The Irony of the Title
This book is titled The Joys of Motherhood, but almost immediately Emecheta begins tracing how motherhood and suffering are inextricably linked. More importantly, the author explores how women are culturally conditioned to believe they are valuable only in conjunction with their children, in turn placing these women in a servant position from which they will not willfully leave because of their biological commitment to their own children. For Nnu Ego and Ona motherhood is anything but joyful. It's a constant reminder of their own seeming powerlessness and inferiority within the system.
The Irony of Ona's Aversion to Agbadi
At first, Ona avoids Agbadi because he is a rival to her own father's clan. When she sees him injured during a hunting trip, however, her maternal instinct kicks in and she falls in love with this wounded version of the great chief. She abandons her previous aversions to Agbadi because now he seems vulnerable, but the irony is that Agbadi has experienced no change. He woke up in her tender care one day and thought he'd finally persuaded her to see his side of things.
The Irony of Nnu Ego's Divorce
With her first husband, Nnu Ego doesn't have any children, so he divorces her. The truth is she wasn't barren. He just wasn't carrying his load very well, so they didn't conceive. Not long after, she marries Nnaife and bears four children for him. In the end, Amatokwu takes Nnu Ego's virginity and then fails to fulfill his end of the bargain and impregnate her.
The Irony of Nnu Ego's Desire for Children
When she marries Nnaife, Nnu Ego believes he will love her better once they've had children together. She wants the kids to elevate her own status. Unfortunately for her, this is not how it plays out in real life, even though this is the line her society has fed her about motherhood. In reality, Nnaife withdraws from Nnu Ego and pours himself into his children and, eventually, his new wife because, in his eyes, Nnu Ego has already served her purpose to him which was to give him children and then to raise them.
The Irony of the Aging Mother
Nnu Ego pours herself into the raising of her children, a thankless and demanding job given her family's troubling financial situation. In her old age, however, Nnu Ego is abandoned by her family. Those children whom she devoted herself to don't return to look after her, until she's already dead. And even then they demonstrate how little they knew about their mother because they erect a memorial for her in the village which represents fertility and motherhood.
