When I set up this blog my goal was to post something weekly. However, every week comes and every week goes without me having the time or the focus to do a write up. So instead of finding something to blame for my lack of time and inspiration, I am going to set a more realistic goal of atleast one post per month. And when the inspiration strikes maybe I’ll have more than the one.
Today I am writing about a topic I came across in my usual research. It is controversial because it can easily be misconstrued to fit one of the most controversial topics in modern society.
Woman to woman marriages.
Traditional woman to woman marriages were not lesbian type unions. They were borne out of necessity, in most cases the continuation of a blood line. For the longest time, there was no single law that applied to this kind of marriages. Marriage law was derived from several pieces of legislation and influenced by religion, preference, and culture. Now we have the Marriage Act. That created quite the debate about its contents.
In the African contexts in which they appeared, woman to woman marriages were a creature borne out of necessity. So well thought out were African customs that they ensured a lineage was continued. The common thread with African cultures and customs is that they were all fashioned to ensure continuity of the community. And continuity was only guaranteed with children. Most if not all African communities are Patrilineal, therefore a man’s lineage must survive him. For that to happen he had to have sons. Daughters get married and become part of their husband’s family, and his community.
The man married many wives and took mistresses to ensure he had as many children as possible. It was not a requirement per se to have the many wives and mistresses, but at a time when child mortality and birth complications were common, that coupled with diseases and the occasional curses, it helped. It increased the man’s chances of having children survive him. But in a scenario where, despite all that, or where he only had one wife or he was ‘unfortunate’ enough to have only daughters what was he to do? Or in a situation where the man went of to war, never to return and his wife was yet to bear him an heir, what was to happen to his lineage??
Woman to woman marriages were fashioned to fill this gap. They didn’t involve just any women in society. It was done mostly by a woman who was well past her child-bearing days and had no sons or heirs. Eugene Cotran observes that it was sometimes done during the lifetime of the husband but it was more usual among widows.
The marriage was done as would have a regular one, dependent on every community’s customs and practice, where every marriage rite was observed. Except it would be the woman without children, now called the Head Woman, and representatives of her husband’s family, his brothers and uncles who would accompany her. Once all the rites were performed, the new woman would return to the Head Woman’s home and serve as the Head Woman’s wife. The Marriage rites were carried out same as in a marriage between a man and a woman.
If the Head Woman’s husband was still alive, then the onus would be on him to sire children with the new woman. However where the husband was already passed on, then cultures differ on the practice. In most cultures, a man from the husband’s clan would be the one to sire children. Sometimes, the Head Woman got to pick the man, and very rarely, the new woman was expected to have a ‘male friend’ to sire children.
All the children born to the new woman were regarded as children born to the Head Woman and her husband, regardless of whether he was alive or not.
The practice in Nigeria is slightly different. A barren married woman, as a means of securing her position in the family, provides her husband with funds for the bride-price in respect of a new wife who is expected to bear children in her place. In that case, the marriage is in fact contracted in the name of the husband and there is no question of one woman being married to another.
In some parts of Nigeria, an unmarried but prosperous woman who desires to have a family of her own may, if she cannot bear children, marry’ another woman to do so on her behalf. She attains this objective by providing the bride-price for a new wife who while living with her bears children. Usually, internal family arrangements are made whereby the new wife bears children by specially chosen male members of the family or by a paramour.
The new woman is allowed to inherit just as a wife would from the estate of the Head Woman and in some circumstances from the estate of the husband. It is all dependent on the timing of her marriage and the customs of the community she is married in.
I think there is a lot more information that has gotten lost over time as to the dynamics of this sort of union. But one thing is for sure, the union does not resemble that of a lesbian union. And the status of the Head woman changes. She becomes like a man in the community, and with a wife, no longer continues to carry out the duties of a woman.
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