I absolutely loved this book, and was fascinated to learn that your own grandmother was one of five wives. How did you feel about that and was her experience the inspiration for this book?
Thank you so much. My grandfather was an oba — a traditional ruler — so it wasn’t unusual for men in that position to have several wives. It’s still a privilege to carry the royal seed so, even now, women will offer themselves to an oba. My grandmother was the first wife and they were married before his coronation. She became bitter because he changed; he went from being a devoted, attentive and considerate husband to becoming aloof and somewhat self-absorbed. But this is the personality an oba must adopt; they are not regarded as ordinary human beings. Both my grandparents were trained teachers. My grandfather attended the Wesley College, Ibadan and played the church organ beautifully. I think my grandmother was also disappointed that he abandoned his rather westernized ways. It saddens me when I think how depressed she was. She lost her husband years before he died and that must have hurt like crazy. Some of the scenes in the book are based on experiences that my mother relayed to me but the novel itself is based on another true story that I heard when I was about fourteen years old.
You wrote a fantastic article for The Guardian in which you decry polygamy, warning that it “devalues women and the only person who revels in it is the husband who gets to enjoy variety. You, poor women, will become nothing more than a dish at the buffet.” I think that sentiment comes across loud and clear in the book. What specific message do you want readers to come away with?
I want people who read the novel to see how polygamy changes women. I have interviewed a lot of Muslim women and I haven’t come across one single wife who was thrilled when she heard that her husband was taking on another wife. It’s impossible for a woman not to feel diminished and inadequate. The new, younger wife knows she is going to be confronted with resentment and hostility so she goes in spoiling for a fight, to show that she is not a pushover. It’s tragic to see ordinarily lovely women battling for the affections of the man who put them in that position in the first place. This competitiveness can leave a family devastated, as you would have read in the novel.
There are other dimensions too. In a country like Nigeria, where we’re struggling to control HIV/AIDS and several other sexually transmitted diseases, in the rural areas, polygamy sends many unsuspecting co-wives and husbands to an early grave.
I think it’s conceited when a man believes he can satisfy and sustain several women. It’s simply not possible. Can one really blame women who venture outside their marital homes for fulfillment?
The characters in your book are so well-defined and have such distinctive personalities; they feel like they must be real. Are any of them based on actual people?
Yes, they are based on some extraordinary people; many of the characters are an amalgamation of several individuals. Interestingly, I have also found that there’s a piece of me in nearly all the characters. I learned so much about myself in the process of writing this novel, especially the less desirable, weaker elements of my personality. For instance, I have had a very complicated relationship with my mother. It wasn’t until after I finished writing the novel that I realized I’d captured that complexity in Bolanle’s relationship with her mother. Writing can be very revealing.
Why did you decide to write a novel about polygamy rather than non-fiction?
That’s such an interesting question because I have been making lots of notes of late. I really want to write non-fiction but I’m not sure I will ever have the courage. Some days, I’m really excited about the prospect; other days, my “liver fails me” – like we say in Nigeria. When I heard the story this novel is based on, I distinctly remember thinking that I would one day write it as a stage play. But after I couldn’t find a publisher for my second novel, I was in desperate need of a new project so I decided to write the story as a novel. It never occurred to me to write this particular story as nonfiction.
There’s a reality TV show in the United States called Sister Wives, about a polygamist in Utah. The wives all seem to get along – on camera – but I guess Baba Segi’s wives often seem to get along, too, at least when the big man is watching. It’s no wonder these women are jealous of each other – each one is short-changed of a loving relationship with a man who loves only her. From your experience and research, how do most wives in a polygamous marriage feel about each other?
They can’t possibly like each other, unless they are superhuman. In a polygamous home, a wife must guard her place and position with everything she has. She must protect her children too. The competition is fierce and some wives will do anything for one-upmanship. They have to keep their eyes and ears open because if the husband feels that a particular wife is quarrelsome or disagreeable, he has the power to throw her out. Such a woman would lose her status. A sensible wife will sheathe her sword when her husband is within earshot.
Wach wife is referred to as “Iya,” followed by the name of her firstborn and seems to have no identity other than as a mother. Bolanle keeps her name because she has no children. Is it really a sign of masculinity for a man to have as many children as possible? Do these children spend any quality time with their father? How do the children feel about growing up in this environment?
