In traditional Ibo society, the major function of a wife was to bear children. "Companionship was all fine and dandy and love was good, but a childless marriage was no marriage at all," says an Ibo woman. Denise Paulme, a teacher who lived and taught for several years in Africa, writes that Ibo "women set greater store by their children than by their husbands. For it was only by becoming a mother that they felt truly fulfilled."

Traditional Ibo mothers proudly called themselves "the trees that bear fruit." The phrase emphasized their procreative powers and recognized the fact that it was through the children they bore that the survival of individual families and the future of the entire community depended. Even in contemporary society, many Ibo proverbs and phrases still express the value placed on children; for example, Onye nwe nwa ka onye nwe ego (A person who...