Damasus C. Okoro - African Women and the Shame and Pain of Infertility

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African Women and the Shame and Pain of Infertility

An Ethico-cultural Study of Christian Response to Childlessness among the Igbo People of West Africa

Damasus C. Okoro

Foreword by Stan Chu Ilo

African Women and the Shame and Pain of Infertility

An Ethico-cultural Study of Christian Response to Childlessness among the Igbo People of West Africa

Copyright 2020 Damasus C. Okoro. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, W. th Ave., Suite , Eugene, OR 97401 .

Wipf & Stock

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

W. th Ave., Suite

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-6570-7

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-6569-1

ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-6571-4

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 06/29/20

Copyright 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

To all childless and barren couples in Africa, whose family situation continues to bring them endless pain.

Praise for and Quotes by Paul Frey

Pauls story is one that is worth telling because it never could have been predicted.

Daniel Lichti

Bass Baritone and Professor of Voice

There was no sweeter sound than four-part harmony coming from a Mennonite congregation.

Paul Frey

I decided that I wanted to pursue opera full-time. I didnt know how I was going to go about it, and I wasnt sure how this was going to work out with my truck company. But I knew that it was something I absolutely had to do.

Paul Frey

1973

He was virtually a music illiterate when I met him... So he learned by rote. And this made him insecure far longer than he should have been.

Howard Dyck

Former Conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Philharmonic Orchestra

My major memories of Paul were his immense insecurities about his musical abilities. Hed have difficulties finding the notes and he took longer than most to master them. But every so often, this beautiful, wonderful sound would show itself and you could see what he was capable of.

Raffi Armenian

Former Conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra

Well into my first year, I still couldnt read music; I couldnt count three beats to the bar and I couldnt read or understand French. So the dumb tenor label stuck. And it wasnt pleasant.

Paul Frey

1977

I didnt think then, nor do I think now, that the [University of Toronto Opera] School encouraged me or did much for me. I fell by their wayside.

Paul Frey

I knew right away that this was the right guy for my Lohengrin . I thought to myself: theres something solid about this man. Hes a thoroughly no-nonsense guy. I can get along fine with this guy. Hes no prima donna .

Werner Herzog

Film and Opera Director

No, no. We want you!

Wolfgang Wagner

Director of the Bayreuth Wagnerian Festival to Paul Frey on hearing him sing Lohengrin in Mannheim, Germany

Paul Freys Mannheim performance has instantly placed him among the worlds great Wagnerians.

Kristin Marie Guiguet

Music Magazine

Suddenly every crowned head of European opera was buying a ticket for this performance, especially to hear Paul Frey sing.

Kristin Marie Guiguet

Music Magazine

It was just go-go-go during these years. I had come to opera late and it had come with a lot of struggle. So Id need to make the very most of the time. There was no wasting time, as an opera singers career is a long one.

Paul Frey

1987

Paul Freys performance [in Bayreuth] was everything that should be expected from the most important tenor to emerge since Vickers.

Kristin Marie Guiguet

Music Magazine

[Recalling his first performance at the Metropolitan Opera:] My heart was pounding so much, I thought it would come through my chest. I was having a panic attack.

Paul Frey

1987

Paul Frey is an astonishing yet hidden asset for Canada! His incredible tenor voice, commanding stage presence, and mastery of Wagners Lohengrin repertoire deserve to be rediscovered. A hidden treasure in Canadian musical history!

Adrienne Clarkson

Former Governor General of Canada; author of Room for All of Us

Table of Contents

Foreword

T his book is a prophetic social critique of the negative characterization of infertility in African cultures and in some versions of traditional Christianity in Africa. It brings together a rich array of voices in Africa from different regions of the continent. These different theological traditions and bioethical positions are put into a healthy and creative conversation on these pages.

With the thoroughness and depth of a good scholar, Dr Damasus Okoro has harvested the stories and agonies of barren women among the Igbo people of West Africa. He analyses the painful cultural, religious and social consequences and stigma associated with infertility in Africa.

With the compassionate heart of a concerned priest, he tells the stories of the devastating impact of this situation on the African familyfamily break ups, marital infertility, and the agony and despair of African families who are incapable of begetting children. This book is filled with a moving analysis of the daily struggles of African families, who are trying to make sense of what in traditional society is often seen as the loss of ones womanhood and a curse to a family. It explores multiple narratives, and multiple identities, and challenges existing cultural stereotypes employed in the subjugation and oppression of barren women in an African ethnic group. The author employs a comparative methodology in writing this book, drawing from African literature, the works of African ethicists, theologians and psychologists, social workers, pastors, and healers.

This book pays detailed attention to the concrete everyday experiences of these barren women, their husbands, their families and their struggles. This book is built on a grounded theory through an appeal to the real stories of real people. The author employs the tools of socio-cultural analysis in unpacking the narrative identities of women who suffer infertility and the life-long impact of this condition on their happiness, personal fulfilment and sense of worth and dignity. He puts the cultural narratives of the people who maintain these cultural traditions in conversations with the teachings of the church, biblical practices, especially in the Old Testament, and the practices and canons proposed by the church on marriage and family life.

This book is a good representative model on how the contending narratives of modernity are playing out in Africa, particularly in the modern African family. Indeed, the modern African family today is a good case study of the devastating impact and failures of the modernization project in Africa. At the same time, many Africans who wish to reinforce what they perceive as the pristine traditional world of Africa with a presumed past characterized by social harmony, ethical and moral balance rooted in and sustained by traditional norms and institutions, fail to accept the limitations within that traditional system. In uncritically romanticizing the African past, some scholars fail to admit the limitations of a diffusionist account of history in Africa. The diffusionist approach defends the continuity of an essentialized notion of African culture or tradition without an internal differentiation and without disjuncture and discontinuities across the checkered path of African history.

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