Additionally, the punishment, whichever one is chosen, is not directly vested upon the crime’s perpetrator-either the town as a whole is attacked, or the lives of two innocent young people are forever changed against their will. The event reveals the highly masculine nature of this society, as the only way to account for violence is to rip the community even further apart. After a man from Mbaino, a neighboring clan, kills a girl from Umuofia, his village is given an ultimatum to deal with the situation: they must choose between violence or a human offering. This brief passage both establishes one of the main plot elements of the book and provides a look into Umuofia’s system of law and justice. An ultimatum was immediately dispatched to Mbaino asking them to choose between war-on the one hand, and on the other the offer of a young man and a virgin as compensation.” (Chapter 2) “Many others spoke, and at the end it was decided to follow the normal course of action.
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