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The Wives’ Revolt by John Pepper Clark outlines the struggle between men and women in a certain oil-rich community in Nigeria. The men as always want to assert their superiority and domineering spirit while the women in turn fight for gender equality. There is a tussle between both genders on the sharing formula of the money given to the community by an oil company.
The power struggle in this society comes down to the family which is the smallest unit in any society. The relationship between Okoro and Koko, man and wife, reflects the conflict and tension the play engenders. Both Koko and Okoro are active participants in the conflict.
The playwright projects the couple as a microcosm of what obtains in their society.
Setting
The setting of the play is Erhuwaren, an oil-rich community in Urhobo Area of Nigeria. Its dwellers are characteristically farmers and traders. The temporal setting is visualised against a backdrop of a community of people who are compensated for the devastation of their environment by the oil companies prospecting for and mining oil.
Characters
There are three identified characters in the play. They are Okoro, Koko, and Idama.
Timeline of Events
- An oil company gives the community of Erhuwaren some money.
- The men who are coincidentally the leaders of the community decide to share the money into three. A part will go to the men; another to the women; and the third chunk will be given to the elders.
- The women kick against the arrangement. They argue that the sharing formula is unjust. They posit that the elders of the community are made up of men. Technically, the men are taking the lion share of the money in two places.
- The men try to suppress the opposition from the women. They make a law which forbids the rearing of goats by the women.
- The women are not going to give in without a fight. All the wives in the community leave the community en masse without arousing the tiniest suspicion from their husbands.
- The men are left with strenuous domestic duties which they obviously can’t handle.
- The women taunt their men further by choosing to stay in “diseased-ridden” Iyara, an arch-enemy town.
- The voices of reason of the reconciliatory husbands prevail over the stubborn ones like Okoro to placate the women and repel their stifling draconian goat ban.
- The women return home with burning thighs, having contracted what seem like STDs through asexual means.
- There is a resolution that necessary measures should be taken to restore the women back to good health. It is also agreed that the oil money, initially the bone of contention, should be channelled into the community’s education fund.
Culture
In the play, the playwright expresses some cultural practices either peculiar to the Urhobo ethnic group or reflective of the African culture.
First of such values is the sanctity of the African home. Koko, despite being crossed with Okoro for aligning with the men’s sharing formula, cooks for her husband nonetheless. Koko does not allow her political interests to conflict with her domestic duties. It is only when the wives reach a consensus to leave their husbands that she toes in line too.
Another is the patriarchal hegemony in African societies. Predictably, the leadership of Erhuwaren community is dominated by men. The membership of the elders of the community speaks volumes. It is made up of just older men when there are older women who, ordinarily in a gender equal society, are as qualified as the men to be members. The laws and decisions made in the community (e. g. the sharing of the oil money, the goat ban) favour the men. Okoro’s washing of his hands to eat and his fiddling with the solid chunk in his soup further reinstate the patriarchy in most African homes. He does these deliberately to spite his wife.
The playwright also depicts food-related cultural practice in the play. He uses Okoro as a vehicle of communicating this cultural ideology. For example, while trying to eat, Okoro throws the bone of his fish to the threshold for bad spirits to choke on while he throws a chunk of its flesh for the good spirits to feed on. These acts portray the belief that the cosmos of Africans is governed by spiritual forces, which necessitates reserving some parts of their food or drinks for the spirits, good or bad.
The concept of witchcraft is also explored in the play. As expected, the women are associated with witchcraft. The men, for mischievous reasons, label their wives as witches possessing the diabolical powers to merge with or transform into goats. This ridiculous superstition is founded upon the judgement of two drunken men.
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Resource Text
- Clark, J. P. (1991). The Wives’ Revolt. University Press PLC.
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