off the scales now that women get tired of changing their names back and forth.
Chika
I have kept my last name for three reasons: the combination of an Igbo name, Chika with a Flemish last name: Vandenhoudt, does not sound right.
Secondly, I went through the first twenty odd years of my life as Chika Unigwe and I was loathe to give it up.
Thirdly, it is actually the norm here in Belgium for women to retain their names even after marriage (I guess administratively, it is a lot easier). I am Mevrouw Chika Unigwe but as a couple, my husband and I are Dhr. en Mevrouw Vandenhoudt-Unigwe.
Personally, I think it is awesome that both the legal and the cultural systems make it possible for marriage to be viewed as a partnership rather than as a relationship where one spouse is completely subsumed in the other's identity. The fact that I choose to keep my name should not be defined as an act of not loving him enough.
I am aware of the cultural and economic implications of an heirless Igbo home. In my village, Osumenyi, it used to be that fathers could keep a daughter at home to procreate for them. The chosen daughter (most often the first child, would sleep with any man she chooses but her sons would belong to her father. Girls could not inherit property or land. Girls could not perpetuate the family name. But things are changing and priorities are changing too. Some women are the breadwinners in their families and are literally, keepers of the homestead. Even Igbo women in Igbo marriages are keeping their last names.
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