The Joys of Motherhood

Buchi Emecheta

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Important Quotations Explained

1. Her love and duty for her children were like her chain of slavery.


2. Men here are too busy being white men’s servants to be men. We women mind the home. Not our husbands. Their manhood has been taken away from them. The shame is that they don’t know it.


3. She had been trying to be traditional in a modern urban setting. It was because she wanted to be a woman of Ibuza in a town like Lagos that she lost her child. This time she was going to play according to the new rules.


4. On her way back to their room, it occurred to Nnu Ego that she was a prisoner, imprisoned by her love for her children, imprisoned in her role as the senior wife.


5. God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody’s appendage? she prayed desperately.


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