Family, Procreation, and Continuity in Two Selected Nigerian Novels

Abstract

This article examines the linkage between family, procreation and human development as depicted in Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (2010) and Adebayo’s Stay with Me (2017). The analysis places meanings the literary texts in respective historical and cultural contexts much in New Historicism assumptions. The attraction to New Historicism arose because of its inclination towards understanding intellectual history through literature and literature through its cultural context. The article argues that The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives and Stay with Me examine a triad of procreation, women’s culture of silence, and economic empowerment in their respective depictions as the driving force of “any marriage” crucial in socio-economic development. In the two novels, women get blame for childlessness even when male characters are metaphorically to blame. Moreover, the silence of women characters on infertility of their husbands in the novels undermines them while elevating the status of the otherwise dysfunctional and emasculated male characters. On the other hand, both novels empower women economically which ultimately debunks the traditional gender role, which make women dependent on men. Overall, the two novels suggest the need for further social, economic, and political reforms in African marriages with a changed way of how married African women behave.