Page 1 of 12
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 11, No. 3
Publication Date: March 25, 2024
DOI:10.14738/assrj.113.16472.
Abianji-Menang, O. A. (2024). Impotent Husband Culpable Wife: Feminization of Infertility in Ayobami Adebayo’s Stay with Me.
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 11(3). 271-282.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Impotent Husband Culpable Wife: Feminization of Infertility in
Ayobami Adebayo’s Stay with Me
Ophilia A. Abianji-Menang
Department of English Language and Literature
The University of Maroua
ABSTRACT
This paper examines infertility as a major reproductive health problem that brings
shame and leads to social exclusion of women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Infertility is a
global issue that affects couples; however, the concept has been institutionalised by
the enterprise of patriarchy in Sub-Saharan Africa to make it a woman’s issue. The
paper demonstrates how childlessness has been socially and culturally constructed
in African societies to hold women responsible for a couples’ problem, irrespective
of the male factors related to infertility. The purpose of this paper is to disseminate
information on reproductive health, which is a challenging conversation in most
African communities, due to the complexity in the subject. Based on Ayobami
Adebayo’s novel, Stay with Me, the text explores the task of the postcolonial African
literary artist in providing information on infertility (reproductive health) in their
narrative, hence, the interrelation between literary discourse and reproductive
health. Erving Goffman’s theory of stigma will be employed to portray how
childlessness is a discrediting problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is a traumatic
experience that reduces women to a tainted and discount other. The institution of
motherhood created by patriarchy creates stereotypes about childless women for
the interest of sterile men. Considering that male and female factors of infertility
co-exist, the dialogic approach of Mary E. Modupe Kolawole and Obioma Nnaemeka
is necessary in the follow up and management of infertility rather than focus on the
woman who may not necessarily be the problem.
Keywords: Infertility, Social construct, Erectile dysfunction, Dialogic approach, Stigma
Having children and beginning a family is a moral obligation in the marriage institution of
Africa. According to Fledderjohann (2012), given the high value placed on children in Sub- Saharan, the primary objective of marriages is procreation and not romance, as it is in the
Western world. Africans believe in family and have a tradition of continuity. Children promote
social stability, enhance emotional fulfilment, ensure continuity, inheritance and social
cohesion. Hence, marrying for love or sexual pleasure is highly discouraged because it is not
African. This conjugal view of marriage (bearing and rearing children), adequately expressed
in Flavour’s song “Ada Ada”, has been accepted in African societies as the traditional ethos
handed down from generation to generation. That is why children are always eagerly awaited
by couples and their respective families after marriage. Therefore, the quest for a child(ren) has
become an all-time preoccupation of couples in Sub-Saharan Africa in particular. The absence
of a child in a union is considered an anathema. Consciously or unconsciously, the woman is
highly scrutinised and charged for being responsible. The woman is stigmatized, discriminated
Page 2 of 12
272
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 11, Issue 3, March-2024
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
against and given all kinds of names for her inability to bear a child. She is constantly reminded
of her predicament, irrespective of the multifactorial causes of infertility. The experience
becomes frustrating as childless couples come under pressure from the families, especially
family members who, at times, induce them to break off or encourage the man to get a second
wife without taking into cognisance the male factors of infertility. Kimani and Olenja (2001)
postulate that infertility in Africa is culturally and socially constructed with childless women
bearing the burden of a couple’s problem. Greil, McQuillan and Slauson-Blevins (2011), on their
part, posit that health and illness are not objective states but socially constructed categories.
They look at how infertility has shifted from a medical condition of couples and focuses
primarily on women. In spite of the established findings that infertility is a couple’s problem,
it is still viewed as a female’s problem. This construction of infertility in Sub-Saharan Africa is
embedded in the culture. In Stay with Me, Adebayo joins her voice with biomedical scientists
to explore infertility, a subject in human reproduction that has not received much attention.
She raises awareness about infertility, a reproductive health problem that affects men and
women worldwide, but little attention has been given to it despite the fact that it affects
marriages in Sub-Saharan Africa. The novel portrays how infertility has been feminised in
Africa to make it a woman’s issue.
Gerrits and Shaw (2010) define infertility as the failure to achieve pregnancy after one year of
unprotected sexual intercourse in the absence of known reproductive pathology (qtd. in
Chimbatata and Malimba). According to Maill (1994), infertility is a permanent inability to give
birth (qtd. in Shreffler et al). Infertility in this chapter will mean the inability of a woman
to conceive or a man to impregnate a w o m a n after twelve months or more of regular
unprotected, heterosexual intercourse. For conception to take place,there should be no known
reproduction pathology that affects the genitourinary (GU) tracts of males and females.
