In 1998 a group of scholars with Catholic, Anglican and Jewish background gathered at a symposium to review Humanae vitae 30 years after its publication. On the 40-year anniversary of Humanae vitae in 2008, the issues raised in that controversial encyclical letter still border and affect humans especially in the light of modern scientific and biotechnological development. This book is a contribution to that debate in the sense of being unbiased and from an African perspective meant to balance the «sense and insensibilities» from both polarities of the world. It is an X-ray through a hermeneutical-anthropological «Weltanschauung» (worldview) of the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria.
Marriage was ordained by God for the good of spouses and for procreation. But how often does marriage turn out to bring unhappiness to partners! And how often do even happy marriages end up childless! Among the Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria, to whom offspring is the chief goal of marriage, childlessness leads often to unhappiness in marriage and not less often to the break-up of marriages or to polygamy. In this work, the author expounds the importance of marriage and its practice among the Igbo. He explains the importance of children in Igbo understanding of marriage and identifies childlessness as the key factor which could endanger (and sometimes do endanger) the Igbo acceptance of the Catholic doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. Using the relevant clauses of the Code of Canon Law, the author explains in detail the Catholic understanding of marriage and the goals of the catholic doctrine on marriage. He writes of the possibility of marriage impediments due to impotence and sterility (that lead to childlessness) and recommends not only a thorough pre-marriage preparation but also a continual formation of marriage couples as efforts that could check the increasing rate of divorce and polygamy due to childlessness. But the author knows that childlessness can still occur despite all precautions. He therefore recommends adoption (instead of polygamy) as the ultimate panacea to childlessness in marriage. The author condemns in unmistakable terms the mentality among the Igbo which blames and traumatizes the woman in cases of childlessness.
Achievement seems to be a first-class value in our world today. With the ongoing global debate on what constitutes identity, can we include achievement as one of the constituents? In the Igbo/African identity, the achievement instinct is basically innate. The ethics of this phenomenon needs an evaluation, aimed at improving the status quo. What is the plight of the Igbo/African "achieving" in the face of modern capitalistic tendencies? What has become of the many other values in her identity, which has been her pride as a race? How is her religiosity (which is inseparable from daily living) affected by "modernity" and its new trends of the achievement ethos? These are some of the issues that are addressed in this book with the conviction that theology, achievement and identity are continuity.
The main objective of this book is to re-evaluate the true meaning of the term poverty' in the world as a whole and in Nigeria in particular. From a sociological point of view, poverty is the natural consequence of economic inequity amongst social groups, a type of inequity often generated by the inability of the political class to provide and maintain basic amenities in the society. This book highlights so many complex reasons that are responsible for this type of inability, prominent amongst them being mismanagement of funds in most political setups. Our investigation from this book shows that there's a great difference between the various forms of poverty in western countries and in other countries of the world. Poverty may be caused by individual, social, cultural, ethical and moral issues. These various causes of poverty are often correlated. In Nigeria, poverty is mainly caused by lack of moral sensitivities amongst political leaders and by lack of initiatives for cultural, social and economic empowerment of the less privileged. Most striking is the fact that there is no basic well-established governmental structure meant to assist those who languish in poverty. This book discusses the real-life situation of those who suffer and are living in abject poverty. The book also discusses proposals that can help improve their condition. In line with this, the effective contributions the church can make in order to fight poverty will be taken into consideration. In fact, it is not enough for the church to know that the situation of long-term injustice in Nigeria is crippling the country; rather, she has also to live up to her mission vis-à-vis the poor and the marginalised who are living in the country.
"Colonialism disrupted traditional authority over land and removed the spiritual linkage between the land and the people in exchange for simple material consideration. The colonial-received legal systems operating in Africa have no relevance to the socio-cultural make-up of the people as they lack communal sharing ethos and mechanisms for an equitable distribution of the communal wealth which are the foundations of justice, peace and harmonious co-existence. The study re-evaluates the meaning and values Africans attach to land and citizenship and their jural implications in order to provide workable compasses for the African peoples to navigate successfully through the labyrinthine jungles of globalisation."--BOOK JACKET.
This continuation, on a higher level of an earlier work by the author, is an exploration of African cultural heritage; as such it is a journey to the source and fountain of African cultural values. It shows the existence of an African pre-colonial democratic and republican structure of government that is ordered, achievement-oriented, patriotic, and altruistic. Simeon Onyewueke Eboh lectures at the Catholic Institute of West Africa (CIWA), Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in the Department of Canonical Law, specializing in the philosophy of law and public ecclesistical law.
Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the essays in this book develop contextual and strategic analyses of the way sex-gender constellations can be configured as political identities, as a resource, or in response to unforeseen contingencies.
