"A man is never ugly". Using this statement as your starting point, examine the relationship between men and women in the novel.
In Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood, the statement "a man is never ugly" reflects the double standard of a patriarchal Igbo society in which men are valued and excused regardless of their appearance or conduct, while women are judged, used and burdened. Taking this as a starting point, the novel presents the relationship between men and women as deeply unequal, shaped by tradition, economic dependence and the subordination of women.
Male dominance and female subordination.The saying that a man is never ugly captures the way society privileges men. A man's worth lies in his manhood and status, not in his looks or even his kindness. Women, by contrast, are prized chiefly for beauty, fertility and usefulness. This inequality runs through every relationship in the novel. Men command; women serve. Nnu Ego's whole life is organised around pleasing and serving the men to whom she belongs, first her father Agbadi, then her husbands.
Nnu Ego and Amatokwu.Nnu Ego's first marriage to Amatokwu shows how a woman's value is tied to childbearing. When she fails to conceive, she is despised, demoted to farm labour and replaced by a second wife who bears a child. Amatokwu treats her with contempt and even strikes her. The relationship demonstrates that a wife who cannot fulfil her reproductive role is discarded, however dutiful she may be.
Nnu Ego and Nnaife.Her second marriage, to Nnaife in Lagos, further exposes the imbalance. Nnaife is physically unattractive and, in Nnu Ego's eyes, unimpressive, doing a woman's work washing clothes for a white family, yet as her husband he holds authority over her. Here the proverb bites: however "ugly" or unheroic Nnaife may seem, he remains the master of the household. Nnu Ego must submit to him, bear him many children, and struggle in poverty to feed them, while he takes decisions, inherits his brother's wives and asserts his rights. The marriage shows women bearing the labour and sacrifice while men retain the power and the privileges.
Polygamy and the inheritance of wives.The custom of polygamy and the inheritance of a dead brother's wives, seen when Nnaife takes over Adaku and others, treats women as property passed between men. Adaku, childless of sons, eventually rebels and leaves to fashion an independent life, one of the few women to resist the system, highlighting by contrast how thoroughly the others are bound by it.
Agbadi, Ona and the older generation.The relationship of Agbadi and Ona in the opening of the novel establishes the pattern early. Ona is a spirited woman, but she remains subject to the will of her father and to Agbadi's desire; her independence is limited by the demands men make upon her. The proud chief Agbadi keeps many wives and mistresses, and women compete for his favour.
The cost to women and the irony of the title.The novel exposes the heavy price women pay in these relationships: endless childbearing, unremitting toil, self-sacrifice and emotional neglect. Nnu Ego pours her whole life into her children and husband, yet dies poor, lonely and unrewarded by the roadside, having gained none of the personal fulfilment the ideal of motherhood promised. The bitter irony of the title underlines the novel's protest: the "joys" of motherhood, in a society ordered for men's benefit, bring women mostly suffering.
Conclusion. Beginning from the proverb that a man is never ugly, Emecheta portrays male-female relationships governed by inequality: men hold power, status and privilege regardless of merit, while women are valued only for beauty, fertility and service, and bear the burdens of sacrifice and toil. Through Nnu Ego's tragic life the novel indicts this patriarchal order and questions the value society places on womanhood.
