Empty Vessels: A Socio-Cultural Construct of Infertility in Lola Shoneyin's ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives'

Abstract

Infertility is a health concern that has affected practically all spheres of human society and usually coloured by the socio-cultural inclinations within contexts. It is a gender-neutralissue, although oftentimes perceived as women's problem. Patriarchal societies erroneously lay the burden and blame of infertility on women. In this study, masculinity theory is employed given that men consciously and unconsciously seek to assert their manliness through procreation. However, this sometimes fails to happen as expected and is termed infertility. Qualitative and descriptive methods are utilized in the analysis of the qualitative data. Through the exploration of Lola Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, it is discovered that socio-culturally, when a woman fails to conceive, she receives the blame alone from the society and even from her husband. To avoid being termed deviant, the women in the text, devise alternative means to having children, which is against societal ethos. It is equally uncovered that patriarchal mentality beclouds the fact that male infertility can equally be responsible for the inability of the women to conceive. The study concludes that stereotypes against women in procreation are irrational since biologically it takes two (the husband and the wife) to make a baby. It is recommended that couples desirous of having babies should submit themselves for proper medical examination.