by Chinweizu
It is only natural that man should fear woman for the success of her fundamental coup. It is natural for man to fear a femme fatale who turned the tables of power on him, and consigned him to a life of risks and toil. Given the very strong aversion all primates have to snakes and snake-like forms, it is even more natural for man to fear a person who traffics with, and is a confidante of, snakes. These myths encapsulate the male experience of woman as consort.
They are sometimes experienced as Ishtar, whose desire may neither be satisfied nor spurned without danger; or as Circe, the enslaving magician; or as the Sirens, the deadly enchantresses; or as Calypso, the gentle imprisoner and weakener of resolve; or as Eve, the temptress who communes with snakes and reduced man to a life of hard labour. Their common lesson to men is: FEAR WOMEN! The average man reacts to them thus: If Adam, the father of all, fell before Eve, who am I to resist a daughter of Eve? Yes, Gilgamesh and Odysseus overcame those dangerous women; but do I have the talents and resolute wills of those heroic men? Yes, indeed, FEAR WOMEN, and if and when they catch you, obey and serve them.
A psychological climate of fear greatly helps the arbitrary ruler. Just as the many, though implicitly stronger, are inhibited from overthrowing their ruler and his handful of guards, so too the cowed man, even if stronger than his woman, is inhibited from freeing himself from her rule. Man's fear of woman establishes a psychological climate in which female power can hold sway without brute force. The operative principle is:
Cow the spirit, awe the mind,
And you don't have to whip the body. {100}
13. The Baby as Wife's Weapon
Once she gets that ring, and gets you one or two issues, and knows you won't want to spoil your reputation, won't want people to say you can't keep your wife, she begins to rule you.
- A rueful Nigerian husband.
A baby is a breathing, bawling, flesh-and-bones club with which a woman can beat a man down to the ground, and compel him to toil for her. Even an embryonic baby, a mere speck of a foetus in her womb, will do just fine when a woman wants to bend a man to her will. When she gets tired of supporting herself, she can throw her cares unto some hapless man by getting herself pregnant by him, knowing full well that it would take a most heartless man to abandon their child, and that where the baby goes, she, its mother and nurse, would tag along. That is why their baby is probably a wife's ultimate tool for getting, holding and exploiting her husband.
A woman who tricks a man into getting her pregnant knows that, however reluctant he may be to become her nest slave, she can count on the baby's arrival to weaken his resolve. First, the baby will pull on its father's heartstrings in a way which nothing else can. His protective feelings for the helpless doughball, his sense of responsibility for the tender half-creature of his loins, will make it difficult for him to chase away the mother to whose breast the suckling clings so desperately. Secondly, his male peers will pressure him to do his duty by the child, regardless of whatever hostility he may feel towards its mother for tricking him. Though animosity may grow between him and her, he will be urged to stay with her for the baby's sake. Which is why a baby is a powerful man-trapping weapon in a woman's hands.
If a baby's little clenched fist can so tenaciously hold an unwilling man for its mother, imagine what it can do for her if the man willingly helped in making the baby. Beside his instinctive protectiveness toward {101} his helpless infant; beside his fear of social censure should the infant suffer neglect, a third factor would come into play, namely, his own reasons for wanting the child. If he wanted it out of a desire for an heir, or a successor, or an immortalizer of his name, his ambition would be defeated should anything adverse happen to the child. But wouldn't the child's future be endangered if its mother should neglect or abandon it? Would he ever forgive himself if his own conduct gave her an excuse to abandon or neglect the child? Because of his ambitions for the child, the baby becomes a powerful instrument of blackmail in his wife's hands.
Therein lies the significance for a mother of the arrival of her first born. It is an event which confirms and magnifies the powers a wife acquired at her wedding. That is why it is a celebrated moment in her career. Consider this excerpt from a song titled "A Mother to her First-born": {102}
O my child, now indeed I am happy.
Now indeed I am a wife -
No more a bride, but a Mother-of-one.
Be splendid and magnificent, child of desire.
Be proud, as I am proud.
Be happy, as I am happy.
Be loved, as now I am loved.
Child, child, child, love I have had from my man;
But now, only now, have I the fullness of love.
Now, only now, am I his wife and the mother of his first-born.
His soul is safe in your keeping, my child, and it was I, I, I, who
have made you.
Therefore am I loved.
Therefore am I happy.
Therefore am I a wife.
Therefore have I great honour.
You will tend his shrine when he is gone.
With sacrifice and oblation you will recall his name year by
year.
He will live in your prayers, my child,
And there will be no more death for him, but everlasting life
springing from your loins.
You are his shield and spear, his hope and redemption from
the dead.
Through you he will be reborn, as the saplings in the Spring.
And I, I am the mother of his first-born.
Sleep, child of beauty and courage and fulfilment, sleep.
