Rethinking Marriage in Francophone African and Caribbean Literatures (After the Empire: the Francophone World and Postcolonial France)

Rethinking Marriage in Francophone African and Caribbean Literatures

After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial France Series Editor Valérie Orlando, University of Maryland

Advisory Board Robert Bernasconi, Memphis University; Alec Hargreaves, Florida State University; Chima Korieh, Rowan University; Obioma Nnaemeka, Indiana University; Kamal Salhi, University of Leeds; Tracy D. Sharpley-Whiting, Vanderbilt University; Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike, Tulane University See www.lexingtonbooks.com/series for the series description and a complete list of published titles.

Recent and Forthcoming Titles Memory, Empire, and Postcolonialism: Legacies of French Colonialism, edited by Alec G. Hargreaves Ouregano: A Novel, by Paule Constant, translated and annotated by Margot Miller, and introduced by Claudine Fisher The Transparent Girl and Other Stories, by Corinna Bille, selected and translated by Monika Giacoppe and Christiane Makward Time Signatures: Contextualizing Contemporary Francophone Autobiographical Writing from Maghreb, by Alison Rice Breadfruit or Chestnut?: Gender Construction in the French Caribbean Novel, by Bonnie Thomas History’s Place: Nostalgia and the City in French Algerian Literature, by Seth Graebner Collective Memory: France and the Algerian War (1954–1962), by Jo McCormack The Other Hybrid Archipelago: Introduction to the Literatures and Cultures of the Francophone Indian Ocean, by Peter Hawkins

Rethinking Marriage in Francophone African and Caribbean Literatures

Cécile Accilien

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, MD 20706 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2008 by Lexington Books First paperback edition 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Accilien, Cécile, 1973– Rethinking marriage in francophone African and Carribean literatures / Cécile Accilien. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. African literature (French)—History and criticism. 2. Caribbean literature (French)—History and criticism. 3. Marriage in literature. 4. Marriage in motion pictures. I. Title. PQ3980.5.A23 2008 840.9'3543—dc22 2007042428 ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-1657-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7391-1657-6 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-1658-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7391-1658-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) eISBN-13: 978-7391-3201-2 eISBN-10: 0-7391-3201-6 Printed in the United States of America

⬁™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992.

In my journey, I have been fortunate to benefit and learn from the strength, guidance, wisdom and struggles of several fanm vanyan. I thank and dedicate this book to some of them who have been rainbows in my clouds. They have touched my path, soul, mind, spirit, and heart in different ways: Veronique Accilien, Anne-Marie Accilien, Odile Accilien, Olga Accilien, Rose Emila Accilien, Christa Augustin, Marie-Madeleine Estiverne, MariePétuelle Estiverne, Monique Estiverne, Roseline Massé, and Elmide Méléance. and To these younger fanm vanyan who are very dear to my heart: Annabelle Estiverne, Zarath A. Estiverne, Vanina Aude-Marie Reibel and Louise Odile Sorger.



Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Preface

xi

Introduction

1

Chapter 1

Marriage and Gender Politics

13

Chapter 2

Marriage, Sexuality, and the Body

31

Chapter 3

Marriage and Motherhood

53

Chapter 4

Marriage, Religion, and Polygyny

65

Chapter 5

Polygyny, AIDS, Sexuality, and Status

95

Chapter 6

Marriage, Métissage, and Identity

113

Chapter 7

Women, Marriage, and National Identity

141

Conclusion

Marriage: A Viable Option

167

Bibliography

171

Index

183

About the Author

191

vii



Acknowledgments

Writing a book is a voyage mixed with pleasure, frustration, contentment, pain, inspiration, dare, joy, fear, and delight. Many friends, colleagues, and family members have helped by lending their ears, eyes, brain, hands, and hearts at different stages of this journey as they challenged, listened, supported, exchanged, and provided me with assistance. Thank you, mèsi anpil, merci, muchas gracias, danke for helping me remain grounded and balanced. In particular, I would like to thank my colleagues Alyce Cook and Jacqueline Konan at the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at Columbus State University for their support and collegiality. A warm thanks also to Giselle Remy Bratcher from the Columbus Archives at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia who kept an eye out for me for reference materials and for the many interesting discussions on marriage. Thank you to my colleagues and friends from Portland State University in Portland, Oregon: Apricot Anderson Irving, Veronica Dujon, Gina Greco, Maude Hines, Michelle Kirton, and Jacqueline Temple. A special thanks to Valérie Orlando, mentor, friend, and colleague who has given generously of her time and never tired of giving prompt feedback; Jessica Adams read, edited, and offered valuable comments and suggestions on the manuscript while she challenged me to insert my voice clearly and avoid simplifications; she has provided support as a scholar and a friend of my work for the past decade. I am so grateful to Elmide Méléance, my “left tackle,” for her support as a friend and colleague; she tirelessly read and edited the manuscript while

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Acknowledgments

providing honest feedback and challenges. We also spent countless hours on the phone having enlightened discussions and debates on marriage and identity while revising the manuscript. Thanks also to Ulrick Jean-Pierre for reading the manuscript and offering suggestions. To Michael Bibler, Francine Hilaire, Myriam Huet, Valérie Loichot, Sue Peabody, Catherine Reinhardt, Philippe Zacaïr, and Mylenn Zebina who read different parts of the manuscript and/or readily provided me with references or made inquiries on my behalf. To colleagues and friends from Tulane University (where it all started): Richards Watts, Elizabeth Poe, Frank Ukadike, Deborah McGrady, Katherine Gracki, Shannon Mikell, John Moran, Fehintola Mosadomi, Felipe Smith, Dennia Gayle, and Pamela Franco for their support. A special thanks to Julee Tate from Tulane, friend, colleague, and sometimes “accountability alarm” who reminds me not to take myself too seriously. To Sheri Abel for her continuous support and prayers. To Monique Méléance, Isabel Fernandez Anta, Marie-Yollens Labrousse Berthoumieux, Diana Pierre-Louis, Claudia Vallejo, thanks for listening to my complaints of academic life and for your continuous support; to Margaret Armand and Max Beauvoir for their enlightened discussion and reference on Vodou marriage. I am thankful to Ulrick Jean-Pierre, Haitian historical artist and troubadou for granting me permission to use the painting Institutionalized Symbolism on the cover of this book. Thanks to Lexington Books editor Kia Westwood. I am also grateful to the anonymous reader who provided valuable suggestions and references to edit the manuscript. To my family who always encourages me to go forward and shows their pride in what I do: my parents Veronique and Letroy Accilien, my sisters Odile and Olga Accilien, and my brother Philippe Accilien, my aunts Roseline Massé and Anne-Marie Accilien. A special thanks to my uncles Joseph Accilien, Marc Accilien (Parrain), Abraham Estiverne, and Pierre-Paul Estiverne, and my cousins Jean-Marie Alexis, Flour Auguste, Salomon Augustin and Flaure Accilien.



Preface

Fidelity pledges, whether to nations or marriages, do hold particular property relations in place. . . . Sentimentality should not cause us to lose sight of the fact that marriage always was and is an economic institution; additionally, that private property always required monogamous marriage to insure patrilineal property distribution through inheritance. —Laura Kipnis, Against Love: A Polemic Marriage has never been timeless or immutable. On the contrary, over the course of the centuries it has adapted to changes in larger social, economic and cultural structures. —Michael P. Breen, “A Timeless Institution? Marriage in the West from the Renaissance to the Present”

Laura Kipnis’s comment on the fidelity pledge required in marriage stresses the close link among marriage, property, and the stability of the nation. The various debates regarding marriage in the past few years, particularly in the United States where the issue of same-sex marriages continues to be a political, social, and religious debate, attest to its importance as a social institution. For many individuals, marriage was and is still viewed mainly as an economic transaction involving issues of class and money. This brings to mind an interesting question: What is marriage, and who has the power to decide whether or not a couple can be married? Should marriage be based on love?

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If that is the case, what is love? Is love cultural, social, and/or personal? Who has a claim on love and who can decide how to love? In Rethinking Marriage in Francophone African and Caribbean Literatures, marriage is viewed as a union between two people, a man and a woman. The book also looks at polygynous marriage whereby a man has two or more wives. While I acknowledge the existence of same-sex marriages such as among the Dahomey in West Africa where a woman can marry another woman, it will not be discussed. Moreover, the book does not explore polyandry, the practice of a woman having more than one husband. It analyzes various types of marriage arrangements. Some are based on love, others are economic transactions involving a bride price or dowry, still others are neither “legal” nor recognized by the church but are based on family or social ties arranged by communal or customary laws. In whatever form it takes, marriage is an important institution because it allows for socio-cultural affirmation and acceptance. The novels and films studied demonstrate how marriage affects individual women in their respective societies and consider the various parameters: religious, social, economic, historical, cultural and how they influence marriage. Although the book focuses mainly on the challenges women from various cultures in West Africa and the Francophone Caribbean face, I do not want to suggest by any means that all Caribbean and African women do not have marriage that includes an equal partnership where both parties are comfortable with their arrangement. Why compare Francophone Africa and the Francophone Caribbean? Why is it important to look at these cultures together? The novels and films primarily emphasize the postcolonial period of the two regions. What is compelling in bringing these two regions together, apart from the obvious fact that they shared common colonizers, is that many of the characters studied are negotiating their identities in marriage through the lens of their cultures as well as the French colonizers’. While there are several differences in terms of social, religious, ideological, and political structures among the two regions studied, looking at the universal theme of marriage allowed for an interesting parallel. Both African and Caribbean Francophone cultures share a family structure that extends beyond the nuclear family; both cultures are very patriarchal. They also consider marriage beyond the general limited legal definition. This patriarchal institution that is marriage fosters a gender role that has not been talked about much. Perhaps this is because marriage is so embedded with other powerful institutions (religious, political, financial) and it is considered to be sacred.

Preface



xiii

This volume interrogates concepts of feminism, womanism, Africana womanism and motherhood, among others. I struggle with labels such as “Third World,” “developing world,” and “Western.” This study is also an inquiry into what comes about when we apply terms such as feminism, Third world, postcolonialism, métissage, and gender in transatlantic cultures. Using the lens of marriage, I am also addressing the relationship between these two cultures. What is apparent and gets transmitted is a system that privileges masculinity in both areas. What is also evident is the complexity of culture, that is, in terms of people’s attitudes and patterns. For instance, a work like Juletane, sometimes labeled Caribbean and at other times African, problematizes the complexity of regionalism both by its content and by the author’s own location. Juletane is a perfect example of the challenges socio-cultural barriers put on an individual as well as of the alienation that can come about as a result of colonization. Juletane is mal dans sa peau in France, the Antilles as well as in Africa. Juletane represents the hundreds men and women who, during and after the Négritude movement (and colonization), looked to Africa as an Eden, as a way to reclaim the past; for many in the Caribbean, looking into the African continent meant the hope of having a social revolution that could bring about reforms at all levels. While the various movements focusing on Caribbean identity in the past three decades (Antillanité, Créolité) dis-placed the African continent as the focal point of Caribbean identity, the fact remains that remnants of the slave culture, the Middle Passage, and matrifocal family structure are a part of Caribbean reality that has its roots in Africa. In analyzing the works from West Africa, I am looking at each particular text or film as its own entity, in its own national and cultural terms, to avoid generalization. The term African and Caribbean Francophone is used in this book to stress the uniqueness and challenges that women in each region, country, class, etc., face. While being aware that both regions have long, rich oral traditions, I examine only written texts and films. Critics like Irène d’Almeida, Renée Larrier, and Valérie Orlando, among others, have previously noted that even though the term Francophone African and Caribbean Literature is used in the singular, we should remember that each country has its own literary tradition. Using the theme of marriage, I study works from writers and filmmakers of Francophone West Africa and the Caribbean. While the book does not focus on any country in particular, the theme of marriage is examined through texts from the two regions. The book is set in a thematic way rather than geographic because this format is more interesting and allows the focal point to

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Preface

be on the work itself. I compare and analyze the various themes that are linked to marriage and identity such as gender, religion, class, and nation building. Through the lens of marriage, a highly patriarchal institution, the works reveal how other institutions are affected. They also demonstrate the complexity of issues such as gender, class, race, ethnicity, and culture. Because marriage is such a universal topic, I hope this book will pique the interest of students and colleagues who study the Francophone world as well as those who are interested in Women’s Studies, African Studies, Caribbean Studies, Film Studies, and African Diaspora Studies.



