"'God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody's appendage?' she prayed desperately."
Nnu Ego is deeply, inconsolably troubled by the necessity of marriage. She is found unsuitable by her first husband because she bears no children, so she is utterly rejected and abandoned. The message she continually receives from the people around her -- even her father -- is that she will not be fulfilled until she has married and had children, yet Nnu Ego sees value in herself already. She prays this prayer in recognition of her own completeness.
"They became so insulated in their beliefs that not only would they have little to do with ordinary sinners, people going about their daily work, they even pitied them and in many cases looked down on them because the Kingdom of God was not for the likes of them. Maybe this was a protective mechanism devised to save them from realities too painful to accept."
Nnu Ego holds a low opinion of the Christians she's met because they remain apart from the rest of the people. They consider themselves somehow superior than the rest of people, but Nnu Ego recognizes a weakness in this attitude. She believes them fragile, delusional creatures who demonstrate the utmost ignorance and arrogance.
"In Ibuza sons help their father more than they help their mother. A mother's joy is only in the name. She worries over them, looks after them when they are small; but in the actual help on the farm, the upholding of the family name, all belong to the father."
The mothers in this novel all come to encounter this fact as their children age. Although the father plays a severely limited role in the raising and care for his children, he receives all the profit of the maturing child. In fact the children are taught to honor their fathers at the expense of their mothers, so women like Nnu Ego remain alone and forgotten in their old age, despite their long years of selfless service to these young people.
"On her way back to their room, it occurred to Nnu Ego that she was a prisoner, imprisoned by her love for their children, imprisoned by her role as the senior wife. She was not even expected to demand more money for her family; that was considered below the standard expected of a woman in her position. It was not fair, she felt, the way men cleverly used a woman's sense of responsibility to actually enslave her. They knew that the traditional wife like herself would never dream of leaving her children."
After a particularly gnarly conflict with her husband, Nnu Ego suddenly realizes the reality of her situation. In order to care for her beloved children, she must remain the subject of this man and his whims. She enjoys no liberties or privileges of her own, but in order to devote everything to her own children's survival, she must remain. Thus she recognizes the peculiar egoism of a man who lords his wife's love her children over her like chains.