I am content.90
The song expresses the mother's happiness, and her sense of fulfilment, at the coming of her first-born. She rejoices because of the power which her first -born gives her over her husband. That power, she knows, comes from the duties which a father expects his first-born to perform for him, including keeping alive his name and freshening his memory among humanity after his physical death. Knowing that, she knows that their child is her certificate of entitlement to its father's support. She knows that she now holds him by something that is even stronger than law, custom and public opinion, namely his own ambitions. That is why she is now happy and content. Yes, indeed: a woman grabs a man by his balls, and then holds him securely by their baby.
A baby is not simply a strategic, long term weapon in its mother's hands; it is also a tactically useful whip in the daily battles between husband and wife. Should he fail to satisfy her demands, she can vex his heart by neglecting it. She may even threaten to walk off with the child, and give pain to his fatherly feelings. Or she may threaten to walk off alone, leaving him with the job of caring for it. Any sentimentalist who doubts that a mother could neglect her own child in order to punish its father need only be reminded of the babies abandoned in gutters by their ever-loving mothers! A mother who could abandon her baby, when it sufficiently inconvenienced her, is quite capable of neglecting or maiming it when she wants to blackmail or punish its father.
Should the father of the child, for his part, attempt to leave its mother, she may threaten to deny him all future access to it. If he calls her bluff, she may punish him by killing the child. Those who doubt that a vengeful mother could go that far ought to recall the story where Medea slaughtered her own children to revenge herself on their father, Jason, when he left her for another wife. Such are some of the ways in which a mother uses their baby to whip her husband into line. The whip which a baby puts into its mother's hand is not just metaphorical; it is sometimes quite literal. In this example from Nigeria, a man in his forties was pressured by his mother to marry again, after eight happy years of divorce. The new wife, who was young enough to be her husband's daughter, became his whip-wielding, slave-driving boss once she had a child by him: {103}
The general consensus was for me to take an extremely younger wife. Someone I could bring up myself (whatever they mean
t by that) and someone who would respect my age.
When I met the girl I eventually married, she was fresh out of the College of Technology and only twenty-two. She was six months pregnant when we finally got married. I explained the type of job I had to her. Explained the erratic hours and the unconventional friends I kept. She promised she would try to cope.
After she had her baby, she suddenly believed she had two feet firmly on the ground. She started nagging about the late hours I kept, the stench of booze on my breath every night I came home, and the fact that she couldn't stand my rowdy friends. They disturbed the baby's nap.
Things finally came to a head the day I got home at two in the morning to find her waiting for me. As soon as I let myself in I felt the crack of the whip! I couldn't believe it. As she used the whip over and over again, she shrieked hysterically at me for being inconsiderate, for leaving her alone in the house with an infant while I carried on as if I were a bachelor!
That did it! I took my things and left and that was it. I still see her whenever I need to give her maintenance money, but that's all. I can't stand that kind of life.91
All in all, one might well wonder if many a woman would not avoid baby-making altogether were babies not invaluable for tying a man down to support her good self, even after a separation or divorce. {104}
14. The Penalties of Divorce
There are, of course, many reasons for divorce, but chief among them seems to be the growing aversion and hostility that men have for the feminine mill-stone hanging around their necks.92
- Betty Friedan
I never knew what real happiness was until I got married. And by then it was too late.93
- Max Kauffmann
For a sane man, divorce is the legal exit route from the nest slavery of marriage. In any given society, whether this exit route from marital misery is inviting or daunting depends on the obstacles and penalties with which it is surrounded.
In strict Mohammedan countries, like Saudi Arabia, where matriarch power is probably at its weakest in the world, divorce is not very difficult for a man to obtain. In strict Roman Catholic societies, where matriarch power is probably at its strongest in the world, divorce is prohibited by either secular or religious law, or by both: a man's only escape routes from nest-slavery are, therefore, the illegal ones, namely, desertion, wife murder, or suicide.
Where there is an absolute legal or moral sanction against divorce, marriage becomes, for the husband, a form of life imprisonment, with the hard labour of carrying a talking and nagging millstone around his neck. Where divorce is allowed, but is hedged with discriminatory penalties against the husband (e.g. alimony; child custody rules that are weighted in the mother's favour; the ouster of the husband from his family house; the loss of half his estate to his wife; social censure; etc.), such penalties can keep a husband trapped for life in his wife's nest. {105}
Consider the plight of a man who goes naively into marriage, expecting happiness ever after, only to discover that his happy days are already behind him! When the bride he wedded has turned into a decorative presence, a nagging harridan, a heartless slave driver, and a financial millstone; when the sex-for-the-asking he was led to expect is no longer forthcoming, either because the sex-eager fiancé has turned into a frigid wife, or because she has gone off him and taken on outside lovers; when the love mists have cleared from his eyes, and he sees that his home is his prison; and when he contemplates making a break for freedom: in that moment of truth he has to consider what divorce would cost him.
Against remaining in nest-slavery, he will weigh the following:
1) the vexation of making alimony payments with which she will support herself and some new lover;
2) the humiliation of being ousted from the house he built or has bought, and seeing it turned over to the woman he no longer loves;
3) the penalty of losing half of his estate to her, an estate he either inherited or won with his sweat;
4) the fear of her getting custody of their child, with him having to endure a partial or total loss of access to it;
5) the fear of social censure, with loss of prestige, in a society that will view him as a weak man who could not keep his wife.