Research has shown that the etiologic causes of infertility are multifactorial. Pathophysiology
conditions that affect female and male GU tracts are sexually transmittable diseases (STDs) of
the ovaries and testicles and hormone-related ailments, suggesting that infertility is a
reproductive health problem that affects both men and women. Conversely, this concept has
been feminised in Sub-Saharan Africa to be a woman’s problem. Male-related factors of
childlessness are not taken into consideration, given that African men are never considered to
be sterile. The stigma associated with infertility makes men suffer in silence (Oyelade,
Jemilohum and Aderibigbe) and not seek medical help. In situations where the man and his
family are aware of his situation, they are accommodating (Kimani and Olenja). Such families
would allow their son’s wife to have a secret relationship or negotiate with a brother, family
member or friend to impregnate his wife while the children bear his name. Here, social
paternity is more importantthan biological paternity (Kimani and Olenja).Children born in the
marriage belong to the man. This justifies a common African saying that only a woman knows
the real father of her child (Butake).This suggests that the concept of impotence is absent in
African discourse, and deoxyribonucleic acid, commonly referred to as DNA, is not an African
thing. True DNA of an African child is where “the baby is born and its napkins are dried”. This
socio-cultural background paves the way for Akin to resolve his problem of impotence by
conspiring with his brother, Dotun, to impregnate his wife, Yejide, as seen in Stay with Me.
This chapter explores infertility in couples in African societies, as represented in Ayobami
Adebayo’s novel Stay with Me. The novel recounts the experiences of Akin and Yejide, a childless
Page 3 of 12
273
Abianji-Menang, O. A. (2024). Impotent Husband Culpable Wife: Feminization of Infertility in Ayobami Adebayo’s Stay with Me. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 11(3). 271-282.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.113.16472
couple, to portray that male infertility is a major reproductive health challenge in Sub-Saharan
Africa that should be given attention to when dealing with a couple’s childlessness. Erving
Goffman’s theory on stigma will be employed to demonstrate how childless women are
stigmatised and discredited for a health problem that affects men as well. A discredited
attribute could be skin colour, body size, criminal record, physical illness, mental illness,
identities and traumatic life experiences (Clair Chaudoir et al.). Childlessness is a traumatic life
experience that is discreditable in the African cultural context, as the novel underscores. Yejide
marries as a virgin, and her medical reports attest that nothing is stopping her from being
pregnant (Adebayo 39, 157). Nobody questions Akin’s health, although he is the cause of the
couple’s infertility. Akin and his family blame Yejide for being barren and bring home Funmi as
Akin’s second wife. Adebayo’s novel Stay with Me seeks to inform and educate Africans on the
subject of male infertility, influence their attitudes, behaviours and beliefs towards infertility,
which has long been feminised.
THE CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT OF MARRIAGE AND THE SOCIO-CULTURAL
CONSTRUCTION OF INFERTILITY
Set in Ilesa, Nigeria, Stay with Me recounts the unforgettable story of marriage as seen through
the eyes of Akin Ajayi and his wife, Yejide Makinde, a childless couple who met and fell in love
at the university. Both coming from polygamous homes and seeing how unhappy their mothers
were, Yejide and Akin agree not to do polygamy, “I don’t do polygamy... I don’t do either”
(Adebayo, 19). Their decision is challenged due to Yejide’s inability to conceive after four years
of marriage. Akin suffers from erectile dysfunction, also known as impotence, which makes him
unable to impregnate a woman. His family is not aware of his condition but pressurises him to
take in a second wife. Men have been socialised in Africa to view procreation as a woman’s role.
Even when they are sexually and reproductively challenged like Akin, they adjust to the societal
norms about gender and blame their wives for not being responsible, “I loved Yejide from the
very first moment... But there are things even love can’t do... I learned soon enough that it
couldn’t bear the weight of four years without children... even love bends, cracks, comes close
to breaking and sometimes does break” (Adebayo, 18). The words ‘bend’, ‘crack’ and ‘break’
express Akin’sfeelings that childlessness destroys love, interrupts decisions and causes a man
to reconsider his opinion about polygamy. Love alone does not sustain a marriage in Africa.
Motherhood is the essence of marriage, and when a woman cannot fulfil this important socio- cultural role, this affects the sustainability of the marriage and breaks the continuity of love.
This is the cultural standard that gives women an identity in African societies. Stratton (1994)
posits that in Igbo (African) society, people don’t eat a happy marriage, a marriage must be
fulfilled, it is of no use if your husband licks your body, worships you and buys everything in
the market for you and you are not productive (95). Thus, procreation is an obligatory cultural
norm imposed on African women. Marriage is strictly for procreation and not a union of love
between people. It is for this reason that after four years of marriage, “nobody else cared about
love” when children were not born (Adebayo 18). Moomi often talks to Akin about his
responsibility as her first son, which is to give her grandchildren. She constantly reminds him
that all his half-brothers now have children. For two years, Moomi shows up on the first Monday
of every month with a new, potential second wife for Akin. She threatens to start visiting Yejide,
his wife, with a new woman each week if Akin fails to make a choice. Akin bows to his mother’s
pressure and marries Funmi as his second wife, arguing that “My mother won’t pressure you
for children anymore... Trust me it is for the best” (Adebayo 16).