Blog 7

One of the customs in the beginning chapters of Things Fall Apart that I thought was especially interesting was when the husband offers Palm wine to his wives and all of them know their place and order to receive. The first wife is always the one who gets the first sip of the Palm wine and the rest of the women have to wait for her to arrive before they can continue in their order of ranks. On page 18 Okonkwo says "is Anasi not in?" And the other wives said that she was coming and then it says "Anasi was the first wife and the others could not drink before her, and so they stood waiting." Although our culture tells us that monogamy is the way to go, and theirs clearly is focused around polygamy, I think this is their own cultural way of showing respect to the women that were first chosen by the husband.