The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta is an incredibly honest and straightforward reflection on what it means to be a mother. Although set in the first half of the twentieth century in Nigeria and telling the story of Nnu Ego, a village woman who must share her husbands with other wives, is illiterate and superstitious, bears nine children and loses two, and who must struggle always to define herself in circumstances and times that change profoundly over the course of her life — in other words, a life story so different from my own — there is so very much in the novel that resonated with me, and I both identified with and felt deep sympathy for Nnu Ego. She struggles with her identity, finding strength in defining herself as “mother” but also realizing that motherhood is a kind of willing enslavement to the needs and dreams of her children. She works hard her whole life to provide for her children, sacrificing her own desires and needs to ensure their stability, and dreaming always of when they will become “men” and take care of her. But will that dream ever come true?

This novel is about the fate of a woman when she decides to become a mother. It is an experience shared across cultures, countries, and continents. The story of Nnu Ego explores that experience in all its facets: the expectations of what it means to be “feminine”; the desire for sexual fulfillment and also for fertility; the choices of motherhood and the duties associated with those choices; the need for cooperation and dependencies during pregnancy and motherhood; how one identifies oneself through the different stages of life; the separation between family (loyalty and duty) and friends (a necessary support system); and the ever present burden of care and worry, along with indeed the joys, of motherhood.

What I found so interesting about this novel is that all the issues mentioned above were addressed in the centuries-old village/tribal system of the Ibo, of which Nnu Ego is a member. Husbands and wives and families lived an inter-dependent life, with the needs of all, including affection, sex, food, work, rest, recreation, child care, and elder care, were all taken care of within a highly-regulated system. Once there was movement away from the village, as young men traveled to the coasts of Africa to work for the colonial powers drawn by certain work and steady pay, the village system of social and family relations began to weaken: the rules of the village didn’t work in the city conditions of Lagos or other port areas. Generations were no longer in a cycle of care and dependency: the younger ones left and were not there to care for their elders; hard work by the parents was not repaid by sons and daughters taking on care of the farms and of their parents.

When Nnu Ego bears male children, she feels certain that she will be cared for in her old age. That certainty weakens through the decades of the novel; we watch as Nnu Ego becomes bewildered by the changes in her world, and yet still clings to the traditions she was raised on, and the rules she played by, no matter how difficult, and even cruel, those rules were for her at certain times. We wish that she could return to her village and raise her sons in the certainty of that life but she is not allowed to, she must return to her husband, she is owned by him. When informed that she is in fact owned by no one, and free to trade and care for herself, she knows there is one bondage she cannot unshackle herself from: motherhood. She still believes the joys of motherhood will be hers and the anticipation is what keeps her going. In the end, she is honored by her children but it is too late to provide the comforts she had so hoped for, and counted upon.

The Joys of Motherhood is not a beautifully written book but it is a well-written book. With its compelling characters and engaging story, Emecheta presents to readers a profound understanding of motherhood and female identity; add in the interesting historical and cultural contexts, and the book becomes a great read, one to be shared by book groups of mothers and by all readers interested in the fate of fellow men and women, everywhere.