JOHN LOCKE ON FAMILY AND PROPERTY VIS-À-VIS THE SECURITY OF THE WIDOWS IN IGBO

Abstract

The “Two Treatises of Government” (1690), has been recognized as Locke’s major political analysis. In the Second Treatise, he discussed rights at different levels, with family rights as one of such. Within the family rights, Locke discussed conjugal rights and property rights, among others. For Locke, the end of familial society is to raise children to a state of reason so that they could be competent in the management of their own property. Children have a right to the property since to be a person entitles one to own property. The father’s property does not belong to him alone; rather it belongs to the whole family. Since marriage is a contract, the property rights of both partners, both corporeal and spiritual, could not be arbitrarily infringed. In Locke, “property” is individual, with free alienation and bequest having priority. This is one of the areas that have received little attention in our society, as regards the women folk. The insecurity surrounding women (widows) after the death of their husbands is alarming in different parts of Igbo, even when they are legitimately married. This paper therefore used the method of textual analysis and evaluation for a better application of Locke’s principles in order to improve the situation of widows in Nigeria.