I am really enjoying reading Ancestor Stones. While it is a bit difficult to keep track of the characters and how they are related to each other, reading this book is not boring because it is like reading several smaller stories, one after another.

The differing roles the women play is an interesting element of this book to me. Asani's mother, one of the first women we hear about, is respected in her family and her husband's favorite; Hawa's mother was so important that the other women do not dare start their fishing without her. Other women throughout the stories are respected by their husbands, loftily ignore lesser wives, and have varying degrees of responsibilities and titles.

On the other hand, we also see women who are not respected. In Mariama's story, she says "a woman has no religion... she changes her faith to marry and worship to please her husband... Mother would not yeild. And to this day nobody has ever come to me and said she was noble and righteous to do so." We also see stories of women being divorced and left by their husbands.

The many stories of polygamy in Ancestor Stones all relate in some way to either Things Fall Apart or Xala, or even both. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo's wives lived with him and cared for each other's children and affairs as if they were their own, which really, they were because they were in the same family. In Xala, El Hadji's wives and children are their own seperate units, and clash whenever they are forced to come in contact with the other wives or children. El Hadji's wives are jealous of one another and his children do not see him as a personal father figure, but rather as a source for money and have a distant relationship.

Honestly, I expected the women's rights in Ancestor Stones to improve as the timeline progressed; but it looks like I am turning out to be very wrong. Hawa's story in 1965, decades after stories of the women who were so respected and loved amongst the other wives and their husbands, is possibly the most depressing so far. After she married and then left her first husband, she marries a man much younger than her. Because her tubes were tied by a paternalistic doctor (also, my health care ethics class would rip this doctor's act to pieces) and Hawa had to find another wife for her husband so he could have children, they both leave her.

I expected the women to become progressively more independent and respected. I suppose they have become more independent, in a way, because there are more instances of divorce and betrayal. I am nearly finished with Ancestor Stones, and I wonder if, before the end, I will see a happily-ever-after marriage.