Introduction

Marriage, which is necessarily overt, public, ceremonious, surrounded by special words and deeds, is at the center of any system of values, at the junction between the material and the spiritual. It regulates the transmission of wealth from one generation to another, and so underlies and cannot be dissociated from a society’s infrastructures. —Georges Duby, The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France

Marriage is a recurrent topos in literature of French expression. Marriage is a universal concept considered by many people to be an important phase in the cycle of life that stretches from birth to death. Moreover, it plays a crucial role as an institution in regulating political, social, and economic life. For some people, marriage consists of a balance between the need for procreation and the fulfillment of sexual desire, between a legal contract (the state) and a sacred covenant (the church).1 For others, marriage is not based on religious scriptures but on social or other customary rules. Marriage is one of the most enduring social and religious rituals in people’s cultures. For some individuals, it is a means of stability. Traditionally, it was an arrangement made between two families to strengthen property and family ties and the personal consent of the individuals being married was not necessary.2 The idea of marriage, as it has been established today, is very recent and is based on an individual choice between two people, at least in several societies in the Western world.

1

2



Introduction

Through analyses of literary and filmic works that have marriage as a theme and employ it as a narrative device, the role of marriage in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean is explored. I argue that marriage serves as a catalyst for intense identity formation insofar as it functions as a narrative intersection for a number of overlapping discourses on gender and the body, class and economics, religion, interracial and intercultural identity, and nation building. It provides a narrative space for commentary on cultural practices that are, in many cases, presented in the works in question as the foundations of cultural identity. I study a limited number of novels, short stories, testimonials, and films from Senegal, Mali, Gabon, Niger, and Burkina Faso in West Africa. In the Francophone Caribbean, included are novels from Haiti, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. In the last two or three decades, several theoretical conceptions have proposed new ways of looking at the literature of developing countries, from post-modern to post-colonial studies. Francophone West Africa and the Caribbean are not impervious to these conceptions, from which they have benefited in certain ways. However, many of these theoretical labels continue to represent Africa as simply the Dark Continent and the Caribbean as an exotic region failing to adequately rethink the complexities and ambiguities of these two regions for the West. These two areas and multi-cultural societies are still emerging from colonialism, as they also become increasingly entangled in rapid globalization. Western colonization in Africa was relatively short when compared to the Caribbean, whose population is made up primarily of the descendants of slaves. As Édouard Glissant explains, these people came to the New World as “des migrants nus” (naked migrants)3 and had a foreign culture imposed on them. Although the various African countries colonized had their particular cultures set in place, there was some infiltration of the colonizers’ culture, or acculturation as the French mission civilisatrice promoted. In this regard, these two areas have undergone various similarities in relation to cultural, political, religious, and social transformations but are mostly marked by their differences. This is reflected in the literary representation of marriage. While I use a common language, French, to discuss two distinct geographic areas, it is important to keep in mind each country’s specificity. The diversity of the women within a particular country, ethnic group, geographical area or community is important to highlight. A Haitian woman faces political, social, and economic realities distinct from a Martinican or Guadeloupean woman. Likewise, a Malian woman deals with issues that are different and similar to an Ivorian or Nigerien (from Niger) woman.

Introduction 

3

Nevertheless, the women we encounter in the novels and films analyzed in this study have complex lives. Their environment cannot be construed solely on a Manichean principle of the world or in terms of man versus woman, exploiter versus exploited, etc. While these women may negotiate issues of family conflicts, economic independence, education, individual self versus community, female excision, and polygyny, among others, they are not (as is too often presented by some Western feminist scholars) simply waiting for rescue. Although there are conflicts (internal and external) resulting from the aforementioned issues, there are generally tremendous amounts of support, togetherness, sisterhood, and a sense of community not too often found among women in the Western world. The film Moolaade by Sembène Ousmane shows how African women come together and stick together on behalf of their community. Women in several African and Caribbean cultures are often communal, surrogate, and biological mothers. The idea that “it takes a village” to raise a child is a reality in these areas. Also, there is a more realistic idea of beauty among women. For instance, in some African countries including Niger, Mauritania, and Nigeria, the Maani foori or fat ceremony is celebrated. This is a ceremony, as highlighted in the film Monday’s Girls (1993) by filmmaker and documentarist, Ngozi Onwurah, during which “women honor[ed] their bodies through food, songs and dance step [without having been] exposed to the gaze of the male watcher.”4 This is one area where Western women can learn from African women. Africans and Caribbean women feminists/womanists should not be discounted or viewed as stepchildren of western feminism when discussing the issues of their own women. It should be clear that among women globally (while the particular political, social, economic, and geographic realities vary) there is a place for learning and exchange. To avoid generalizations and oversimplifications of representations of marriage in the French-speaking African and Caribbean context, the texts and films discussed here invite the reader to consider each work in its own cultural context and location, the specific country or geographical area, the period (colonial or post-colonial), the class, race, and milieu. These texts must be analyzed from a perspective of “Global Multiplicative Identities” (an expression used by critic Adrien Katherine Wing in her introduction to her volume Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader) and “multiple consciousness,” a term coined by Mari Matsuda to describe the intersection of oppression women deal with based on their gender and race/ ethnicity.

4



Introduction

While both Francophone Africa and the Caribbean shared the same colonial oppression and exploitation from the French, the politics of location is important in considering how gender hierarchy and marriage are viewed. In the Caribbean, for instance, Martinique and Guadeloupe are French Overseas Departments while Haiti has been an independent country since 1804. Its realities, therefore, are dramatically different. The concept of marriage is universal, but the different forms of marriages and the numbers of parties involved are culturally specific. Regardless of the numbers involved (such as when a man is married to more than one woman), marriage is an institution that creates continuity and allows society to standardize and thus regulate people’s lifestyles socially, legally, and economically. As previously noted, the commonly accepted traditional Western definition of marriage as simply the union between two individuals (a male and a female)5 bound by the law and in some instances the church, is insufficient in dealing with the areas on which I focus. During the period of colonization, the French attempted to christianize Africa and the Caribbean while imposing Christian marriage practices, though their efforts were not always successful. Marriage in the Caribbean was hybridized, creating new structures such as plaçage, a practice that is still in effect today where two people live together without the approval or blessing of the church and without being legally bound to one another. Plaçage is just as valid as legal marriage and is acceptable especially in Haitian rural areas where traditional marriages are not the norm. There are different types of plaçage; a plaçage relationship does not necessarily imply monogamy. In fact, there is a large majority of men living in plaçage with more than one woman. This form of marriage was partially a function of the lack of stable family structures in the Caribbean that resulted from colonization. Even if a man were to be legally married to a woman, he could be removed from a particular plantation and taken away from his wife and children if his master decided to sell him. During slavery, the family structure in the Caribbean did not consist of many officially married couples. Slaves were property and were typically not given the right to marry. The masters’ main preoccupation was that they continue to procreate. Marriage in the Francophone African areas to be studied is equally complex because time-honored practices there came into conflict, again, with the cultural ideology of French colonialism. One such conflict arose over the issue of polygyny.6 In Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre, for example, polygyny is a key topic, and Mawdo Bâ, one of the characters in the novel, claims that he must take a second wife for his mother’s sake. Although he is part of the new Senegalese bourgeoisie that takes its cultural cues from the colonizer and

Introduction 

5

condemns such behavior, he is also a member of the Wolof nobility for whom polygyny is acceptable and, in fact, encouraged. A man who has many wives acquires a social status, because polygyny implies wealth. While analyzing the literary representation of marriage from religious, historical, sociological, and political perspectives, the following is considered: Why do people get married? What are the cultural and social implications of different types of marriages: arranged, polygynous, and common-law? How is marriage used to define identity, particularly with regard to gender, body, religion, race, class, and nationality? What is the role of the family within the institution of marriage? To what degree is the social and economic status of women determined by religious and cultural codes governing marriage? How, in fact, does marriage relate to religion and culture? How is marriage an institution that regulates family and property? In several of the literary works studied in this book, the conflicts between men and women are in part a conflict between religious and social beliefs as well as between tradition and modernity. In a remark relevant to the past as well as the present, the medieval historian Georges Duby, notes in The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France: Marriage, which is necessarily overt, public, ceremonious, surrounded by special words and deeds, is at the center of any system of values, at the junction between the material and the spiritual. It regulates the transmission of wealth from one generation to another, and so underlies and cannot be dissociated from a society’s infrastructures. (19)

As Duby examines, marriage occupies a more crucial place in social and religious discourses, even though it is important in both the material and spiritual realms. Marriage is generally understood as the state of being husband and wife, whether in a legally binding union established by a ritual celebration or in a free union based simply on the common consent of the two individuals involved. From a Christian standpoint, it has been defined as: an intimate personal union to which a man and [a] woman consent, [is] consummated and [is] continuously nourished by sexual intercourse, and perfected in a life-long partnership of mutual love and commitment. It is also a social institution regulated by the word of God and by the laws and customs which a society develops to safeguard its own continuity and welfare.7

In the Bible, marriage is ordained by God: “And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make her a help mate for him’”8; “If

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Introduction

they cannot abstain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”9 The book of Genesis portrays marriage as a partnership established by God, whereas Corinthians discusses the salutary nature of the union. Similarly, the Koran instructs men and women on how to live in marriage. About one third of the akham, or legal injunctions, in the Koran focuses on the acceptable behavior of women in both public and private life. The Koran states: Women are meant to be wives and mothers. Marriage and childbearing are religious duties. The roles of husbands and wives are viewed as complementary rather than unequal, and although both men and women are equal before God, men stand a step above women in society.10

According to the Koran, the Islamic family is hierarchical and patriarchal. The Koran allows a man to marry up to four wives if he can support and treat them equally; yet, a woman is allowed to marry only one man, and she can remarry only after a divorce, which is at times quite difficult to obtain (depending upon the country and/or her personal situation), or the death of her husband.11 One aspect of my project, then, is to consider how conflict within and among religious practices is represented through the narrative vehicle of marriage. Although previous studies have treated marriage in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean from a sociological and historical perspective, few, if any, have been devoted to its literary representation. The works dealing with marriage in the Francophone Caribbean are more of a historical and sociological nature. They include Famille, idéologie et pouvoir à la Martinique: 1789–1992 by Richard Burton, Famille et nuptialité dans la Caraïbe by Yves Charbit, Slave Women in Caribbean Society 1650–1838 by Barbara Bush, Women and Change in the Caribbean by Janet Momsen, West Indian Family Structure by Michael Smith, Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848 by Bernard Moitt, and Les femmes antillaises by Claudie Beauvue-Fougeyrollas. Among the works that view marriage in a more literary context is a section of Édouard Glissant’s Le discours antillais.12 In the section entitled “Le vécu antillais” [The Antillean life], Glissant describes the lack of family structure in Martinique as “l’anti-famille” (p. 166), a term that could just as easily be applied to Guadeloupean and Haitian families. Glissant depicts the family in these terms: “Accouplement d’une femme et d’un homme pour le profit d’un maître. . . . C’est la femme qui a ainsi parfois refusé de porter dans ses flancs le profit du maître. L’histoire de l’institution familiale à la Martinique est boutée sur ce refus” (p. 266) [The coupling of a man and woman for the master’s profit. . . . It is the woman who sometimes refused to carry the master’s profit in her womb. The story of the Martinican family institution is based on this refusal].13

Introduction 

7

Non-conformity to the European family structure was the slaves’ way of signifying resistance as well as a way of affirming their African identity. In Caribbean family structures, there are traces of African traditions that honor the matrilineal heritage whereby cultural traditions and histories are passed on through women and the extended family. Examples of African and Caribbean traditions can be observed in Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle by Simone Schwarz-Bart, where the Lougandor women are the guardians of tradition and the people in the village of Fond Zombi form an extended communal family to help one another through the hardships of everyday life. Concerning marriage in Africa, there are texts such as Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in a Haussa Society in Niger, 1900-1989 by Barbara MacGowan Cooper, African Marriage and Social Change by Lucy Philip Mair, The Sociology of the African Family by Diane Kayongo-Male and Philista Onyango and Transformations of African Marriage by David Nyamwaya and David Parkin, which focus mainly on the social nature of marriage in Africa. An exception to this type of analysis is found in La parole aux négresses by Awa Thiam. This interesting sociological study provides a space for several Francophone African women from different countries and backgrounds to discuss their marriages. There are compelling parallels linking the representation of marriage in Africa and the Caribbean. The majority of the inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands are descendants of slaves from Africa, and even though the islands have been in contact with Europe for more than three centuries, the African presence is still evident there. Consequently, there is a hybridization of African, Amerindian, Asian, Indian, and European cultures in the Caribbean. In his essay “The Caribbean: Crossroads of the Americas,” Rex Nettleford argues: “Admittedly there have emerged out of this mélange of differing cultures distinctive Creole forms known as Plantation America, where Europe and Africa met and interacted on foreign soil, Meso-America where the ancestral native American cultures met with Europe and interacted on American soil, and Euro-America where Europe overseas, despite the encounters with others, has managed to establish hegemonic political, religious, economic, and social sway over large tracts of real estate and the minds of millions.”14 The marriage structures found in both the Caribbean and Africa are due in part to colonialism: The conflicts that come about in marriage via religious and cultural beliefs are to a great extent conflicts that have their roots in the slavery and colonization periods. The Middle Passage, whereby millions of African slaves were transported to the Caribbean, is an historical reality evident in the social structure there. This reality is manifested in the cultural and social métissage that comprises the Caribbean. The

