In the search for daily bread, career, and the service to humanity, every man leaves home whether to a workshop, military drills, classrooms, hospitals and the marketplace. By culture, especially as pervasive in Africa, the woman stays back to make the home, even if she has a career to pursue, it is believed that the onus is on her to make the home; that’s one of the reasons we speak of housewives.
As she plays this role, the apprentice will play a major part; knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly. If the master and his wife have not been married for a long time; for example they are just 1 to 4 years in marriage, it is usually easier for the apprentice at this stage. But in a case where the master has children who have grown to certain ages, the apprentice will serve them too as a big brother.
He will clean the nooks and crannies of the house, he will pound the yam, make some meals and even babysit. If there is a housemaid (which is always the female gender) in the house it could reduce his involvement in domestic affairs to some extent but not totally. The housemaids in these homes are not like that in the home of a working class family where it is often formal; the housemaid comes and goes daily and is paid salary at the end of the month. In the Igbo business home, young girls are usually taken into the home like the apprentice but not for the purpose of learning trade.
Most times the girls are either extended family relations of the master or his wife who come from the village to be groomed both in formal education and to marriageable age. While staying there, they too will be involved in the house affairs like the apprentice to a minimal level, they are usually more like adopted children or the PA (personal assistant) to the madam.
If as we said previously that the relationship between the master and the apprentice is 90 times out of 100 frosty, that between the master’s wife and the apprentice is 98 out of 100. There is this endemic suspicion on the woman’s part that the boy is outsmarting her husband. She is the de facto auditor general of the empire. Sometimes she counsels and motivates too.
The man builds the fortune while the woman guards it with all her being. And the apprentice should be wise enough to be in the good books of the madam as they are called. It is easier to bear the wrath of the master than that of his wife. The saying that hell has no fury like a woman scorned bears itself here; the young man must watch his words, body language and even his thoughts while hoping that the madam does not have wrong perceptions of his projected perfection.
She is the psychic eye on her husband’s fortune, even from home without being present in the marketplace, she can call shots and sometimes predict accurately the events of the day in the marketplace. No one is permitted to squander her husband’s resources, not even for charitable course without her permission, if anyone is entitled to such grace it is she, the Lolo as they are referred to in Igbo parlance. She will spend it however and on whatever she like; on jewelries and clothes, cosmetics and her ever-expanding piggy bank. The husband may not restrict her in anyway as her beauty, well-being and the children motivates him to make more money.
After all is said and done, you will find the apprentice has been domesticated, he has become a perfect gentleman. He has learnt the way of the kitchen and can cook even complex meals which some ladies cannot cook. He too now knows how to take care of a home. But wait till he becomes a master; he will appear to know nothing, not even how to dish his own food or his way to the refrigerator.
