Reconfigurations of Polygamy in Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter and Paulina Chiziane’s Niketche: Uma História de Poligamia

Abstract

 It is a given that men have long enjoyed cultural and symbolic superiority in traditional patriarchal African societies. The hierarchy of social importance among women seems to cascade down from married to single women. Polygamous marriages, though widely accepted in many African societies, remain contentious and draw divergent sentiments from women and men alike. Drawing on African feminist perspectives such as those broached by Sylvia Tamale, this paper argues that polygamy is presented in the literary works of Mariama Bâ and Paulina Chiziane in two polarized viewpoints. Polygamy is at once considered a utopia and a dystopia. The utopian dignity of marriage is framed against the tarrying dystopian flip-side of polygamy in which women are objectified and used more for the sexual pleasure of men. This confirms the assertion that the perception of polygamy must be reconsidered and reconfigured, in particular the manner in which it replicates patriarchy where women are dominated by the rule of phallus.