Some parents, especially those who have many children from different wives, may reject a bad son, a master may reject a wicked servant, a wife may go… - Buchi Emecheta

The first book I wrote was The Bride Price which was a romantic book, but my husband burnt the book when he saw it. I was the typical African woman, I’d done this privately, I wanted him to look at it, approve it and he said he wouldn’t read.

Did she not feel totally fulfilled when she had completed the manuscript, just as if it were another baby she had had?

It is so even today in Nigeria: when you have lost your father, you have lost your parents. Your mother is only a woman, and women are supposed to be boneless. A fatherless family is a family without a head, a family without shelter, a family without parents, in fact a non-existing family. Such traditions do not change very much.