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Introduction

Caribbean marriage structure in many ways reflects a métissage of different cultures. Apart from Europe and Africa, the socio-cultural matrix in the French Caribbean is made up of Chinese, Indian, Lebanese, Syrian, and American components that sometimes influence marriage because some of these sub-groups want to intermarry to maintain their cultural bonds. This is somewhat similar to many countries and communities in French-speaking Africa where people want to marry only within their ethnic group. What is noteworthy is that in many cases, neither Caribbean nor African marriage structures completely follow the rules of the church or those of the state. This book is divided into seven chapters.15 Each highlights a particular theme in regard to the realm of marriage in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean. A particular chapter may focus more on the Caribbean or Africa, depending on the theme that it covers. The first chapter, “Marriage and Gender Politics,” examines the link between the political and social implications of feminism and gender. Marriage implies “two becoming one.” However, in the male-oriented societies of the Francophone areas in question, the man often determines the rules because he is usually regarded as superior to the woman. Thus, the idea of “two becoming one” reinforces male domination in this gender hierarchy in that it implies the erasure of the woman. Within the context of marriage, this hierarchy can manifest itself in concrete terms. The book further reinforces the study of marriage with feminist, or more accurately womanist, and pan-Africanist discourses on gender. The theoretical writings of Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Juliana Makuchi NfahAbbenyi, Irène D’Almeida, Buchi Emecheta, Renée Larrier, Obioma Nnaemeka, Clenora Hudson-Weems, Susan Arndt, Patricia Mohammed, Michelle Rowley, Maryse Condé, Christine Barrow, and Eudine Barriteau, among others, are fundamental to my analysis. In The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, Oyèrònké Oyewùmì argues that feminism as it is understood in Western culture cannot be easily applied to African women. As for her and some Caribbean and African women scholars, many of the discourses on gender are based on the experience of Western women, and most of the time they have little relation to the experiences of African and Caribbean women. Over the course of the past two decades, several critics have challenged the gender categories of Western feminists and rejected the label “feminism” in favor of “womanism.” These two terms are not so different in that both of them advocate women’s political, religious, and social rights. However, the term “womanism” for these writers implies greater cultural specificity and refers to the particular situations of women, whereas “feminism” tends to suggest a sort of biological, “female” universal. “Womanism” appears to be a

Introduction 

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clearer way of underscoring the specific situations of women in Africa and the Caribbean. By contrast, as we will see in this chapter, terms such as “Western feminism,” “Africana womanism” and “womanism” are problematic because they vary depending upon the location of the person who is defining it. There are different types of feminisms, and they must be contextualized appropriately based on the cultural, social, economic, political, and religious specificities of the country or region. The second chapter, “Marriage, Sexuality and the Body,” focuses on sexuality and the body as it connects to marriage. The body is an important element in marriage, because physical intimacy is a component of marriage. During sexual intercourse, there can sometimes be a union of bodies which, in turn, may help to nourish the marital bond. However, when one partner feels that he/she gives only of his/her body, there can be no fulfillment. The third chapter, “Marriage and Motherhood,” considers how motherhood fits into marriage by analyzing Fureurs et cris de femmes (1989) by Angèle Rawiri and Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles (1981), a series of testimonials by France Alibar and Pierrette Lembeye-Boy. Chapter four, “Marriage, Religion, and Polygymy,” analyzes the literary representation of marriage within the framework of religious beliefs and identities. In the cultural context that this book considers, marriage is intrinsically linked to religion. Religion is an important part of culture in that it conditions gender, class, socio-economic, and political status. In the case of West Africa, the influence of Islam, particularly on the lives of women, is scrutinized. In Le harem politique: le prophète et les femmes (1987), Fatima Mernissi describes how Islamic commentators have manipulated the image and role of women described by the Prophet to their own advantage: “Selon celui qui l’utilise, le texte sacré peut être une aire d’évasion ou une clôture infranchissable. Il peut être cette musique inhabituelle qui prépare au rêve ou une routine désolante. Tout dépend de celui qui l’invoque” [According to the person using it, the sacred text can be a sphere of escape or an insurmountable fence. It can be this unusual music that allows for dreaming or for a distressing routine. It all depends on who is using it] (84). In the French Caribbean where (except for Haiti) the main official religion is Christianity, those who do not necessarily follow the church’s rules very closely may still choose a traditional church wedding to conform to the societal demands of marriage as a performance and a reflection of their status in the community. On the other hand, some people in the Caribbean never marry in the Church even if they have been living together for years because they do not have the financial means to have a “church wedding.” Although polygyny is not legal in the Caribbean, it exists in a non-official form; I problematize it

10



Introduction

by referring to it as “cultural polygyny.” In the case of Haiti, I will discuss the importance of Vodou marriages. In April 2003, the Haitian government, under the leadership of then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, recognized Vodou as an official religion, meaning that Vodou wedding ceremonies have equal standing to Christian wedding ceremonies. Within the Vodou religion, there is the human marriage (man/woman) and there is the spiritual marriage. With this recognition, the human marriage is blossoming, whereas the spiritual marriage when an individual marries a lwa (spirit) has always existed. Chapter five, “Polygyny, AIDS, Sexuality and Status,” explores the connections between social status and polygyny; it also problematizes the issue of AIDS and its links to polygyny through Sidagamie (1998) by Abibatou Traoré. Chapter six, “Marriage, Métissage and Identity,” investigates how métissage affects marriage. In a marital relationship, one of the individuals is often absorbed into the identity (cultural, religious, or social) of the other, which brings about recurring conflicts between the individual self and the married self. These conflicts are particularly noticeable in cases where the newly married woman must make a place for herself within a new family structure and community. For instance, in Un chant écarlate (1981) by Mariama Bâ, one of the protagonists, Ousmane, sees both of the women he takes in terms of their race/color and this affects his marriage. In Juletane (1982) by Myriam Warner-Vieyra, both protagonists feel exiled while living in their husbands’ native land, Africa. In both cases, they become insane because they have lost their identities within their new family structures and communities. These protagonists are objectified by their husbands and by the communities in which they live. However, Bâ and Warner-Vieyra give them agency by affording them a voice. The relationship between slavery and métissage as well as the myth of the privileged female slave are challenged. Furthermore, Frantz Fanon’s Peau noire, masques blancs (1952) is analyzed with regard to his critique of Je suis Martiniquaise (1948) by Mayotte Capécia and Nini, mûlatresse du Sénégal (1947) by Abdoulaye Sadji. Chapter seven, “Women, Marriage, and National Identity,” investigates the correlation between marriage and national identity. Marriage can be viewed as a site of resistance that can be used to help shape the nation. A nation can be built only when everyone has an opportunity to contribute. The family, in its various forms, constitutes the backbone of the community only when all its members are given equal opportunities for growth. In Une si longue lettre, Bâ establishes the links among the individual, the community, and the nation. She challenges the notion that the extended family must come before the couple and suggests that marriage is the foundation of the new nation.

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Because marriage is fundamental to most societies, it extends beyond the simple union between two individuals. In many instances, it helps to structure and maintains the constraints that the nation places on individuals, in particular, women. Moreover, marriage often helps to determine the role of women as contributing individuals and as citizens of their particular society. The four elements—individual, family, community, and nation—are interrelated, and each element assists in the proper functioning and support of the other three. In the conclusion to the book, further avenues of inquiry and redefinition of marriage are suggested based on mutual respect and understanding between partners.

Notes 1. Marriage: Just a Piece of Paper? PBS. WYES, New Orleans, 14 February 2002. In a PBS presentation entitled Marriage: Just a Piece of Paper? one of the critics interviewed notes that in the Western Christian traditions since the fifth century, marriage has been considered from four basic points of view: a spiritual or sacramental institution, a social estate subject to the expectations of the local community, a contract dependent upon the consent of two individuals, and a natural association created and ordained by God and subject to moral or natural laws. 2. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church redefined marriage as a personal affair between two individuals rather than as a contract between families. From 1100 to 1400, the Church declared that consent was the basis of a marriage. This new idea brought about confusion because there were instances when a woman thought she was married and the man thought he wasn’t. The Reformation period tried to change this by making marriage a public affair; thereafter, the Council of Trent had formal marital requirements such as parental consent (particularly when the individuals being married were minors), witnesses, registration of property of the two individuals, and a Church consecration. It was during this time that the state and the church became allies in order to protect the institution of marriage. The Renaissance period (about 1350 to 1550) is an important milestone in the modern view of marriage: Marriage is no longer simply a sacrament; by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, marriage went from being considered a public sacramental covenant to a private legal contract; the Enlightenment period (1700-1850) focused on the individual’s right in marriage. There were many steps involved before marriage was considered an individual choice made by two people. 3. Édouard Glissant, “Le retour et le détour,” in Le discours antillais. (Paris: Gallimard, 1997). Glissant problematizes the crossing from Africa to the New World and how it is the basis to understand Caribbean identity or the lack of identity. Glissant constantly stresses the fact that the Caribbean people must put together different “traces” to create a history, because the official history has been obliterated.

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4. Aissata Sidikou, Recreating Words, Reshaping World (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2001). 5. I am only focusing on heterosexual marriages between men and women in this book. 6. Polygyny is defined as the state or practice of having two or more wives at the same time. 7. Merril Tenney, The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 1967), 511. 8. Genesis 2:18. 9. I Corinthians 7:9. 10. Koran 2:229. 11. Koran 4:4. 12. Glissant, Le discours antillais. 13. Although there is an English translation of Le discours antillais by J. Michael Dash, Caribbean Discourse (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989), it has only some selected essays. Unless otherwise noted, all translation from French to English are mine. 14. Rex Nettleford, “The Caribbean: Crossroads of the Americas,” Social Studies 83 (1992): 5-11. 15. Some of the texts are discussed in more than one chapter.

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Marriage and Gender Politics

We are not born men and women, but we do become our gender. We each take our biological script and shape it into something we define as our gender and our sexuality. . . . Whether it upsets our equilibrium or not to admit this . . . the biological and social possibilities of gender and sexuality are perhaps not limitless, but certainly changeable and variable across, and within, space and time. —Patricia Mohammed, “The Material of Gender” Quand une femme n’a que le droit de ne pas avoir de droits, elle n’a aucun droit. [When a woman only has the right not to have any rights, she has no rights.]1 —Awa Thiam, La parole aux négresses

Marriage, an institution that is important in the definition of gender roles, is crucial in any feminist or “womanist” attempts to redefine female subjectivity. A particular culture or community often determines women’s role in marriage, depending upon what that culture or community deems proper for her. These rules or standards for living have usually been set in place by the church, the patriarchal order—that is, the male hierarchical structure that governs most aspects of society—customary laws, and or tradition. They determine how women should conduct themselves, what they can and cannot

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Chapter One

do with their bodies, and what rights they may or may not have in a marriage contract. In fact, it is difficult to talk about marriage without taking into account the political and social implications of feminism and gender politics. This chapter describes how heterosexual marriage and the gender politics emerging from reflection on this institution are represented in African and Caribbean works. It considers the challenges that arise when discussing gender and attempting to find the right terminology to adequately describe it. It also elaborates on reasons some African and Caribbean women thinkers reject the term “feminist” or find it problematic. The chapter mainly focuses on two testimonial works: La parole aux négresses by the Senegalese writer, Awa Thiam, and Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles by France Alibar and Pierrette Lembeye-Boy. These works explore the woman’s role in marriage and how her identity is affected by it. My analysis demonstrates how these texts establish a space to deconstruct woman as object and silent subject in marriage, thereby allowing her to view herself as a whole being. In the cultural imagination of many ethnic, racial, religious, or social groups, what it means to be a woman and the role of women in marriage have historically been defined and conceived by the male literary canon. I will subvert this canon by focusing on non-canonical texts that either challenge this definition or deconstruct it completely. Christopher Miller, in Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa, examines the fact that the African woman has been represented almost exclusively and spoken about by others, mainly male colonizers and male colonized. In his analysis of one of Senghor’s canonical Négritude poems, “Femme noire,” Miller notes how the woman is objectified, and the poet speaks through her: “In the days of colonialism and anti-colonialism, it was thought that certain forms of liberation had to precede others: first racial liberation, then, eventually, perhaps, gender liberation. Rarely stated explicitly, but highly influential, this thesis is often at work within the history of African literature” (259). Unfortunately, several decades after “racial liberation,” “gender liberation” has still not been attained. Far too often, the African woman’s mouth is still unable to speak directly. The patriarchal order is still speaking for her and about her. This is even more evident within the context of a marriage bond where women’s rights are, in the cultural contexts that interest me, often limited. Taafe Fanga, a 1997 film from Malian filmmaker, Adama Drabo, depicts gender and sexual politics in Africa in an insightful and humorous way. Taafe Fanga, literally translated as “Skirt Power,” is a film that takes place among the eighteenth-century Dogon. Through magic and cleverness, the women manage to make the men believe that in order to survive they must

