CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
In idah urban community, as in most other parts of the country, procreation is one of the major functions of the family. Every man take a wife apparently to have children with them, where this main purpose for marriage is not forth coming into fulfillment, it is then result to tension in most cases which lead to misunderstanding and disputes in the family. In traditional igala society, many wives try to ensure the procreation of children to its fullest limit.
For most of history, childlessness has been regarded as great personal tragedy involving much emotional pain and grief, especially when it is resulted from failure to conceive or from the death of a child (Mail, Charlene, 1986). Before conception was well understood, childlessness was usually blamed on the woman and this in itself added to the high level negative emotional and social effects of childlessness. Some wealthy families also adopted children as a means of providing heirs incase of childlessness or where no son had been born, the monetary incentives offered by westerners desire for children is so strong that a commercial market in the child laundering business exists (McCurry, 2005).
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Throughout the world and particularly in African societies, igala land not exempted, the word “childlessness” sends a cold signal to the ears of listener and a sense of pity is immediately aroused in the mind. In igala land, children are regarded as great treasure to their parents, relations and their immediate community. Many people suffer from childlessness for so many reasons such as drug abuse, hard drugs effect, contraception, numerous abortions, and genetically inherited sickness and in most cases, psychological problems.
The number of childless couples is tremendously on the increase, this is evident to the fact that attempts to initiate a move which would have been directed towards adoption is taken with serious resistance in some places mostly by couples without even a child. Meanwhile, most couples are childless as a result of the degree of their waywardness while they were youths or younger and unmarried, such as illicit use of drugs in order to avoid pregnancy (Ugwuanyi, 1999).
In idah urban community, childlessness is echoed by the fact that most couples are not aware of the prevalence of medical treatment; this therefore makes them not to seek medical assistance for such form of ailment. According to Nwapa (2004), some couples attribute their problem of childlessness to the supernatural, the hope in God that gives children to remember them at the appropriate time while some couples usually fall back to the fact that adoption, they are comforted for being biological infertile, they no longer want to know the cause of their infertility and solve it or get rid of it Hales, (2000).
According to Dike (2013), the police have smashed a suspected syndicate whose alleged stock in trade was defrauding desperate barren women through false miracle babies. He also narrated the agony of a 61year old barren woman who travel to port Harcourt to consult miracle workers God was using to bless the barren and make them fruitful, they told her to pay #1.5 million, she paid the money and was given some seed to eat, after eating it, she began to stool. It took about nine months before the miracle workers told her that God had answered her prayers, this is the plight of childless woman.
This study is therefore intended to carry out a survey to find out what childlessness means and the social problems associated with childlessness in idah urban community.