I listened to Peace Adzo Medie’s His Only Wife recently on audio, through Hoopla. It’s a story about love, heartbreak, self-discovery, and taking back agency from those who would force you to live out their dreams instead of your own. Set in Ghana, it looks at family dynamics and social expectations, with a feminist core that subtly challenges the patriarchal expectations it portrays.
Afi is dutifully married off to a wealthy cousin because his family wants to reign him back in, to get him away from this awful woman he has been with for a while. They have a child together, but the family is convinced that she is wrong for him, and for them, so they marry him to Afi in absentia. She moves into an apartment near where he lives (with his girlfriend and child), and waits for him to become her husband.
I won’t spoil the plot, but Afi has to decide what she wants to do with her life, and whose advice to take, even as she starts to fall in love with her husband. Can he be enough for her? Will she accept being one of two wives? Will familial duty be stronger than romantic notions?
It was an engaging book to listen to, but it also frustrated me. I was drawn in, wondering what Afi would do next, rooting for her! But I was also annoyed at the patriarchal constraints of her life. Medie shows just how unfair social expectations are for women, contrasting them with the freedoms accorded to wealthy men. I don’t want to impose my white American mindset on another culture, and the writing did not ask me to! But I was also frustrated for Afi and wanted her to take control of her own life instead of being pushed around by her family. It’s worth a listen to see what she does.
Allongé 