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exchange roles with them. Thus, the women become the hunters, drinkers, and bosses, while the men have to assume the roles of women and tasks such as cooking, cleaning, taking care of the house and children, and being sexually available. The film begins with a griot who enters and tells the audience: “We griots can find in the past the answer to today’s and tomorrow’s questions.” Following this declaration, a young woman enters the room and sits with the men. She is shunned for disobeying the rules of different seating for women (skirts) and men (pants). However, it becomes clear that she is not any woman; when a man tries to strike her, she overpowers him and sits with the men. The griot praises her and inquires whether she is angel or human. He tells her that she reminds him of a story of the past involving the Dogon women who lived near the Niger River in Mali. Thus begins the story of how the women take over the village when they find a mask with magical powers that makes gender role reversal possible. In the griot’s story, a woman, Yayemé, is whipped by her husband Agro after she asked him to go fetch wood (a woman’s job). Angry, she goes to get the wood herself and encounters several dwarf spirits. She defeats one of the spirits in a wrestling match and takes its mask. At the village festival, she hides behind the mask, and everyone is afraid of her. She uses their fear to command that men be women in a carnivalesque twist. Unfortunately, this cannot last long because the spirit demands the mask be returned—if not, the village will suffer. The film raises some important questions, such as what will happen if women rule for a period of time? How would that affect society? Would there be a more equitable society? The film offers a possible answer to these questions when Timbe, the wife of a village elder, states: “Men and women are here to complement each other. Let’s use our power now to bring equality among us. Let’s share everything: work, happiness and misfortune.” Adama Drabo, the film director, states that he was inspired by the role women played in the 1991 Malian revolution as well as by a program he heard on Malian radio about Dogon cosmology. The Dogon believe that Amma, who created the world, requires careful balance of opposing energies (male and female) in order to keep the world orderly. It does not mean that the male should control the female, rather that they should work together to equilibrate their two energies.2 In this case, order is used as power to control the women. Likewise, as we will see in the works studied, the construction of gender roles is often misused to maintain the status quo in marriage. The status quo is usually maintained by a religious, social, or customary law. Generally, the Bible, the Koran, and customary laws alike counsel women to obey

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their husbands in all circumstances. Although there are progressive interpretations of the Bible and the Koran that do not read these holy books as subjugating the woman to the man, more often than not, they are viewed as such. According to the Koran, Allah gives a husband the right to have several wives as long as he can provide for all of them. Many men interpret this principle loosely and collect wives even when they cannot provide for them. Likewise, some Christian cultures interpret the Bible as suggesting that women are subservient to men, believing that women must always serve their husbands, children, family, and community before caring for themselves. As the texts show, female children in Africa and the Caribbean, like in many other places around the world, are brought up and trained from a young age to become wives and obey their husbands. A biased reading of foundational religious texts seems to allow men to tell themselves “You are the sole chief of your house. God/Allah puts you in charge and you must do whatever it takes to stay there. Your wife is/wives are put on this earth to obey, honor, respect, and serve you by any means you deem necessary.” It is not surprising, then, that marriage, one locus of gender relations, should be such an important topos of African and Caribbean literature and cinema. Irène D’Almeida, in the introduction to her critical work, Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence, has two diagrams representing concentric and intersected circles to show the complexity of women negotiating identities within the context of self, family, and society. Marriage is an institution that could fit in all three circles because it is so intrinsically linked to self, family, and society. Fortunately, more and more women are reshaping and questioning their identity in marriage and are viewing themselves as individuals capable of making choices. In several of the texts studied in this chapter, the female protagonists take charge of their lives by challenging the social boundaries that use gender difference to justify the subservience of women. In some cases, the protagonists are able to transgress these boundaries within the institution of marriage. The writers, mostly women, give a voice to these formerly silent female figures, thus transforming them from object to subject. By giving voice to their existence, the women in these texts express a need for the world to recognize that they are human beings with the same rights as men. Because these rights are not clearly established, many women exist mainly through their partners, since they must depend on the latter financially and socially. Many of the texts analyzed attempts to recast this state of affairs.

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Feminism and gender studies are two significant approaches to texts that have shaped literary criticism and literature, particularly in the latter part of the twentieth-century, and which continue to affect literary thinking in the twenty-first century. Several studies on different aspects of feminism and gender have appeared in disciplines ranging from law to history, from literature to sociology and religion. Women from all over the world—be it in Africa, the Caribbean, Canada, or the United States—often disagree about what it means to be a “feminist.” Terms such as “Negofeminism,” “womanism,” “Africana womanism,” “Motherism,” coined respectively by Obioma Nnaemeka, Alice Walker, Clenora Hudson-Weems, and Catherine Acholonu, have been widely used by scholars. Critics such as Buchi Emecheta, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Bessie Head even reject the label “feminist” and prefer “womanist,” following Alice Walker’s use of the term, because they feel that the term “feminist” refers to an ethnocentric middle-class Western European ideology. They believe that “Western” feminism does not account for gender oppression, since it differs according to the specific economic, social, and political conditions women face.3 The term “Western” is problematic because, “Western feminism” is itself a fractured concept, with factions such as radical, liberal, Marxist, and socialist, to name a few. Feminists of color such as bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis, Barbara Smith, Filomina Steady, and Audre Lorde, among others have debated over “Western feminism” and use concepts such as “Black feminism” and “womanism.” Like “Western feminism,” the term “Black feminism” is also problematic, because critics who choose this term sometimes do not agree on what it represents. Similar to the African American and African women critics, Caribbean women critics such as Eudine Barriteau, Patricia Mohammed, Consuelo López-Springfield, Barbara Bailey, Michelle Rowley, and Elsa Leo-Rhynie, to name but a few, problematize the difficulty of theorizing gender and feminism in the Caribbean context. These critics expose the danger of considering the Caribbean as one entity without taking into account the specificity of race, class, political status, and language. The Caribbean is a region where a variety of identities intersect and intermingle.4 In the introduction to Contemporary Feminist Theories, Stevi Jackson and Jackie Jones propose one possible definition of feminist theory as an ideology that “seeks to analyze the conditions which shape women’s lives and to explore cultural understandings of what it means to be a woman” (1). This statement echoes Molara Ogundipe-Leslie’s definition of feminism as “recognizing woman as a human being.”5 These critics recognize feminist theory as a tool that can be used to unite women and help them think about the notion of gender. At the same time, they, like many others, challenge the notion of a

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unilateral and universal concept of women. They argue that women constitute a heterogeneous group with different positions and relationships with regard to political, social, religious, and economic structures. Ethnicity, education, language, family, class, nationality, and sexuality are key topics in any discussion of marriage and gender politics. Following these ideologies of feminism and gender that frame current polemics in gender studies, the politics of marriage and gender are studied as well as femininity, self-identity, female mutilation, and motherhood. Certain feminist/womanist theorists argue about the danger in applying traditional, non-inclusive, Eurocentric feminist theories to Francophone Africa and Caribbean literatures due to different realities. In Feminist Thought, Rosemary Tong explains that “feminist theory is not one, but many theories or perspectives [which] attempt to describe women’s oppression, to explain its causes and consequences and to prescribe strategies for women’s liberation” (p. 1). Some African critics such as Abena Busia and Molara Ogundipe-Leslie do not reject the term ‘feminism’ as opposed to critics such as Ama Ata Aidoo who has stated with regard to feminism: “Feminism. You know how we feel about that embarrassing Western philosophy? The destroyer of homes. Imported mainly from America to ruin nice African homes.”6 For Aidoo, the idea of “feminism” is evil, anti-family, and not culturally specific. She views it as another opportunity for women from America to speak for, on behalf of, and about African women. For her, feminism is another idea that is imported like American cars or fast food. Like Aidoo, Buchi Emecheta also rejects the feminist label because of her personal and political beliefs. In a 1980 interview she states: I am a feminist with a small “f.” I love men and good men are the salt of the earth. But to tell me that we should abolish marriage like the capital “F” (Feminist) woman who says women should live together and all that, I say NO! Personally I’d like to see the ideal, happy marriage. But if it doesn’t work, for goodness sake, call it off.7

What comes out of this statement is a selective understanding of feminism. Such expression reflects the complexity of the term feminism. In the introduction to La parole des femmes (1979), Maryse Condé states: “Tout ce qui touche à la femme noire est objet de controverse. L’Occident s’est horrifié de sa sujétion à l’homme, s’est apitoyé sur ses ‘mutilations sexuelles,’ et s’est voulu l’initiateur de sa libération” [All that relates to the black woman is an object of controversy. The West was horrified by her subjugation to man, they pitied her ‘sexual mutilations’ and wanted to be the initiator of her lib-

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eration] (3). Condé makes it sound like there are not black women in the West, and also like “black woman” is a monolithic category. For Condé, the West presumes to decide which issues concerning the black woman are important, even as Condé herself presumes “the West” and “the black woman” as singular entities. This statement proves the problematic and limitation of naming, of categorizing, of using words like “western.” Thus, colonialist ideologies too often continue to set the agenda and maintain the status quo in regard to the black woman who is being talked for. Fortunately, there are many instances where black women have taken the opportunity to voice their opinions, even in hostile climates—as critics such as Buchi Emecheta and Ama Ata Aidoo have demonstrated. In these contexts, the choice of the feminist or womanist label becomes very problematic. In her essay entitled “Why I Do Not Call Myself a Feminist,” Madhu Kishwar discusses Western feminism and the Indian woman’s struggle: The general flow of ideas and of labels is one way—from west to east, in the overall context of a highly imbalanced power relation, feminism, as appropriated and defined by the west, has too often become a tool of cultural imperialism. The definitions, the terminology, the assumptions, even the issues, the forms of struggle and institutions are exported from west to east, and too often we are expected to be the echo of what are assumed to be more advanced women’s movements in the West.8

Like Aidoo, Emecheta, and Condé, Kishwar is skeptical about the “Western” notion of feminism and believes in a type of local feminism that is suitable for and adapted into a local context. What is interesting is that, apart from the label “Western feminism,” Kishwar’s ideologies are not very different from liberal feminism in the United States. For all three women though, the feminist should be first and foremost a humanist who is concerned with the cultural, economic, political, religious, and social forces that influence women’s lives. Susan Arndt, in The Dynamics of African Feminism: Defining and Classifying African-Feminist Literatures, analyzes the complexity of defining “African feminism.” She focuses on some main points in regard to “the African-feminist discourse”: ending discrimination against women in public life, redefining gender-specific roles leading to oppression in the family, and “amend[ing] unwholesome individual and collective conceptions of wo/manhood” among others (71–72). Similarly, Patricia Mohammed notes the diversity of feminism and feminist theory that exists in the Caribbean and that have taken into account issues of class, race, ethnicity, and nationhood, among others. She refers to the

