In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, the Ibo people’s patriarchal society has a strict system of behavioral customs according to gender. These customs strongly restrict the freedom of Ibo women and help to reinforce generation after generation the notion that Ibo men are superior to the women of their tribe.

Among the people of this society, the condition of weakness is strongly associated with the state of being female. The worst insult that a man can receive is to be called a woman. The novel’s main character, Okonkwo, is often obsessed with proving his strength as a man because he seeks to escape the reputation of his father who was considered by his fellow clansmen to be weak like a woman. He is ashamed when he learns that "agbala was not only another name for woman, it could also mean a man who had taken no title" when this insult is applied to his father. Okonkwo takes the insecurity of his manliness to extremes, and even unnecessarily kills the adopted son whom he loves deeply in order to prove his unwavering emotional fortitude. "Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machet and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak."(43)

In Ibo culture, it is practically a disgrace to be born a female. This attitude is apparent in considering the emphasis placed on women to bear sons in order to carry on the honor of the family. When a woman had borne her third son in succession, her husband "slaughtered a goat for her, as was the custom."(56) A woman is honored only if she could "bear... sons"(82) to carry on a great family's name and honor.

Okonkwo is greatly disappointed by the tendencies of his offspring in their gender roles. He believes that his daughter would have been better had she been born a son and he often criticizes his son as being too womanly. He often "wish[es] she [Ezinma] were a boy."(122) For his son, "he wanted Nwoye to grow into a tough young man capable of ruling his... household." (37) The failure of his son to live up to Okonkwo’s expectations for him are another factor in Okonkwo’s own innate need to be exceptionally masculine.

The division between male and female goes beyond even individual persons in Ibo society to be applied to both physical and moral acts. Certain jobs are reserved only for women whereas only men can perform other tasks. When Ezinma asks to bring a chair to her father, he forbids it because "that is a boy's job."(32) Women harvest certain crops which are not worthy of wasting the valuable time and strength of men. Crimes committed with deliberate malicious intent are classified as male in contrast to merely accidental female crimes. When Okonkwo killed a clansman, he had "committed the female [crime], because it had been inadvertent."(87)

As with the majority of other male / female relations in Ibo culture, sexual relations are marked by a noticeable sense of male domination. It is the man who initiates the sexual activity while the female is supposed to appear passive and uninterested in participating in these acts. The men even mock the women's passiveness in sexual roles by a song:

If I hold her hand

She says, "Don't touch!"

If I hold her foot

She says, "Don't touch!"

But when I hold her waist beads

She pretends not to know. (83)

After the initiation act has finished, the man continues to be dominate during the whole love-making process. The idea that "the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the children"(51) is considered absolutely ridiculous by the men of Umuofia. The male need for dominance can be compared to that of other cultures apart from the Ibo tribes, such as European and Arabic people of the period, who similarly also wanted to control women’s sexual and reproductive freedoms by domination in all sexual roles. As with many other cultures, the virginity of a young bride is of great importance and affects the cost of acquiring the young prize Before marriage a young girl's pureness is tested by other women who threaten, "remember that if you do not answer truthfully you will suffer or even die at child-birth... How many men have lain with you?".(93)

In close relation to the dominance of women’s sexuality is the physical possession of their bodies. Women are bought and sold into marriage and men barter over their price as if they were a piece of farm land. The men have a celebration in which they decide the price of a woman and "in this way Akuebe's bride-price was finally settled at twenty bags of coweries."(51) One major positive difference between the Ibo and other cultures in which women are bought and sold is that the husband must be rich enough to buy his wife and thus prove his capacity to provide for her. This tradition contrasts sharply with that of other cultures, such as that of the people of India, in which the family of the bride must provide a sufficiently large dowry to the husband and thus themselves support the wife in advance. The emphasis in Ibo culture is shifted from a perspective of what the man gains for his troubles of supporting the women to a perspective of what he must pay for the honor of caring for the prized women. The Ibo man must prove his worthiness rather than expect the woman to prove hers. The bridegroom's family had to "not bring fewer than thirty pots of wine"(51) to present to the bride's family. Despite this sign of respect for the value of the bride, men do not hesitate to treat women often as nothing more than mere animals to be controlled in the same manner as they control their roosters and goats. Okonkwo thought that, "no matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man." (37) The husband, not the mother, is also the sole person to whom the children of a marriage belong. The men of Umuofia are astonished that "in some tribes a man's children belong to his wife and her family."(51) Violence against women is justified and is only prohibited if it interferes with the lives of other men or the gods. For Okonkwo, nothing justifies not beating a woman when he wanted to for he "was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not even for fear of a goddess." (21) Uzowulu beat his wife every day for nine years and was only forced to stop when this caused a dispute with her family who refused to "return her bride-price"(65) after they took her away from him.

In Ibo society, it is extremely rare, as well as nearly impossible, for a woman to be strong-willed or independent. In fact, the only women in this novel who is not prevented from or punished for her independence is Chielo. Chielo, however, is not an ordinary woman: she is the priestess to the powerful Oracle of the Hills and the Caves, Agbala. This position alone permits her freedom. She is not respected for her individual characteristics as a person, but simply for her powers as a messenger to the gods. She is not any different from other weak women when she is merely herself; it is only while she is performing the role of the priestess, that she is the only woman who instills fear in the souls of men.

The only element of Ibo culture that genuinely respects women is hidden in some of the idiomatic references in the language. When Okonkwo is forced to seek refuge in his motherland from his exile, he learns the expression that "Mother is Supreme" (94) because of the tribe's respect for a mother's protection. The Ibo worship the "Mother of the Spirits" (132) and respect and fear her.

The Ibo society is marked by a great imbalance in terms of its male/female relations. The females are subjugated and have no real physical power that they can exercise. Although this oppression is deplorable from a modern North American standpoint, from the point of view of the Ibo women of this period it is quite acceptable and none of them feel any necessity to change their social system.