Community’s Expectations Challenged by Anomie in Anglophone African Literature

Abstract

This article investigates African societal values with a particular accent on Ibo regarding marriage. There are several criteria of marriage from The Slave Girl, Things Fall Apart, The Bride Price and No Longer at Ease and the sociological, sociolinguistic and anthropological approaches will be applied. This paper undermines three rules governing marriage amongst Ibo notably no marriage between a free person with a slave, the bride price observation and the childbearing necessity. Any attempt to violate the three aforementioned marriage principles is viewed as anomie.