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link between gender and feminist as “a marriage of convenience.”9 Likewise, Michelle Rowley “maintain[s] that gender and development cannot be apolitical or assume positions of neutrality.”10 Because of the complexity and confusion that arise with the use of the term “feminism,” some critics speak in terms of womanism, black feminism, African feminism, Third World feminism, Africana Womanism and Afrocentric feminism, to name a few. The term womanism, coined by Alice Walker in the early eighties, describes a feminism that historically, politically, economically, and socially takes into account issues of race, class, and color. In two of her insightful books, Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves (3rd Edition 1995) and Africana Womanist Literary Theory (2004), Clenora Hudson-Weems highlights the importance and necessity for women of African descent to name themselves and also consider issues of feminism from the perspectives of race, class, and gender.11 Regardless of the term used by African and Caribbean critics, there is no doubt that the issue of gender and womanist/feminist concepts are both central and crucial to the understanding of Francophone African and Caribbean literature and culture and particularly to the representation of marriage. Most countries in Africa and the Caribbean have suffered the plights and destruction of colonization; the Caribbean has also gone through the plantation era, which has left its scars on the institutions of marriage and the family. In the Caribbean, the plantation structure, as a mode of creating social order, completely destroyed the family structure by preventing women and men from being a family unit or from being married whether legally or in the form of plaçage. Furthermore, both men and women were considered property of the master and could be sold to other plantation owners. Such setting did not provide a space for family and marriage to be nourished. In chapter 6, “Marriage, Métissage, and Identity,” I discuss the sexual exploitation of the slave women by the master in the plantation, how sexuality was used to support the plantation and how the very nature of the plantations contributed to the decadence of marriage, the family structure, and objectification of black women. Francophone women writers are fighting against this objectification that continues from various fronts. The harsh life of women on the plantation is an example of the type of topic that should be thought about more when discussing feminism/womanism. In an interview with critic Flora Veit-Wild, Tsitsi Dangarembga notes: “The white Western feminism does not meet my experiences at a certain point, the issues of me as a black woman. The black American female

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writers touch more of me than the white ones.”12 Critics such as Dangarembga again raise the issues of who is speaking for whom and who has the right to speak for whom, but with an important difference: They also examine how that right has been acquired. In most cases, the politics of sex and gender are directly related to the economic politics of power. Dangarembga notes that for a long time gender discourses have remained a one-way affair in which Western critics focus primarily on female circumcision, the lack of female sexual pleasure in Africa, and the inequality of the sexes. This is not to say that for Dangarembga these issues are not important, but they are not the only issues that must be taken into account. In her article, “Transcending the Boundaries of Power and Imperialism: Writing Gender, Constructing Knowledge,” Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka states: “Gender cannot be the only organizing principle for African feminism: colonial imperialism brings in its wake multiple levels of sociocultural destabilization that affect both men and women located in that colonized space” (47). She warns against applying certain Eurocentric theories to the African women’s life: Regarding current theories in feminist analysis, I specifically questioned the relevance of deconstruction to the analysis of African women’s conditions. Despite its subversion on the basis of power hierarchy, deconstruction is essentially Eurocentric and male-focused. I believe deconstruction and a number of white-based feminist theories negate the specific experiences of African women constructed twice over as subordinate under what I call double patriarchy. African women have to endure the patriarchy of European colonization and cultures in addition to the patriarchal structures of their own cultures. (47)

This applies as well to Caribbean women’s conditions. In the introduction to Reclaiming Difference: Caribbean Women Rewrite Postcolonialism, Carine M. Mardorossian analyzes the works of writers such as Jean Rhys, Maryse Condé, Edwidge Danticat, and Julia Alvarez and notes that “Caribbean women writers radically reformulate the meanings of the national, geographical, sexual, and racial concepts through which postcolonial studies has been configuring difference. . . . [In] their novels . . . [they defy] the transgression of national, racial, gender and class boundaries [that] radically challenges the categorical affirmations of identity that defined early anticolonialism” (1–2). As I investigate the links between marriage and feminism/womanism, one key issue that arises is that of women identity/ies. Among the debates about the various names, “feminism,” “womanism,” “Africana womanism,” “African

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feminism,” “Stiwanism,” “Motherism,” “Negofeminism,” etc., what remains clear is that women from around the world have what critic Adrien Katherine Wing called “Global Multiplicative Identities,” in her introduction to Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader. Maybe we should speak of “global multiplicative feminism.” It matters less what term is used, but more importantly, it is how each woman applies the term to her own life within her community and her multiple identities. By “Global Multiplicative Identities,” Wing challenges women and men alike to look at women’s identities from various intersections: gender, race, class, nationality, ethnicity, color, sexual orientation, religion, language, minority status, pregnancy status, and marital status among others (7). “Feminism/womanism” is like a tree with roots from Africa, America, Europe, Asia, etc. The branches of the tree change continuously depending upon the season (the country or community), and that must be understood. From each main branch, there are sub-branches (that is, the various issues that prevail in a particular community). When the tree understands and accepts that it needs all the branches and sub-branches to be stronger, there will be a mutual understanding. As the link between gender and marriage for women is investigated, each woman’s particular experience must be taken into account. Each text is examined in its context: the country, region, or community from which it originates. For many of the African and Caribbean women we will encounter, they negotiate their gender identity within the framework of marriage by creating a space of their own and by taking the word as one takes a weapon to fight. Access to the word is sometimes just as important as equality because being able to voice one’s problem can be liberating and empowering. It also sets the space to start looking for solution. The struggles of Caribbean/African women differ radically from those in countries such as Canada, the United States, France, or Switzerland. While the women in these countries have, in many cases, gained the necessary elements for survival and are struggling against the patriarchal order to have a better economic standing, the Caribbean/African woman is in many instances simply trying to meet her basic physiological needs and to obtain economic independence for herself and her children. These women are often struggling against colonialism, neo-colonialism, the economic structure, and patriarchy on religious, social, and cultural levels. Thiam, La parole aux négresses and Alibar and Lembeye-Boy, Le couteau seul are testimonial works13 that touch on many facets of women’s lives in Africa and the Caribbean, including marriage. These texts are important because their authors encourage the women narrators to tell their own stories, to describe their plights in their

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own words and thereby giving themselves a voice. Awa Thiam, the author/editor of La parole aux négresses, observes: Alors que les femmes des pays industrialisés concentrent leurs efforts entre autres sur la recherche et la création d’un discours typiquement féminin, l’Afrique noire et ses filles en sont, elles, au stade de la recherche de leur dignité, de la reconnaissance de leur spécificité d’êtres humains. Cette spécificité leur a toujours été refusée par les Blancs colonialistes ou néo-colonialistes et leurs mêmes nègres. [. . .] Il ne s’agit point de dire “Sœurs négresses faites attention! La lutte des femmes des pays industrialisés n’est pas la nôtre,” mais tout simplement de rappeler, quoique certaines en soient conscientes, que notre lutte à nous, Négresses, ne se situe pas toujours au même niveau que celles des femmes européennes. Nos revendications primordiales ne sont pas les mêmes. (153) [While women in industrialized countries focus their efforts on, among other things, the search for and creation of a typically feminine discourse, black Africa and her daughters are still searching for their dignity and acknowledging their specificity as human beings. They were always denied this specificity by the white colonialists or neo-colonialists and their own black counterparts. (. . .) It is hardly enough to say: “Black sisters, be careful! The struggles of women in industrialized countries is not our struggle,” but instead simply to remind, though some might already be conscious of it, that our struggle as black women is not always on the same level as that of European women. Our principal demands are not the same.]

These words echo the ideologies of several twentieth and twenty-first century novelists and critics such as Maryse Condé, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Calixte Beyala, Marie Chauvet, Irène Assiba D’Almeida, Obioma Nnaemeka, Buchi Emecheta, Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi, and Renée Larrier, who prioritize representations of women in their works while taking into account the importance of communities and cultures. These writers know that the struggle is far from being over. African women have to deal with polygyny, mutilating sexual practices, and forced marriages, among other issues. Exploitation and oppression therefore exist at different levels and in different forms than in the West. As Thiam notes in La parole aux négresses, some Western feminists have made and continue to make the mistake of comparing the condition of women as a gender to the condition of all blacks during slavery: “Les femmes sont les Noirs de l’humanité” [Women are the blacks of humanity].14 In that case, she asks, Where does the black woman who has been enslaved and continues to

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be marginalized within the marriage contract fit into the equation? This is another reason why discourses around feminism and gender in Africa and the Caribbean must differ from those focused on European countries or the United States and Canada. The condition of the women described demystifies the common romantic notion of the African woman representing the Earth, the Nation, and Mother Africa that was promoted by some Négritude thinkers: Il faut se débarasser du mythe du matriarcat dans les sociétés négro-africaines. Si le fait de décider en partie ou entièrement des mariages des enfants et/ou de régler les travaux ménagers et l’entretien de leur foyer peut être assimilé à un pouvoir de la femme, c’est là une grave erreur. Même erreur si on assimile système matrilinéaire à matriarcat. Quand une femme n’a que le droit de ne pas avoir de droits, elle n’a aucun droit. [. . .] Le Nègre en Afrique noire, dispose non seulement de sa vie mais aussi de celle de sa femme.15 (21–22) [We have to get rid of the matriarchal myth in Negro-African societies. If the fact of deciding in part or completely their children’s marriages and/or taking care of the household chores and keeping up the home can be equated to a form of power for women, that is a big mistake. It is the same as confusing matrilineal systems with matriarchy. When a woman only has the right not to have any rights, she has no rights. (. . .) The Black male in Africa is in charge of his own life as well as his wife’s.]

In La parole aux négresses, Thiam argues that the matriarchal myth hides an insidious message: Women must not challenge the status quo. After all, religion supports the way the man treats her. Unlike Senghor, who thinks that the African woman has long been liberated, Thiam believes that she must wake up and liberate herself by not accepting her fate, by questioning the disadvantageous structures and traditions that are in place, and by not being a silent and subordinate observer. In Thiam’s text, women from a number of African countries and different socio-economic and religious backgrounds offer their testimonials of married life. At the age of eighteen, Yacine, a Malian living in Bamako, is given in marriage to an Ivorian man. They move to Côte d’Ivoire and have two children. While they are still living in a one-room house and barely surviving, the husband decides to take a second wife. Yacine recounts her plight: Je fus enceinte pour la troisième fois après cinq ans de mariage. C’est lors de cette grossesse, qu’un soir vers vingt-trois heures, en rentrant de voyage, mon mari s’amena avec une jeune femme. “C’est ma nouvelle épouse, elle s’appelle X . . ., me dit-il. Tu vas devoir nous céder le lit. . . .” [. . .] Il fallait que je cède

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ma couche à cette nouvelle venue, ma rivale. Quel culot! me dis-je intérieurement. [. . .] Comme une automate à moitié endormie, je pris la natte et m’y installai avec mes deux enfants. J’avais opté pour le silence et la soumission. Qu’aurais-je pu faire d’autre? Me révolter? (p. 24) [I was pregnant for the third time after having been married for five years. It is during this pregnancy that, one night, my husband came home from a trip with a young woman. “This is my new wife, her name is X . . ., he says. You will have to give us the bed. . . .” (. . .) I had to give up my bed to this newcomer, my rival. The nerve! I thought to myself. (. . .) Like a half-asleep robot, I took the mat and settled with my two children. I had chosen silence and submission. What else could I have done? Revolt?]

Since Yacine depends on her husband for her financial well-being, it is difficult for her to take charge of her destiny. The situation quickly deteriorates to the point where she can no longer deal with a ménage à trois that she never agreed to. She sells the gold jewelry that was given to her by her father and returns to her mother’s home in Bamako after the birth of her third child. When she tells her husband that she is leaving him, he merely laughs. He does not take her seriously because she depends upon him financially. She leaves him nonetheless and returns to her mother’s house with her children. Not many women have the opportunity to escape an unsatisfactory situation or are capable of making such a drastic decision. Yacine’s husband sends one of his friends to Bamako to convince her mother to force her daughter to return. The mother insists that her son-in-law pay child support and alimony for the six months that they have lived with her. Yacine has been surviving on her own by selling different products at the market. She concludes her story by saying that three polygynous men are after her, but she is not ready to pursue that kind of relationship even though her surroundings pressure her to end her celibacy (28). Although Yacine is constrained by those around her to marry again, she is cautious since she now views marriage in a new light. However, she lives in an environment that condemns a woman living alone. Furthermore, in order to survive economically, she will probably be forced to marry again, maybe even to a man who already has at least one wife. A special virtue of this testimonial literary form is that it provides a space for the women to voice their oppression. By doing so, they come to a new awareness of gender oppression. The awareness allows the women to think about ways to fight this oppression and to be empowered.

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Like Yacine, Médina, another woman whose testimonial appears in Thiam’s text, is given into marriage by her grandfather to a distant cousin who is studying in Saudi Arabia. Only after her family made the decision did they mention it to her: En effet, tout s’est passé comme si je n’existais pas, tout s’est décidé sans que j’aie un mot à dire. J’étais sidérée, mais je tentais vainement de n’en rien faire paraître comme le veulent mon éducation et le milieu socio-culturel dans lequel j’évolue. (30) [In fact, everything happened as if I did not exist, everything was decided without my having a say in it. I was dumbfounded, but I tried in vain not to let it show, as my education and the socio-cultural surrounding in which I was brought up has taught me.]

