Woman-woman marriage in Africa, redux
Aug. 13th, 2017 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ikhet_sekhmetWith the ugly possibility of a pointless postal survey on same-sex marriage in Australia, with the inevitable attendant claims that marriage has eternally and universally between one woman and one man, it seems like a good idea to revisit the fact of woman-woman marriage in traditional African societies with a few notes from the book Male Daughters, Female Husbands, a study of gender roles and relations in the Igbo town of Nnobi, Nigeria.
In Nnobi, writes Ifi Amadiume, "'male daughters', first daughters, barren women, rich widows, wives of rich men and successful female farmers and traders" all might have wives of their own. The term for woman-woman marriage was igba ohu. "Such wives, it seems, came from other towns. The 'female' husband might give the wife a (male) husband somewhere else and adopt the role of mother to her but claim her services. The wives might also stay with her, bearing children in her name."
Wives and children were a kind of wealth, for both men and women - "a question of a large workforce versus a small workforce". Women's wealth might also include animals and crops, but not land, which was passed from father to son. What to do, then, when there was no son? As with the Hittites and Hurrians, the solution was simple: give a daughter the status of a son, with a ceremony in which the father summoned "members of his patrilineage and gave them palm wine".
Generally, men owned the land and women worked it; Amadiume notes that women's access to gardens and farm land depended on men. She writes: "On the death of a husband, a wife's continued access to farmland depended on her having a son, or a 'male daughter'. On the death of a woman as wife and mother, the continuation of her matricentric household depended on the woman's son, or a 'male daughter', or respected ada, first daughter, marrying a woman to take the place of the dead wife."
This is only one of many societies in which marriage was not defined as one man and one woman, with polygamy and woman-woman marriage both well-established customs.
_
In Nnobi, writes Ifi Amadiume, "'male daughters', first daughters, barren women, rich widows, wives of rich men and successful female farmers and traders" all might have wives of their own. The term for woman-woman marriage was igba ohu. "Such wives, it seems, came from other towns. The 'female' husband might give the wife a (male) husband somewhere else and adopt the role of mother to her but claim her services. The wives might also stay with her, bearing children in her name."
Wives and children were a kind of wealth, for both men and women - "a question of a large workforce versus a small workforce". Women's wealth might also include animals and crops, but not land, which was passed from father to son. What to do, then, when there was no son? As with the Hittites and Hurrians, the solution was simple: give a daughter the status of a son, with a ceremony in which the father summoned "members of his patrilineage and gave them palm wine".
Generally, men owned the land and women worked it; Amadiume notes that women's access to gardens and farm land depended on men. She writes: "On the death of a husband, a wife's continued access to farmland depended on her having a son, or a 'male daughter'. On the death of a woman as wife and mother, the continuation of her matricentric household depended on the woman's son, or a 'male daughter', or respected ada, first daughter, marrying a woman to take the place of the dead wife."
This is only one of many societies in which marriage was not defined as one man and one woman, with polygamy and woman-woman marriage both well-established customs.
_
Amadiume, Ifi. Male Daughters, Female Husbands: gender and sex in an African society. London, Zed, 1987.
ETA: Nymba Ntobhu - Women Marrying Women. Half-hour documentary about woman-woman marriage among the Kurya people of Tanzania. Men's violence and mistreatment of women and children is very clearly a major reason for the practice.
