WOMEN IN CHAINS: Abandonment in love relationships in the fiction of selected West African writers by Rose Ure Mezu Francophone and Anglophone feminist and gynandrist novelists have dramatized the cause of wronged womanhood and the dehumanizing and patriarchal conditions under which the African woman is forced to function, often abandoned after explanation. Education and economic autonomy become avenues for survival for the oppressed woman. This sometimes creates harmony that sustains companionate union. The study encourages women to exercise the WILL TO CHANGE and transcend those negative strictures (polygamy, barrenness, infidelity) that destabilize homes and promote abandonment. TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ........................................................ 3 DEDICATION ............................................................. 15 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ........................................... 16 FOREWORD................................................................ 18 TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................. 20 CHAPTER 1 Women in Chains: The Universal Canvas..................21 CHAPTER 11 Infertility: Catalyst for Self Discovery ..................... 74 CHAPTER 111 Polygamy and Abandonment .................................120 CHAPTER 1V Infidelity, Incest and Abandonment....................... 167 CHAPTER V Feminist Awareness and the Abandoned Female .. 218 CHAPTER VI Conclusion: The Will to Change ............................ 267 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................... 289 POSTFACE Women in Chians: A Review by Prof. Peter I. Okeh ......... 294