Médina was taught at an early age to be silent before the patriarchal order, embodied, in this case, by her grandfather. The arrangements for her marriage take place in the absence of her future husband which is still a common custom in some areas when marriage arrangements are made between the two families. This type of exchange is similar to buying merchandise. Once officially married, Médina receives a picture and letter from her husband. Upon returning to school, she meets and falls in love with a fellow classmate, Demba. This love inspires a feeling of revolt in her. Her family and upbringing reject the notion of divorcing the man to whom she is married in order to marry someone she loves, even though the union had not yet been consummated. Their logic consists of the following: She is neither the first nor the last to be in a non-consensual marriage. Once again, traditions and customs are invoked to enforce and maintain the status quo. Under tremendous pressure from her family, she has no choice but to accept her fate and become another victim in the marriage tradition. However, the fact that she questions and rebels against this tradition shows that she is no longer a marginal and silent figure whose primary objective in life is to obey tradition. This questioning of tradition is an important sign of her new awareness. Like Awa Thiam, France Alibar and Pierrette Lembeye-Boy in Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles16 provide a space for the Guadeloupean woman to have a voice in an environment in which she would normally be condemned to silence by the patriarchal order. La condition féminine aux Antilles is a two-volume work published in 1981. The Caribbean woman must “prendre la parole” [literally, take or appropriate speech] as one would take a weapon to fight. She is forced to “take” the word since it will not be given to

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her freely. Women from all walks of life have an opportunity to unveil their lives, including taboo subjects such as first sexual encounters, first periods, and physical and psychological abuse in marriage and childbirth. The education Guadeloupean women receive from an early age contributes to the construction of a certain gender hierarchy. In Famille et nuptialité dans la Caraïbe, Yves Charbit states: “Les jeunes filles sont très imprégnées par le modèle occidental, symbolisé par le mariage et la construction d’un foyer légitime [Young girls are inculcated with the Western social model, symbolized by marriage and the construction of a legitimate family] (66). Although there are many instances of concubinage or plaçage (where two people live together without being legally married) in the Caribbean, many girls grow up idealizing marriage. Charbit continues: “Elles vivent dans l’espoir de réaliser cet idéal, la vie des femmes concubines et des mères célibataires étant considérée comme un échec qu’il faut éviter” (66) [They live in the hope of reaching this ideal (marriage), since the lives of women “living with a partner without being married” and of single mothers are considered failures that must be avoided.] The girls are generally raised with some notion of what it means to be a good woman, meaning that they must stay home and do housework while the boys are allowed to go out. This is the basis of the gender hierarchy that provides the structure of a couple’s life, whether they are married or living together. In Le couteau seul, Manuela, a forty-six-year-old teacher, comments on the justification for the liberty given to her brother: “il pouvait sortir avec des copains, il n’y avait rien de tragique. La seule chose que pouvait craindre ma mère, c’est qu’il devienne un passionné des jeux d’argent; mais cette inquiétude de penser ‘Qui va m’apporter un gosse?,’ c’était le drame chez ma mère” (62–63). [He could go out with friends, that was not the end of the world. The only thing that my mother had to worry about is that he would become a passionate gambler; but her real concern was, ‘Who will bring me a kid?’] What the mother is thinking is “Will my daughter have an illegitimate child that I will then have to take care of?” Sexuality is a taboo subject that is generally not discussed. However, it is assumed that the most effective way to keep a female child from getting pregnant is to control her activities and (essentially) sequester her. There is very limited education regarding the first menstrual cycle, and it is mystified as though it were something abnormal. A woman notes: “Quand j’ai eu mes règles, Maman m’a dit: ‘Eh bien, tu es une grande fille, et dès maintenant, si tu t’approches d’un garçon, tu peux attendre un bébé.’ C’est pourquoi, j’ai toujours cru que c’est en respirant l’odeur d’un garçon qu’on devenait enceinte. J’ai cru ça longtemps, jusqu’à 17 ans ou 18 ans” (75). [When I had my period, Mother told me: ‘Well, you are a big girl, and

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from now on if you get near a boy, you can become pregnant.’ That is the reason I always thought one becomes pregnant by inhaling a boy’s smell. I believed that for a long time, until I was seventeen or eighteen years old.] Mystification is yet another way to keep the girls in fear and, eventually, subservient in marriage. The environment in which the woman is brought up sets the stage for her future relationship with the man. Typically, there are two sets of rules for the children in the house, one for male children, another for female children. These testimonials from Africa and the Caribbean demonstrate the importance for women to be heard. Even though there are many cultural differences between the two areas, the testimonials show that there are many common experiences that bind these women. It must also be noted that in many ways, directly or indirectly, women have contributed to the reinforcement of patriarchal traditions. For instance, when women continuously accept the behaviors that are deemed acceptable by men and when they raise their own children, male or female, not to challenge these rules, they adhere to patriarchal traditions. Until both women and men become aware of these traditions and their effects on them, gender barriers will not crumble and the unequal relationship between the sexes will remain. As the texts and film demonstrate, many men in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean find it hard, if not impossible, to accept women who are independent, who want equality, and who challenge the patriarchal genderbased hierarchy that has existed for generations. This is because they have been shaped and molded to expect women to submit because tradition demands it, and tradition does not always exist separate from the people who practice it.

Notes 1. For reasons of consistency of style, I have chosen to use my own translation of La parole aux négresses. However, there is a 1986 English translation by Dorothy Blair, Speak Out, Black Sisters: Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa (London: Pluto, 1986). 2. For more information about Dogon cosmology, see Germaine Dieterlen and Marcel Griaule, Conversations with Ogotemmêli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas (San Diego, Cal.: Galaxy Books, 1975), and Barbara DeMott, Dogon Masks (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1982). 3. Much feminist theory in the past two decades have focused precisely on the heterogeneous conditions of women. See Robin Morgan, ed., Sisterhood is Global (City University of New York: Feminist Press, 1996); Stevi Jackson and Jackie Jones, eds., Contemporary Feminist Theory (New York: New York University Press,

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1998); bell hooks, Feminist Theory From Margin to Center (Boston: South End Press, 1984); Obioma Nnaemeka, Sisterhood Feminism and Power: From Africa to the Diaspora (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1998); Oyèrònké Oyewumi, African Women and Feminism: Reflecting on the Politics of Sisterhood (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2000). Two very important works in French also pay tribute to women of African descent in the Caribbean. Hommage à la femme noire (Belgium: Editions Consulaires, 1988-1989) is a six-volume encyclopaedia produced under the direction of Simone Schwarz-Bart. It gives voice to women of the African diaspora from the first Amerindians to modern day women. There is also a collection, Femmes: livre d’or de la femme créole (Pointre à Pitre, Guadeloupe: Raphy Diffusion, 1988) a four-volume encyclopaedia with different authors, which chronicles the lives of different women in the Caribbean. These two works celebrate the important roles women have always played and continue to play in Caribbean history and culture. 4. For more information on Caribbean feminism, see Patricia Mohammed, ed., Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thoughts (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2002); Eudine Barriteau, ed., Confronting Power, Theorizing Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in the Caribbean (Mona, Jamaica: University of the West Indies, 2003); Consuelo Lopez-Springfield, ed., Daughters of Caliban: Caribbean Women in the Twentieth Century (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); Barbara Bailey and Elsa Leo-Rhynie, eds., Gender in the 21st Century: Caribbean Perspectives, Visions and Possibilities (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2004); Christine Barrow, ed., Caribbean Portraits: Essays on Gender Ideologies and Identities (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 1998). 5. Irène D’Almeida, Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), 15. 6. Mary E. Kolawole, Womanism and African Consciousness (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1997), 11. 7. This interview is quoted in Womanism and African Consciousness by Mary E. Modupe Kolawole. Also, in “To Be an African Woman Writer—An Overview and a Detail,” Ama Ata Aidoo resists Western approaches to the problems of Third World women. She notes: “It is definite that anything that had to do with African women was, of all vital pieces of information, the most unknown (or rather unsought), the most ignored of all concerns, the most unconcerned, the most unseen of all the visibles, and we might as well face it, of everything to do with humanity, the most despised. This had nothing to do with anything that African women did or failed to do. It had to do with the politics of sex and the politics of the wealthy of this earth who grabbed it and who held it” (156–157). Aidoo, in Criticism and Ideology: Second African Writers’ Conference, Stockholm, 1986, ed. Kristen H. Petersen (Uppsala: Nordiska afrikaininstitutet, 1988). 8. Madhu Kishwar, “Why I Do Not Call Myself a Feminist,” Manushi 61 (1990): 3.

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9. Patricia Mohammed, “A Symbiotic Visiting Relationship: Caribbean Feminist Historiography and Caribbean Feminist Theory” in Confronting Power, Theorizing Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in the Caribbean (Mona, Jamaica: University of the West Indies, 2003), 108. 10. Michelle Rowley, “A Feminist’s Oxymoron: Globally Gender-Conscious Development” in Confronting Power, Theorizing Gender. 11. Scholars such as Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Mary E. Modupe Kolawole, Obioma Nnaemeka, to name a few, suggest womanist ideologies that focus on women’s daily struggles and survival strategies. Issues such as AIDS awareness and prevention, human rights, women’s rights, poverty, unemployment, women’s empowerment, and economic independence are often at the forefront when dealing with issues of womanism. These scholars also highlight the importance of community in dealing with the political, social, and economic struggles of women. 12. Flora Veit-Wild, “Women write about the things that move them.” Interview with Tsitsi Dangarembga. In Carole Boyce Davies, ed., Black Women’s Writing: Crossing the Boundaries (Frankfurt, Germany: Ehling, 1989), 106. 13. In Latin America, testimonial narratives are a particularly common form of expression for women. For more information, see John Beverley, “The Margin at the Center on Testimonio (Testimonial Narrative)” Modern Fiction Studies 35.1: 11–28. 14. Awa Thiam, La parole aux négresses. (Paris: Editions Denoël/Gonthier, 1978), 155. 15. Emphasis mine. 16. The subtitle of the book “Le couteau seul . . . Sé kouto sèl . . .” refers to a wellknown Caribbean proverb: “Sé kouto sèl ki sav sa ini an kè a jiromon” (Martinique and Guadeloupe), or “Sé kouto sél ki konnen sa ki nan kè yam” (in Haiti). This can be translated as “Only the knife when it penetrates knows what is truly in the heart of the squash,” the squash or the yam serving as a symbol of the woman and what she has been through.

C H A P T E R

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Marriage, Sexuality, and the Body

They train you to find a husband. [. . .] They poke at your panties in the middle of the night, to see if you are still whole. They listen when you pee, to find out if you’re peeing too loud. If you pee loud, it means you’ve got big spaces between your legs. They make you burn your fingers learning to cook. Then still you have nothing. —Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

Within the marriage contract between two individuals there are sometimes sets of rules—whether tacit or explicit—that dictate the physical relations between a woman and a man. Marriage implies “two becoming one,” and the traditions reinforced by marriage are meant to maintain this idea. In this chapter, the texts and films analyzed elaborate on the various ways problems of sexuality in marriage affect women in relation to their bodies. They further demonstrate how women re-appropriate their bodies (from their partners) for themselves. The complex and controversial subject of excision in Africa is examined. Contrary to the method used in Africa, a female’s sexuality is controlled differently in the Caribbean. The value placed on virginity, a prerequisite for marriage in some instances, is another way in which women are monitored by the institution of marriage. The representation of female mutilation is also studied to illustrate the role that it plays in marriage. Finzan (1989) by Cheick Oumar Sissoko is a film that depicts the underlying struggles that women go through as they fight to obtain their own voices. Sissoko uses the cinematographic realm to tell the stories of two

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women, Nanyuma and Fili, who rebel against traditions and male supremacy by demanding a role in deciding their destinies. Nanyuma is a young widow who is being coerced, as tradition dictates, into marrying her husband’s younger brother, Bala, the village buffoon. Fili is a young lady who has not gone through the traditional clitoridectomy and is being ridiculed by many in the village. Sissoko reveals the plights of African women who do not have access to a means of expression and must submit to tradition, even when these traditions are to their detriment. Before the start of the film, Sissoko flashes a quotation from the Conférence Mondiale de la Décennie des Nations Unies Pour la Femme [World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women] (in Copenhagen, July 1980) that states: Un “profil mondial” de la condition des femmes révèle des effets frappants de la double oppression dont elles sont victimes dans et hors de la famille du fait de leur sexe et de leur condition sociale. Alors qu’elles représentent 50 pourcent de la population mondiale et totalisent environ les 2/3 des heures de travail effectuées dans le monde, les femmes reçoivent à peine 1/10ème du revenu mondial et possèdent moins de 1 pourcent de la propriété mondiale. [A worldwide study of the condition of women reveals the striking effect of the double oppression of which they (women) are victims inside and outside of the family circle because of their sex and their social condition. While they represent 50 percent of the world’s population and make up roughly two-thirds of the work carried out in the world, women receive barely one-tenth of the world’s income and own less than 1 percent of the world’s property.]

