One of the themes running throughout The Color Purple concerns sex roles. Whether the problem of sex roles focuses on Harpo and Sofia, or on Albert and Celie, or on Grady and Shug, there is always a clear-cut sexual division of labor, and tensions usually arise when one half of the couple doesn't like his or her "role," or duties. Likewise, in Africa, tensions arise from very similar problems concerning sex roles.
Nettie, for example, is no one's wife; she is "married" to her missionary work. The Olinka look askance at unwed women. They hold marriage between two people to be the be-all and end-all purpose of a woman's life. To them, Nettie is a non-person. When she, Samuel, Corrine, and the babies arrived, the Olinka wanted to know if she were Samuel's second wife. Had she been, they would have held her in esteem. Since she was not, they think of her as having little status. Catherine, an Olinka woman, tells Nettie, "You are not much. The missionary's drudge." Yet, in spite of being judged to be a social inferior, Nettie has a good appreciation and respect for herself. "I am something," she writes Celie — a statement that, until now, we can't imagine Celie ever saying about herself.
Nettie wants to understand the Olinka; she does not want to offend them by defying their "system," so she doesn't rebel as Shug might have in a similar situation. Instead, she keeps quiet, very much like Celie, but unlike Celie, Nettie has a sense of deep respect for herself that she never loses.
