ABSTRACT
The validity and meaning of responses to inquiries on ideal family size in fertility surveys of rural populations of the developing countries has been questioned and discussed by a number of scholars [ Knodel and Pitaktepsombati, 1973 :229–55]. The principal argument appears to be that these respondents are not used to thinking in hypothetical terms. This problem notwithstanding, there are still important reasons for studying the attitudes of couples in a highly pronatalist society regarding family size. Ware [1975] ; 273–96 has pointed out the necessity to gain some measure of dissonance between the number of children such parents are bringing into the world and the number they would wish to have. With respect to the parents in the villages of Eastern Nigeria, and other parents in other areas sharing similar socio-cultural characteristics, such investigations would not only help to explain their high fertility pattern, but would also indicate the probable trend of population growth. In an earlier study of the socio-cultural factors affecting the fertility of wives in sixteen villages of Eastern Nigeria [ Ukaegbu, 1975 ], the family size preferences of wives were shown to be among the most important. The correlation coefficient was only 02 but the association between family size preference and fertility was statistically significant at the 99 per cent level.
