Fortune Emerence Chinemerem Nwaiwu

Widows in the Web of Grief Fortune Emerence Chinemerem Nwaiwu

Widows in the Web of Grief explores the psychological pain and trauma women experience in their daily lives after the deaths of their husbands. The most grievous pain that tortures their bitter hearts occurs when they have no children to warm their homes and to care for them in their old age. They are generally the first to be accused of the deaths of their husbands, should the death occur under suspicious circumstances; forced to confess to sins that they might have committed while their husbands were alive; forced to drink libation water, stripped naked, and raped through a ritual cleansing; and locked indoors with the bodies of their dead husbands for days, a deeply traumatic experience that also exposes them to illness. Since society does not listen to the teachings of the clergymen, the author C. E. F. Nwaiwu uses divine power as the deus ex machina to rescue the widows from their cyclical web of unspeakable grief and to drive the people to obey a divine order from the Holy Writ, thereby abolishing their barbaric customs.