THE IKA FAMILY CULTURE BY ONYEKPEZE
In Ika culture, the family is a passion. It continues to serve as a total community for all lives born within it. Gradually, it relinquishes this character as the members -grow towards adulthood. A family in Ika culture consists of a man, his wife, or wives, his children (the natural biological family) and relatives.
It is the most basic of all social institutions in Ika culture because it is a permanent group related to ancestry or marriage. Its members live together and form an economic and social unit, and its adult members are responsible for the young ones within the family.
The family may be extended in which case, it includes the man’s daughters-in- law and their children; at times, the widows of the late brothers or parents’ uncles, aunts and cousins, or children of the man’s friends. The number increases with the marriage of the sons, and decreases with the marriage of the daughters.
All these persons may live in the same household or in several adjacent dwellings in the same compound.
In Ika traditional culture, the extended family is very functional.
Here, more than three generations of the same kinship live together in a cluster of houses within the land where their ancestors lived, and share in the responsibility of children upbringing. The members of the extended family also share in other tasks such as farming and building of houses. In the extended family arrangement, if possible, their children routinely look after grandparents and close ties and responsibilities are extended to distant relations. For example, family members may help to support, raise and even pay for “education” of the nieces, nephews or more distant relations. It usually serves as a self-contained productive unit.
Sometimes, especially in the olden days, these relations or children lived apart, but on ceremonial occasions, they came to worship under their father, (idioma or diokpa). However, it was more common for the unit to live together in the same compound, attending the same farm or farms together and living almost together.
In some cases, grandparents lived in their own households as long as they chose while contact was kept up with more distant relations and duties towards them might be limited.
The extended family also protects and cares for its disables, indigent and aged members.