To be fair, men are also defined by their children, hence Baba Segi. Baba here means, father [of] Segi, the same way Iya means mother [of]. Children are very important in Yorubaland, as with other ethnic groups. In many songs, children are described as the cloaks that cover our nakedness. There’s also a popular saying that translates as, “a woman who gives a man a child is no longer a concubine but a wife.” It’s important to understand that many women join polygamous homes for the status it gives them. The status of a wife, any sort of wife, commands more respect than that of a spinster. Men desire lots of children because, traditionally, they signify wealth and bounty. Unfortunately, many men do not have the means to fend for their wives and children.
Whether a man spends time with his children depends entirely on how dutiful he is or how much he values his children. Baba Segi, in spite of everything, is as good a father as he can be to the children in his household. He loves them dearly and caters to their needs as best he can.
Growing up in a polygamous household can be tricky. I have come across people who have told me it was okay but I have also met people who were completely traumatized by the experience.
The country’s disdain for women is palpable in this book, with mentions of a male senator slapping a female colleague, young girls being assaulted and stripped naked in the streets and men “slapping their womenfolk as if it had become a national sport.” Is this still the prevailing attitude?
It’s difficult to generalize and talk about Nigeria’s’ disdain for women as a country because different ethnic groups have different ideas and attitudes about the place of women in society.
The story about the senator is absolutely true. It really happened. It was very worrying for me at the time because if a federal law-maker could slap a woman in public, you’ve got to ask yourself what chance a woman who has been assaulted has in court! He wasn’t prosecuted. Rather, “the slapper” was seen hugging “the slapped” on TV. They both agreed to blame the whole slapping episode on the Devil.
Many men still don’t see anything wrong with physically abusing their wives to “teach them a lesson.” I was in a bank a few months ago and a man was trying to push in front of a young woman. When the woman protested, the man gave her a dirty look and asked, “Don’t you have a husband who controls you at home?” I had to get involved at this point, on principle. When a woman asserts herself, some think it’s an indictment on her husband who hasn’t succeeded in beating her into submission so that she cowers before all men. It’s ridiculous! Things are changing, though. I am very pleased about the rise in the number of women’s groups.
It is obvious from the deviousness and smarts of all the wives that women are perfectly capable of changing their situation. Why aren’t we fighting back and why are women still agreeing to enter into polygamous marriages?
The sad thing is that women are sometimes the ones who help to perpetuate the oppression. A few months ago, another notorious senator, Mr. Ahmed Yerima, married a thirteen-year-old Egyptian girl. Several human rights groups were up in arms but women from his home state marched, declaring that they were happy with older men marrying young girls. The senator defended himself by telling the world that what he had done was acceptable in Islam. The young girl was his fourth wife. He’d just divorced a seventeen-year-old that he married a few years before. There is clearly a pattern here. How did such a man become a lawmaker?
About three years ago, one of our former presidents gave two of his daughters away to become third and fourth wives to two different governors. The women willingly married the men who had access to the public purse. I hope this gives you an insight into the complexity of the situation. The significance of status in our societies mean many women would not even conceive of changing their circumstances. A woman without a husband is accorded very little respect. For this reason alone, some women would settle for any marriage, even if it means they are ultimately stripped of their dignity.
I read that a shocking one third of married women in Nigeria are in polygamous unions. What has been the reaction to the book from people in your country? Is it raising awareness?
The reaction has been very positive on the whole. It has triggered a lot of dialogue about polygamy, which I am proud of. A lot of people read it as a story. Others read it as a cautionary tale. A few months ago, at a reading, a woman came and hugged me. She said, “I am Bolanle. Thank you for writing my story.” That was very moving for me. Polygamy isn’t going away anytime soon but it’s great that people are re-evaluating its place in modern Africa where our various governments proclaim that woman have the same rights and same opportunities as men.
How do you teach your own children about polygamy, and is it different for your sons than your daughters?
Pretty much in the same way I taught them about gay marriage when we were living in the UK and the lesbian couple that lived in the flat beneath us came home with a baby. In fact, polygamy was much easier to explain to my children. We live in the Federal Capital Territory which is predominantly Muslim and they often hear their friends talking about their “stepmothers.” Broaching the subject was quite straight-forward. My husband and I are raising four children — two boys, two girls — who are all going to be feminists. They don’t have much of a choice there, I’m afraid. Respecting and appreciating womanhood, pushing for the advancement of women, is a huge part of their upbringing.