Although women’s conditions have somewhat improved since the release of the film over two decades, there is still much work to be done. This quote refers to all women, not just African women. According to the United Nations report, from the Commission on the Status of Women (“Beijing Plus 10”), gender equality is still far from being achieved. In sub-Saharan Africa, 40 percent of the girls do not attend primary school and 57 percent of the HIV/AIDS victims are women.1 In Finzan, following her husband’s death, Nanyuma runs away with her daughter to a nearby village to escape the marriage traditions that mandate that a widow be given to her husband’s brother after the husband’s death. However, even her own father refuses to welcome her home when he supports the village council’s decision that she marry her late husband’s brother who already has two wives whom he can barely support.

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The film starts with the images of two goats giving birth. This scene metaphorically alludes to women’s position as akin to animals; their main purpose in the community is to procreate. Juxtaposed with this image of life and motherhood is the image of Nanyuma, who is supposed to be in mourning for her dead husband but who, instead, appears to be rather relieved by his death. When Nanyuma’s mother reproaches her because she does not cry for her husband, she declares that she has shed all her tears during the eight years of hell she spent living with him. Although the filmmaker does not show the husband’s face, he is probably an older man to whom Nanyuma was given in marriage as a result of his socio-economic status. Nanyuma’s refusal to cry, as tradition expects and requires, is the first step toward rebellion. She wants to marry her first suitor, Bengali, whom she was not allowed to marry before. When he is refused her hand in marriage once again, Nanyuma goes to another village to avoid getting married. There, her family refuses to allow her to stay, and she is taken back to her village by force. Her young sons, who witness these injustices, decide to participate in the struggle by playing tricks on her brother-inlaw, Bala, a buffoon-like character, and making him think that Nanyuma has put a spell on him. The whole village makes fun of Bala, who is obsessed with Nanyuma. On her wedding day, Nanyuma refuses to consummate the marriage. Finally, toward the end of the film we see Nanyuma leaving the village with her son, a victory for her and all women in her community. Nanyuma remains strong despite all the social and familial pressures placed on her. In refusing to consummate the marriage, she refuses to be a mere commodity and thus empowers herself. Although the film does not show her eventual social status, we can assume that she will get a fresh start in a new place. In a parallel story, Sissoko depicts Fili, a young girl who has the whole village divided over the issue of clitoridectomy. Excision, female circumcision or clitoridectomy,2 is generally defined as a procedure by which an organ, the clitoris, is removed by being cut out. Infibulation is defined as the action of fastening the sexual organs with a fibula or clasp. These two procedures are often used to control a woman’s sexuality, particularly before marriage. In Finzan, Fili is ridiculed and is pejoratively called an uncircumcised woman. Although Fili’s father is not in favor of her circumcision, the village women, blinded by an obsessive obedience to tradition, decide to perform the circumcision in spite of the risks. In a controversial scene, the spectator sees the excisor holding a razor that will be used to perform the circumcision.

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This powerful scene of Fili being circumcised has been the object of strong criticism and is considered by some African critics to be an attack on tradition. In Black African Cinema, Frank Ukadike observes: While the filmmaker presents this issue with utmost concern, his camera fails to present a detailed examination of the culture from a logical perspective enabling us to understand how the ritual evolved. Rather, what we see is a farcical analysis which treats the subject of excision, in the words of Françoise Lionnet, “peremptorily, in an impassioned, reductionist and/or ethnographic mode which represents the peoples who practice it as backward, misogynistic, and generally lacking in humane and compassionate inclinations.” (271)

Ukadike implies that Sissoko, the filmmaker, ends up using circumcision as a way to dismiss this excision culture as a whole—whether or not the practice of circumcision itself is “good” or “bad,” the issue is that it becomes more fodder for the wholesale dismissal, by the West, of any value inherent within African cultural traditions. Tradition and social belief systems must be carefully scrutinized in an attempt to understand this custom. It is not enough to categorize excision as a barbaric and backward practice. Abdou Diouf, the former Senegalese president, made the following remarks concerning excision: Female mutilation is a subject that is taboo. . . . But let us not . . . condemn [genital mutilation] as uncivilized and sanguinary practices. . . . In traditional Africa, sexual mutilations evolved out of a coherent system, with its own values, beliefs, cultural and ritual conduct. They were a necessary ordeal in life because they completed the process of incorporating the child in society. These practices . . . raise a problem today because our societies are in the process of major transformation and are coming up against new socio-cultural dynamic forces in which such practices have no place or appear to be relics of the past. . . . The main . . . struggle will be waged by education rather than by anathema and from the inside rather than the outside.3

At the same time, it seems like the “coherent system” that President Diouf is referring to in which this practice developed was the coherent system of patriarchy—to better control women’s lives. The subject of female circumcision is complex and needs to be considered from various angles, including that of the role of sexuality. Female circumcision, a practice that occurs in some African countries, is a powerful and divisive topic.4 It raises issues of identity and the appropriation of the body. However, it is worth noting that a male filmmaker has challenged this practice in an attempt to raise the big-

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ger issue of women’s rights. It is important for men to challenge and critique female circumcision because in many instances, men are in positions of power (governmental, local), and they can work alongside women to make changes. Having men and women work together to understand how female circumcision affects women and men can be very effective. As Sissoko himself stated: “Finzan deals with excision as an oppressive practice, [but it should not] be known as a film about excision, [it is] a film about women’s rights and struggle for freedom.”5 Finzan questions the role of African women in the practice of excision and the complexity of individual rights and traditions. One scene depicts the piercing image of a little girl who innocently asks if women are human beings or slaves. Likewise, Fili boldly states: “It’s my body!” and Nanyuma notes: “This world comes from our wombs [. . .] we give life [yet] we are not allowed to live.” In order for Nanyuma and Fili to gain control of their destinies, they need to start by asserting control over their bodies. In discussing marriage and gender, women’s bodies and sexualities are of utmost importance. Marriage provides several ways of controlling both a woman’s sexuality and her body. Controlling a woman’s sexuality empowers the man who can better control her emotionally and psychologically, and this promotes a stable society in which men preserve their collective rights to govern as well as their individual privileges. In the past decade or so, female circumcision has become a topic of debate in fields such as health, history, law, ethnology, sociology, as well as women studies and literature. One of the factors that have created these debates surrounding female circumcision is the wide range of critics, western and nonwestern, black, white, and others who have decided to address this issue without taking into consideration the power of location. In her introduction to Female Circumcision and the Politics of Knowledge: African Women in Imperialist Discourses (2005), Obioma Nnaemeka discusses the need “to engage the discourse on female circumcision and in the process (re)trace, expose, and map a long lineage of imperialist and colonial discourses” (4). The volume, which includes scholars from a wide range of fields including film studies, gender/women studies, law, history, and anthropology, raises issue such as who has the right to speak for whom and how they take that right, an issue that is crucial in talking about female circumcision. Like Nnaemeka, Awa Thiam, in La parole aux négresses, cautions readers to distinguish between cultural reasons of practice of circumcision among different groups. Alice Walker has been criticized by a number of scholars for her western-centrism of this issue in both her novels Possessing the Secret Joy

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and Warrior Marks. In fact, Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka states that “What Alice Walker has achieved in Possessing and Warrior Masks is not much different from what black women accuse white feminists of—imperialism couched in feminist cause and solidarity.”6 Obioma Nnaemeka also reiterates: “The resistance of African women is not against the campaign to end the practice [of female circumcision], but against their dehumanization and the lack of respect and dignity shown to them in the process” (30). Ending the practice of female circumcision is not an easy campaign because it must take into account the cultural and economic aspects of the practice. The issue of female circumcision, a very controversial one, is in some ways similar to the issue of naming when it comes to feminism/womanism/ Africana womanism. “In the debate about female circumcision, the tactic of renaming to misname and silence has been deployed to marginalize voices which are making legitimate arguments against the pitfalls and wrong headedness of campaigns by Westerners against female circumcision. African women who have objected to the modus operandi of the Western insurgents have been labeled, indicted, and dismissed as defenders of female circumcision.”7 Many policymakers, Western feminist scholars, and others have been using female circumcision in order to stray away from other issues and as Nawal El, Salawi has noted, “Female circumcision in Africa has become a profitable issue for imperialists” (25). Sissoko in Finzan and Sembène Ousmane in his latest film Moolaade (2004) share the same views in exploring the complexity of female circumcision. The main character in the story, Collé Ardo Gallo Sy, is a strongwilled woman and the second wife of a Muslim man, Ciré Bathilly. The film opens up in the village of Djerisso in Burkina Faso during the period of “Purification,” when young girls between the age of about 4 and 9 years old undergo initiation and circumcision by a group of female elders (dressed in red) known as the Salindanna. There is an exciting and celebratory spirit in the air of the village. But this is soon hampered by the fact that some of the girls have refused to take part in this ceremony by fleeing to Collé’s house. The girls come to Collé’s house for Moolaade, a tradition by which through magical protection no one can touch them without Collé’s approval, since she has performed the ritual. She is the only one who can release them, by publicly saying the appropriate words. The viewers soon learn that the girls chose to come to Collé because she had defied tradition seven years earlier when she refused to have her own daughter, Amsatou, excised. Because of the physical and psychological trauma of her own excision, Collé is against excision. She suffered two mis-

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carriages as a result of her excision and was only able to have her daughter through a cesarean section. Although Collé was reluctant at first, she allows the girls to remain with her. She initiates the Moolaade, represented by a colored rope. According to beliefs, if anyone else attempts to violate the protection, they will die. This causes a great disruption in the village, bringing about tensions among various groups, with people taking sides. As the film progresses, the women in the village (except for the Salindanna) stick together against the men. Collé becomes the symbol of resistance for all the women. But what distinguishes the Salindanna from the other women is their social and economic status vested in their role as circumcisers. Collé’s husband is told by the village chief and his family members to make Collé remove the Moolaade. When Collé refuses, he publicly beats her. Although clearly in pain, Collé refuses to submit. When she is about to faint, a man named Mercenaire, an itinerant peddler, challenges the status quo by stopping Collé’s husband from killing her. As a result, he is driven out of the village and killed. Collé’s refusal to remove the Moolaade is her resistance against the patriarchal power structure aided by the Saliandanna women. As the men realize their inability to control the women, they confiscate and burn all the radios in the village. The radios allowed the women to have access to the outside world as well as entertainment. In fact, it is via a radio program that they learned that the Koran does not mandate circumcision, contrary to what the local iman told them. Collé takes several risks in her choice to protect the girls. First, she alienates herself and her daughter, who is supposed to marry the son of the village chief who just came in from France bringing with him all the material objects of the West. However, in the end, even the chief’s son decides that he should choose to marry whomever he wants, whether or not she is circumcised. Moolaade ends with both tragedy and triumph. One of the girls who was circumcised dies, and Mercenaire is the sacrificial scapegoat who defies the men in their tradition. However, by her refusal, Collé triumphs, and through her, the other women do as well. Collé stands up against the purification, resisting the misogynistic practices. The old binary comes to light: tradition versus modernity. This brings up the issue of original intent of circumcision, which for some ethnic groups may be impossible to trace. Culture is a powerful tool used to maintain group coherence. When tradition is challenged, a whole way of life going back generations is challenged. This can be scary. It is not surprising that Sembène has chosen this plot as the second part of his trilogy (Faat Kine, 2000, is the first film) to celebrate the everyday

