Okonkwo was provoked to justifiable anger by his youngest wife, who went to
plait her hair at her friend's house and did not return early enough to cook the afternoon
meal. Okonkwo did not know at first that she was not at home. After waiting in vain for
her dish he went to her hut to see what she was doing. There was nobody in the hut and
the fireplace was cold.
"Where is Ojiugo?" he asked his second wife, who came out of her hut to draw
water from a gigantic pot in the shade of a small tree in the middle of the compound.
"She has gone to plait her hair."
Okonkwo bit his lips as anger welled up within him.
"Where are her children? Did she take them?" he asked with unusual coolness
and restraint.
"They are here," answered his first wife, Nwoye's mother. Okonkwo bent down
and looked into her hut. Ojiugo's children were eating with the children of his first wife.
"Did she ask you to feed them before she went?"
"Yes," lied Nwoye's mother, trying to minimise Ojiugo's thoughtlessness.
Okonkwo knew she was not speaking the truth. He walked back to his obi to
await Ojiugo's return. And when she returned he beat her very heavily. In his anger he
had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace. His first two wives ran out in great alarm
pleading with him that it was the sacred week.
But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not
even for fear of a goddess.
Okonkwo's neighbours heard his wife crying and sent their voices over the
compound walls to ask what was the matter. Some of them came over to see for
themselves. It was unheard of to beat somebody during the sacred week.