Are you working on another book? Please say yes – we want more from you!
Yes, I am working on a new book. Thanks so much.
This post originally appeared on my former blog, StyleSubstanceSoul.
I grew up in a polygamous family and my experience is that there are women who don’t compete or harbour rage and envy. They’re not super-human. They just have different expectations and a different understanding of what marriage means. I always hesitate to extend my personal views to the lives of others. Also, in the event of outbursts of rage from the same culprits over and over, no swords were sheathed to spare my father. I’d say some polygamous men enjoy drama and actually find their more communally-minded wives as dull as dish water. And to me, adultery, not polygamy devalues women. Its better to be an acknowledged wife than the whore outside. And it also spreads AIDS. And I do blame women who go out of their marriage looking for more when they know what they signed up for. Its a way of life for some and if it works for them (and for some it does) then fine.
My mother was a first and only wife for fifteen years. She started dying when our father brought his new wife home. The woman was from our neighbourhood and her presence destroyed our family.
In my experience, the extra wives and their children defend polygamy because they don’t see the first wife’s agony.
The ugliness of polygamy must not be underestimated or retionalised.
It is not polygamy that devalues women, it is lack of financial independence and non existent divorce laws that make women stay in polygamous marriages. Tiger Woods ex wife was no more devalued (probably even more so) than any wife in a polygamous home, however the divorce laws saved her from further humiliation. Since polygamy is not imposed, then we should be thinking of how to empower women and increase their financial independence. Favourable divorce laws, women with financial independence will reduce the number of women who live in polygamous marriages. A final word, we must not forget that polygamy is practised in many other countries, but it seems we are not aware of how it works in those countries.
I grew up in a very competitive polygamous home. The wives fought like mad when my father was out of the house and because of that we, the children, grew suspicious of one other. When my sister died of cerebral malaria in 1990, my mother said it was the first wife that killed her. Me and my brother were banned from going near her and the fighting never stopped.
Against my father’s wishes, I married a Christian. Being a Muslim, I did not want to risk of marrying a man who could easily marry another wife. Polygamy is unhealthy for women. I can’t say the full extent of the damage that growing up in such an environment did to me but I know my weaknesses.
The problem now is there are a lot of educated women in their late twenties whose sole aim is to become a second or third wife to a politician so that they don’t have to do a day’s work in their lives. I don’t know how these opportunities will help them.
We should not try to defend polygamy because there is nothing to defend. Polygamy devalues the women involved because it kills their self esteem and makes them feel they are not good enough to satisfy their men. Ironically, my mother the second wife nearly went mad when my husband tok a third wife. This devaluation also comes from fear and uncertainty. Once a man takes another wife, the incumbent wives become nervous because they no longer know where they stand in the home, especially where there is serious competition.
Anywhere where you see polygamy in practice, you will find that women have limited rights. They are seen as nothing but commodities.
I read this novel in London last year and cried. It took me right back to my childhood.
The implications of polygamy need to be discussed thoroughly, weighing the pros and cons without infringing on people’s rights. As a Nigerian man who grew up in a relatively calm polygamous home, it wasn’t until my father died that I realised what good actors women are, my mother included. I have come to believe that polygamy is simply about sex, power, variety and domination.
Here we are on an American website. Is it that Nigerians don’t have the courage to discuss the issues that eat away at the fabric of morality in their society?
I will share the stories of two prominent Nigerians polygamists. The first tells us about a wealthy Nigerian who was first rumoured to have sired 133 children. http://tinyurl.com/3sadhk3. The other story is more recent and came out in the press, following the death of another great Nigerian. http://tinyurl.com/3rmm72b.
After reading these stories, I thought about the women that were left behind and asked myself: was it worth it? For a man who sees women as objects? Maybe. For a man who truly respects women? No.
i can only expect that those who are comfortable with being in a polygamous family are those who were 2nd and thereafter wives or children of such.
I cannot imagine an educated/modern woman who is a first wife being satisfied with the husband bringing home another woman.
But as previously mentioned, some people are conditioned. Kind of like a ‘life as we know it’, ‘this is how it it’ situation in which case they learn to adapt. But would it be any woman’s first choice? I would think not.
there are so many obstacles such as the law, tradition and customs, poverty, all of which make ‘personal choice’ no option.
Tough one.