The emotional well-being of the polygynous women in Lola Shoneyin’s novel 'The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives'

Abstract

Set against the backdrop of the “Anglophone crisis” ravaging parts of Cameroon, my novel, The Things We Don’t Talk About, centres on two young women who, through monogamous and polygamous marriages as well as extra-marital affairs, seek the identities of “wife” acceptable to their society, even as separatists in their home region battle for an autonomous political identity from the government in a country where they are the minority. Polygamy and patriarchal oppression are themes covered in Nigerian writer Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, originally published in 2010. Other relevant novels to this thesis are those by Nigerian authors, mainly Buchi Emecheta’s work 1979 The Joys Of Motherhood (2008) and Chinua Achebe’s 1958 masterpiece Things Fall Apart (2008). Reference will be made to Senegalese writer Mariama Bâ's novel Une Si Longue Lettre (So Long A Letter) (1981) originally published in French in 1980.

Polygamy is still relevant in contemporary African society, especially among underprivileged women. This fact is reflected by Shoneyin who, at the end of her novel, keeps the three uneducated Alao co-wives in the oppressive polygamous marriage she has depicted, even though their husband permits them to leave. Bolanle, the educated, fourth wife, decides to divorce. While the man’s domination comes naturally in a patriarchal culture, the women’s freedom and emotional well-being are subject to conditions laid down by her society, but ones which she can control through her response to her predicament. This thesis uses Antonovsky’s theory of salotugenesis and its principles of the Generalised Resistance Resources (GRRs), as well as the theory of Africana Womanism, which is linked to feminist empathy, to demonstrate how these female protagonists adapt to and cope with the adverse circumstances of their lives, and hence work towards an identity they are comfortable with.

Emphasis will be laid on the seven GRRs of Ego strength, co-wife bonding, co-wife rank, “joy in children”, education and skills, economic freedom, and spiritual intervention and their use by Baba Segi’s wives constructively to control their responses to subjugation in polygamy; only, at times the outcome is short-lived or counter-productive. “Talking” and “silence” as means of gaining emotional relief are also explored, as these characters seek to mitigate the adverse effects of being part of a polygamous household, for fulfilment in their polygamous marriages.