The Extended Family System in Igbo Culture: A Social Security System

The author gives a brief insight into the family formation and social protection of the Igbo people. He maintains that the Igbo family system was instituted several centuries B.C., by Igbo ancestors as a social security system; and was charged with the social obligation to establish cultural measures that would among other things: a) Supervise and protect the marriage institution through inbuilt fundamental traditional safeguards to avoid marriage breakups and the consequent exposure of children to parental abuses.b) Provide through the marriage institution a legitimate and socially secure home for every child in his/her father’s home where adequate parental upbringing would be assured.c) Ensure that through the marriage institution there was an alternative but temporal home in the maternal ancestral family for every person in case of a serious social misunderstanding, dispute or social disturbance in his/her paternal family.d) Provide humanitarian assistance through family connections to all members of the extended family faced with the problems of bereavement, orphanhood, poverty, disability, illness, old age or retirement.e) Provide physical protection and economic assistance to all through community service.The author made brief comments on the ethnic orientation and civilization of the Igbo people of Southern Nigeria.