Title & author
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
Synopsis
Peace Adzo Medie’s His Only Wife confronts westernized views, challenging readers to drop any preconceived notions of Ghanaian culture. Lauded as “A Crazy Rich Asians for West Africa” by Kirkus, the novel dives into the life of Afi Tekple, her new marriage, and her career goals, demonstrating how strength and success in women doesn’t have to be defined by western definition.
Who should read this book
Fans of Kim Ji-young, Born 1982
What we’re thinking about
The importance of books that subvert stereotypes and supposed norms
Trigger warning(s)
Sexism
In a 1988 interview with Bill Moyers, Toni Morrison spoke of “the master narrative,” or “whatever ideological script is being imposed by the people in authority on everybody else.” She goes on to say that this narrative is rooted in masculinity, in whiteness, and in westernization. Today, while there is more critique of westernization’s erasure and stereotyping of other cultures, western norms, values, and history still shape western perception. But Peace Adzo Medie’s His Only Wife (Algonquin Books, 2020) confronts this western view, challenging readers to drop any preconceived notions of Ghanaian culture. Lauded as “A Crazy Rich Asians for West Africa” by Kirkus, the novel dives into the life of Afi Tekple, her new marriage, and her career goals, demonstrating how strength and success in women doesn’t have to be defined by western definition.
“It wasn’t easy being the key to other people’s happiness, their victory, and their vindication,” Afi thinks on her wedding day (Medie, 4). While once a well off family, the Tekples face poverty after the death of Afi’s father. However, Faustina Ganyo, “Aunty,” quickly steps in, offering Afi’s mother a job and the pair a house. Years later, when Aunty requests that Afi marries her son, Eli, Afi feels like she can hardly say no— marrying into the family would not only secure happiness for her mother, but also help repay their debts to Aunty’s kindness by forcing Eli away from another woman, the mother of his firstborn, that his family dislikes. Still, “Elikem married [Afi] in absentia; he did not come to [the] wedding” (1). From the start of Afi and Eli’s marriage, Medie foreshadows Eli’s absence. After Afi waits to finally meet him and start their life together, Eli leaves again after a brief visit, a pattern that continues throughout the novel. And when she finally moves into his home, thinking all is well, Afi is once again proven wrong when she realizes the extent that the other woman, Muna, is still in Eli’s life.
Throughout this depiction of their marriage runs Afi’s struggle for equality. When she first becomes a member of the Ganyo family, Afi is surprised to hear that Eli and his brother both believe her going to fashion school is “‘a great idea’” (63). After her mother tells her that a wife cannot attend school, but instead must focus on her husband, Afi is nervous to share her career goals with her new family. However, they seem supportive, eager for her to continue her education. Yet it soon becomes clear that this support is not extended to all areas of women’s equality. After discovering Eli is still involved with Muna, Afi asks him, “‘How would you feel if I cheated on you? If I told you I wanted to be with another man while married to you?’” (267). But to Eli, “‘that’s different...it’s not the same thing’” (267). While Eli believes he can be with as many women as he desires, he does not think Afi has the same right. As a man, he believes in his sexual freedom and paints women who do the same negatively.
But Medie makes it very clear: the problem is not that Afi could be one of multiple wives, something Western culture and feminists might scoff at, rather how Eli and other men treat those wives. “What he’s proposing is not ideal and it’s not common like before, but people still do it,” Afi’s cousin Mawusi reminds her (268). “I even know women with university degrees, doctors and lawyers, big, big, women, who are co-wives” (268). Mawusi draws attention to the changing culture, yet stresses that being one of multiple wives is not a hindrance on a woman’s career or potential. It does not immediately mean that a woman does not have power. Through Mawusi, Medie disproves potential Western stereotypes about inequality in these marriages. She further does so by displaying how these marriages actually do become problematic, such as when Eli “‘dismiss[es Afi’s] pain and suffering as unreasonable. When [he] refuse[s] even for one minute to empathize’” with her (267). And it’s the same with Afi’s uncle who makes “‘all of the women stay in the same house and refuse[s] to take care of his children’” (268). The problem is not being one of multiple wives, but rather when men treat the women in their lives cruelly, from a place of desired power and inequality.
When we think about intersectionality, we often focus on race and gender. But, as Kimberlé Crenshaw notes, intersectionality looks at where power lies and where it does not. That can include sexuality, ethnicity, class-- anything that paints people as the “other.” Too often in Western culture we paint countries such as Ghana as the other (and that’s if we even recognize Africa as being made up of individual countries and not one monolithic image in the first place). We attempt to belittle other cultures, not able to imagine how a place so far away from us could ever be successful. But in His Only Wife, Medie challenges readers to rethink success, equality, and how our prejudiced beliefs have shaped Ghanian women in our minds— and how that stereotype has unjustly limited their movement in the world. Without Medie and other novelists that challenge Western dominance, feminism cannot truly be intersectional— we must look at the rest of the world, as the fight for equality does not exist in the Western world alone.
“‘Please, put love aside and be practical. Love will not put food on the table; it won’t hold you at night.’”
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