Caught between the prospect of unhappiness-ever-after under the lash of his slave-driving harridan, and the certainty of such wounding penalties and humiliations, the average male, with his super-fragile ego, would choose divorce only as the last alternative to going insane, or to suicide, or to murdering his enslaver and being hanged for it.
Once a wife is satisfied that her husband cannot divorce her, either because divorce is illegal or theologically frightening, or because it is too costly financially and psychologically, she gets her licence to be as heartless a slave-driver as she likes. She will mercilessly drive him to the brink of desertion, insanity, murder or suicide before pulling back. It is in this way that the harsh penalties surrounding divorce, penalties which make his jailbreak forbiddingly costly, are exploited to keep a husband trapped in nest slavery. The men who, as legislators, pass such divorce laws, or who, as priests, decree divorce a sin, are indeed heartless jailkeepers to all husbands within their jurisdictions. {106}
Part V
Matriarchy and its Discontents
15. The Matriarch: Sovereign of Her Nest
Disguise our bondage as we will,
Tis woman, woman rules us still.94
- Thomas Moore
Whatever power it is that woman wields knows no bounds.95
- Thinking Corner, NATIONAL CONCORD (Lagos).
As we have by now seen, contrary to what some feminists would have the world believe, female power exists, every man alive is under its sway, wives rule and exploit their husbands, and the domination of man by woman is not "an inversion of fact". Let me recapitulate.
Motherpower takes charge of a boy-child at his birth, when he cannot contest it. Luckily for him, it is the protective mode of female power, and has a benign texture. At puberty, however, motherpower begins to wane, though its grip on him never completely vanishes while he lives.
At puberty, a boy's hormones shove him into the arena of bridepower where he is raided by the nest-making woman looking for a nest-slave. Behold the slave-huntress armed with the weapon of female beauty. See her prowling the promenade, eyes out for a suitable catch. See her lure him with her body bait. As he follows, desperate for a bite, see her smite him with her love harpoon and derange his mind. See her lead the smitten prey through a courtship maze, stopping here and there to rub him with balms 'that calm his anxious nerves, till he is well and truly tame. Now see them exit from the maze. See her gather him up in her wedding net; see her hold the net aloft, displaying to all what she has caught. See her march off to her nest, holding the newly-won slave by the matrimonial yoke around his neck. {108}
Behold the new husband, our brawny and brainy one, smiling as he is led into the fortress of wifepower. There he is, a little while later, tied down to his nest duties by the foetus in her bulging womb. With the power she gathered on their wedding day at last confirmed by the birth of their child, watch him now toil without cease for his nest queen and her nest. Whatever wealth he reaps he must bring home to his ruler; if he wins honour or fame, he must share its privileges with her.
Behold how she now rules him, using the tricks she inherited from her predecessors in husband management. Behold how she exploits him through a covert matriarchy that wears a patriarchal mask; through the formidable handicaps imposed on him by a hallowed double standard; through his ingrained fear of women, whom he sees as mysterious beings; through his silly soul that is befogged by sentimental illusions; through their baby whom she wields as a weapon against him. Behold how she keeps him trapped, through the mighty penalties which law and custom have decreed against him in the event of a divorce, penalties which a thwarted slave-holder would most vengefully enforce.
Yes, indeed! Where, on any day of his life, does a man evade the sway
of female power? In the course of a woman's life, she first exercises bridepower in order to win wifepower and motherpower for herself. These latter powers she holds conjointly in her ultimate position as married mother or matriarch. As matriarch, she rules her husband through her powers both as his wife and as the mother of their children.
The nest, that terminus of bride power, that locus of both wifepower and mother power, is woman's sovereign estate; and the nest queen or matriarch is its monarch. Accordingly, the politics of the nest is the politics of a monarch's court, with her courtiers (her husband and children) competing for her approval and favours. Matriarch power is exercised over them as she distributes the resources, commodities and opportunities which her husband procures for her domain. Her control of the womb, kitchen and cradle in her nest gives her the power to decide who shall do or get what. Her authority in her nest is buttressed by custom, law, habit, education, propaganda, sanctions and rewards. While her children are her dependent wards, her husband is simply her consort, and her one-man-ministerial cabinet which helps her exercise her monarchical powers. With all her court being subject to or dependent upon her, a matriarch is a monarch - sometimes benevolent, {109} sometimes malevolent, sometimes constitutional, sometimes despotic - but a monarch nonetheless, with sovereign powers over her nest.
Indeed, like any potentate, a matriarch wields over her court powerful weapons of persuasion and coercion. She can suggest or command or nag-nag-nag. She can quietly veto any of her husband's decisions which do not suit her. She can reduce the flow of her favours, or cut it off altogether. She can expel recalcitrant members from her nest-boys by sending them off to borstal or its equivalents; her husband by divorcing him, and on punitive terms.
