"Things Fall Apart" - Chapters 1-5

Okonkwo is a very powerful man in his tribe. One way he demonstrates this is through polygamy. He has three wives, and there is clearly a hierarchy between them. The first wife always gets preference, and her son is Okonkwo's eldest child, giving her a lot of clout among the family. Okonkwo always eats her food first, and then moves along to the second wife. The second wife, Ekwefi, seems to always be in trouble. She fell in love with Okonkwo when she was 15 when Okonkwo defeated the Cat in the wrestling match. She even ran away from her first husband to be with him. She was once the prettiest girl in the town, which is why Okonkwo fell in love with her. However, now that she is 45 she often is the only wife who dares to speak against her husband's actions, and thus often results in her being at the receiving end of Okonkwo's violent anger. Her endurance of Oknokwo's abuse confuses me, because if she left her husband once, why does she not leave Oknokwo for someone kinder towards her. Oknokwo's "tough love" and constant demonstrations of his dominance/strength leave his family in a state of almost constant fear that confuses me as a female living in a twenty-first century Western nation as to why any of his wives would endure this torturous lifestyle. Her daughter, Ezinna, is often ridiculed by her father, but she is also one of his favorite children. She is more of a tomboy than her sisters, but her father tries to squash these tendencies by reminding her to act like a lady and telling her that certain things are only for boys. The third wife is rarely mentioned in the first five chapters, but it is clear that she is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Her children are the youngest, thus the least helpful (and consequently less "loved" by their father), and Okonkwo always eats her meals last (so he probably doesn't eat much of them after already eating two meals).

In many other works of literature that I have read that involve polygamous families, all of the wives share one house and there is intense competition between the wives for the affection of their husband. In Things Fall Apart, Oknokwo is rich enough to let each wife have their own hut in his compound. There doesn't seem to be much competition between the wives, but rather a sense of cooperation to make sure that everything is just so in order to stay Oknokwo's wrath, as well as to produce a good harvest to feed the family throughout the year. Oknokwo forces his wives into submission through abuse in order to make himself feel strong and to cover up any inkling of weakness -- emotion that he might have for any of his wives or his children who just long for one kind word from their father, but only receive a stream of criticisms and incessant work. He sees weakness as the epitome of his failure father; someone who Oknokwo is determined to never resemble in any way.