AFRICAN PROSE
ASARE KONADU: A Woman In Her Prime
Narrate Pokuwaa’s experience with her first two husbands.
Explanation
In all, Pokuwaa marries three times. Before her marriage to Kwadwo Fordwuo, she has been married to Kofi Daafo and Kwaku Fosu in that order. Her marriage to Kofi Daafo is childless. This is one marriage that could have been the ideal one. This is because Pokuwaa's closest friend Koramoa is married to Kofi Daafo's friend as well. If they had a child they would make an enviable foursome.
However, Pokuwaa has to leave her husband under social pressure. Incidentally, her friend Koramoa, though childless, sticks to her husband. In the end Koramoa does have a child; Pokuwaa does not. Childlessness takes Pokuwaa out of her marriage to Kofi Daafo. She lands in marriage with Kwaku Fosu, hoping that, things will be different concerning childbirth. She does not meet with luck, however: childless she remains. Her mother is beside herself with worry over Pokuwaa's childlessness.
Soon it becomes clear that Pokuwaa's mother is quite determined that the marriage should end if there is going tc be no child. She begins to meddle in the marriage. She, rather than her daughter, finds fault with Kwaku Fosu anc urges her daughter under the least pretext to leave her husband. Eventually for no serious reason for which marriage ought to be broken, Pokuwaa leaves Kwaku Fosu. Thus Pokuwaa enters her first two marriages with ordinary expectations of bearing children and raising them. This expectation never materializes, and she leaves one marriage and then the other.