By Pamela Agboga
When I saw this book I loved the cover art, and when I was through, I checked it again, identifying the wives by the description given by the author. I read the story with friends, so I was able to get their reactions as well. This is a book that reveals some of the hardships faced by women in a polygamous home.
The book is a tragedy with just enough comic relief to keep you going, even with the nausea you feel at the horrors passed through by the women in the tale. And while one can commiserate with Baba Segi, there is not enough time to spend with him, when so many others draw on your emotions.
It surprised me to find a theme in the book that I found in Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds; the girl child is just going to make as many mistakes as her mother, so why bother to pay too much attention to her. In fact, that seems to be the women’s excuse for paying so much attention to sons. The Thorn Birds is set in Australia (1915-1969), and Baba Segi’s wives is set in Nigeria (about 1984-1999). But the common thread of how women can see that they are marginalised and yet not know what to do about something they do not like, runs clearly through the pages of both books. Which raises the question, when will things change enough that the older generation of women do not watch the younger growing without despondency in their minds, that the daughters do not have much hope of a better stand in society? In both books, most female characters just made the best of their situations.
It is not impossible; we finally have a female president from Africa. We have women breaking the barriers in different sectors, and this gives us hope, for our nation, our continent, and our world. Better days are on the way, somehow, some way, some day.
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This article was first published on 22nd January 2013
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Chojare Pamela Agboga is a Legal Practitioner, Writer, Editor, Chartered Secretary and Administrator. She is currently working on her first novel 'Weekends are for Loving' as well as a devotional for women.
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