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heroism of women. Sembène Ousmane has been a pioneer in depicting women’s struggles and how patriarchy benefits from women’s lack of freedom. This has been shown in films and novels such as Xala. Women who maintain many traditional values also have the power to change them. With Moolaade, Ousmane raises the question of who should have the right to receive protection and who should decide what one can be protected against. While he does not simplify the complex issue of female circumcision, he does seem to strongly suggest that it is a tradition that needs to be revisited. There has been extensive research on excision and infibulation, which is important to discuss in relation to the topic of literary and filmic representations of marriage. Several African countries do not practice excision and infibulation. In some cultures, the practice is done at a very early age, as early as when the baby is only a few days old. Some argue that excision is an Islamic practice; however, there is no mandate in the Koran that either recommends or prohibits excision. It is a practice that began before the advent of Islam and is practiced in some parts of Africa by both Christians and Muslims. However, many ethnic groups never practice it. For some groups who practice excision, it is linked to traditional initiation ceremonies, and it is a time when young women are taught about motherhood and womanhood by older women. There are continuous debates about the impact of excision on women’s health, and many advocates (men and women) have been demanding that the practice cease. Many people believe that women should not have any sexual pleasure, as their body’s main function is to satisfy their husbands’ sexual needs and for procreation. One of the arguments for circumcision includes protecting young girls from having sexual desire and thus discouraging premarital sex. Another argument is to maintain a balanced sexual order by protecting women from their insatiable sex drive, thereby discouraging extramarital intercourse. These rationales are problematic because they assume that many women have the same sex drive. It can be compared to the mentality among some white slaveholders of black women in the United States (during the slavery period). To the white men, these women appeared to be sexually available; it is also akin to the black male stereotype of hypervirility, which will be discussed later. In regard to marriage, these practices are important because they are thought to help maintain the woman’s virginity, which in many societies is essential for the marriage contract to be properly sealed. In some African societies, the excision ceremony is considered a rite of passage for a young girl. One woman remembers her excision in the following manner:

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Je venais d’avoir douze ans lorsque je fus excisée. Je garde encore le souvenir intact de cette opération et de la cérémonie dont elle faisait l’objet. . . . J’étais crispée. J’avais la gorge sèche. Je transpirais alors qu’il ne faisait pas chaud. . . . Tout à coup, je sentis un corps étranger se répandre sur mes organes génitaux. . . . J’eus une très mauvaise sensation. Une main s’était saisie d’une partie de mes organes génitaux: je sentis un pincement au cœur. . . . Une douleur lancinante me ramena à la réalité. L’on était en train de m’exciser: je subis d’abord l’ablation des petites lèvres puis du clitoris. . . . Je ressentis un déchirement psychosomatique continu: La règle voulait qu’à mon âge l’on ne pleurât pas en cette circonstance. Je faillis à cette règle. Cris et larmes de douleur furent ma première réaction. Je me sentis mouillée. Je saignais. Le sang coulait à flots. . . . Jamais je n’avais autant souffert. Après, les femmes lâchèrent prise, libérant ainsi mon corps mutilé.8 [I had just turned twelve when I was circumcised. My memory of that operation and the ceremony that surrounded it is still intact. . . . I was on edge. My throat was dry. I was sweating even though it was not hot. . . . Suddenly, I felt a foreign body spread over my genital organs. . . . I had a very bad feeling. A hand had seized a part of my genital organs: I felt a twinge in my heart. . . . I felt a shooting pain that brought me back to reality. I was in the process of being circumcised: first, I underwent the removal of the labia minora, then the clitoris. . . . I felt a continuous psychosomatic ripping. The custom was that, at my age, one does not cry in these circumstances. I had broken this rule. My first reaction was tears and screams. I felt wet. I was bleeding. Blood was streaming. I had never suffered so much. Afterwards, the women let go of me, thus liberating my mutilated body. . . .]

Such testimony captures both the physical pain and psychological trauma that women experience during excision. These scars can never be erased, and many women who go through this process, voluntarily or involuntarily, never enjoy a fulfilling sexual relationship. The only one who benefits from this practice is the future husband, and even then—he only benefits in certain ways. Some men to whom this may matter are also forever unable to give their wives sexual pleasure. Given the fact that sexuality plays such an important role in the marriage bond, conflicts inevitably arise if both partners do not have a mutual understanding of the sexual relation and the expectations this relationship implies. This also brings about the question of what it means to be sexually fulfilled and the role of sexuality in marriage. Is sexuality only a means to an end, namely procreation? The practices of female circumcision would seem to endorse this view of sexuality. Women from diverse cultures and ethnic groups disagree on the role of circumcision. In Thiam’s La parole aux négresses, a Malian woman who had been

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excised and infibulated has decided along with her husband that her daughters who were born in France will not go through the same pain that she went through as a young girl. During a summer vacation in Mali, the woman’s mother decides to have her granddaughters excised and infibulated, even though her daughter had expressly told her not to: Je ne puis dire ce que je ressentis à ce moment précis. Que dire ou que faire contre ma mère? Je sentais la révolte monter en moi, mais j’étais tout impuissante devant ma mère. Ma première réaction fut de pleurer. “Tu devrais être contente de voir que tout s’est bien passé pour tes filles” dit l’une des femmes présentes. “C’est l’émotion!” fit la seconde. (85)

[I cannot express what I felt at that particular moment. What can I say or do to my mother? I felt a sentiment of revolt welling up inside me, but I was powerless. My first reaction was to cry. “You should be happy to see that everything went well for your daughters,” said one of the women there. “It’s the shock!” said the second one.]

Not daring to express her anger and frustration, she leaves the house with the following thoughts: “Comme bien des femmes africaines ma mère venait de faire la preuve qu’elle avait non seulement droit sur moi mais aussi sur mes enfants-ses petits enfants” (85). [Like many other African women, my mother had just proven that she not only had jurisdiction over me but also over my children—her grandchildren.] Another woman, Mata, who is married and had been excised and infibulated explains: Je n’ai gardé aucun souvenir de l’excision ni de l’infibulation que j’ai subies très jeune. C’est seulement à vingt ans, à la veille de mon mariage, que je me suis aperçue de mon état. J’ai toujours évolué dans un milieu fermé où le sexe et la sexualité sont des sujets tabous. Dès que j’ai pris conscience de mon état d’excisée et infibulée, j’ai alors été habitée par un sentiment de révolte. Que faire? me demandai-je. Pour moi, il n’était pas question que je me fasse “ouvrir” au couteau le jour de mon mariage comme c’est de coutume pour toutes les femmes à la fois excisées et infibulées. (86) [I have no memory of the circumcision or the infibulation that I endured at a very young age. It was only when I was twenty years old, on the eve of my wedding, that I realized my state. I had always lived in a closed environment where sex and sexuality are taboo topics. As soon as I became aware of my circumcised and infibulated state, I was filled with a feeling of revolt. What can I do? I wondered. For me, it was not an issue to have myself “opened” with the knife the day of my wedding as it was customary for all women that are both circumcised and infibulated.]

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Mata wanted to have an operation at a hospital. However, the doctors and sage-femmes [midwives] refused. One doctor went so far as to accuse her of wanting the operation in order to live a life of debauchery. Mata is just one among many African women who has attempted to rebel against these practices only to fail because traditions come before the individual in certain societies. Excision is used to keep the woman ignorant of her body and sexuality. It exists as a form of control that helps maintain the status quo and the patriarchal order. Within the marriage structure, control of the woman’s body further strengthens the man’s power. However, many African women are mobilizing in different ways to stop these practices. Femmes aux yeux ouverts is a 1994 documentary by AnneLaure Folly, a French-Togolese filmmaker. It depicts four West African nations where women are opening their eyes and their minds to such crucial issues as female genital mutilation, reproductive health, and marital rights. Women from different sectors of society, among them an AIDS educator and an entrepreneur, discuss these issues and make it clear that in order to ameliorate women’s status in Africa and support African development as a whole, women must be involved in the necessary changes. Part one of the film, labeled “L’excision,” [Female Circumcision], focuses on breaking the silence on this controversial and taboo topic. An organization called the Comité National de Lutte Contre la Pratique de l’Excision [National Committee Against the Practice of Excision] in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, works with women at the grassroots level to educate them about the danger of excision. Aicha Tamboura, a woman who was excised at the age of four, states that while her physical scars have healed, her psychological scars have never healed completely. She explains the procedures whereby three women come and take a little girl between the age of four and eight to a house to circumcise her. While the exciseuse [excisor] performs the circumcision, one woman holds the girl’s arms and the other woman holds her feet. The young girl’s screams fall on deaf ears, since the community as a whole generally endorses the practice. Tamboura notes: “La douleur, elle est tellement dure qu’on ne peut pas la décrire.” [The pain is so intense that it cannot be described.] Due to a lack of education, several myths continue to help maintain practices of excision in some African countries. The documentary explores the fact that many people in some African communities in Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Ivory Coast believe that an uncircumcised woman’s clitoris can reduce her fertility. They also believe that during childbirth the child may die if his or her head touches the clitoris. This shows the profound lack of knowledge. After all, why would so many people be alive in countries where

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circumcision did not take place? These beliefs further strengthen the argument that many have used to continue the tradition of female circumcision. In many instances, the woman does not have the right to choose whether or not she wants to be circumcised. The documentary presents several women from different organizations who have come together to expose the danger of circumcision. An exciseuse describes how she cuts the clitoris bit by bit until it is completely cut using a blade; if the mother does not bring alcohol, she uses ashes to clean the wound. These women activists focus on the health risks involved in circumcision, because their particular milieu is not ready to consider the problem as a women’s rights issue. As is evident from these examples, the issue of female circumcision is not a simple one. Female circumcision should be considered in a broader context, that of tradition versus modernity, community versus self, and cultural versus individual beliefs. As it relates to marriage, female circumcision reinforces the idea that the woman’s primary role is to procreate and please the man. Her sexuality and/or pleasure does not necessarily play a role within marriage and is not important. Questioning traditions and standards that have been in place for generations is never an easy task, for it implies conflict and sometimes revolt against the patriarchal order. In his 1985 film Visages de femmes (Faces of Women),9 the Ivorian filmmaker Désiré Ecaré presents several women who rebel against the status quo. Visages de femmes tells two parallel stories set in the village and the city. Ecaré brilliantly uses African songs, dances, and storytelling to expose some concerns about women and their status in the community. In the first part of the film, a young woman, N’Guessan, is married to a jealous husband. Her brother-in-law, Kouassi, comes to the village and begins flirting with her. Everyone in the village talks cryptically about their relationship, and the husband, Brou, is warned to pay careful attention to the two, who were allegedly seen holding hands. We are not told whether N’Guessan married Brou of her own free will or under duress, but in either case she is clearly unhappy. N’Guessan and Kouassi have clandestine meetings and their relationship seems to intensify. Brou accuses N’Guessan of having an affair with his brother, which she vehemently denies. He reminds her that she is not a person but his possession: “I’ll show you that you’re my wife! You’re my slave, my possession, my thing! I’m your master!” For Brou, N’Guessan only started to rebel after having been in contact with his brother from the city. Presently, she is becoming someone he does not recognize. She is no longer the docile wife who comes running every time he raises his eyes. She even dares to tell him: “I think I’ll leave you. My dowry robes are still unused, you can have them

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back.” He pulls her ears and says: “I’ll show you! Nobody will dare look at you again!” To this, she replies: “You touch me and I’m no longer your wife!” Brou feels threatened. He knows that his brother, coming from the city and speaking French, might have a chance of taking her away from him. Realizing that he must show his manhood, he tells N’Guessan: “I’m your master. I own your body. I own your shit.” She responds with authority “I’m a better wife than most. Every morning I do the housework.” In a chorus-like fashion, a group of women sing a song to set the pace for the next scene of the story in which we see that Affoue, N’Guessan’s neighbor and friend whose husband is not as jealous as Brou, is the one who is truly having an affair with Kouassi, Brou’s brother. The lyrics to the song state: Men never trust us. And there are so many honest women. [. . .] Men can’t appreciate honesty. They see the worst in everything. Especially when there’s nothing to hide. [. . .] What does a man deserve who cannot trust? He deserves one thing only. And what is that? To be deceived. Yes, to be deceived. Let me tell you what I do to my man, my husband who is always spying on me, suspicious of me. Follow me! And you’ll see the life I make him lead.

The song mocks the man who thinks he is in control of his wife. The next scene, which lasts about ten minutes, depicts a graphic love scene between Affoue and Kouassi. First, there is a scene of Affoue swimming completely naked in the river and being watched by Kouassi. In a sequence that was labeled pornographic by critics, Affoue and Kouassi make love in the river. Affoue is very bold in her lovemaking. It is hard to tell if this is the first time they are making love or if this has been an ongoing relationship. Affoue is very comfortable with her body, giving and taking pleasure; she might even be seen as “sexually aggressive” by some viewers. As Kouassi is kissing her breast, she tells him: “Instead of making love you just play around.” This seems to imply that she is not satisfied by his foreplay or wants to skip the foreplay altogether. When they get out of the water, she initiates the sexual act. They cavort around the palm trees. Kouassi moves closer to Affoue and she points to his penis and asks “What is this?” And she makes a gesture with her two hands that seems to be telling him to come inside her and give her sexual satisfaction. This

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daring gesture shows that some African women are sexually active. The chorus of women once again prepares the viewers for the next scene: You’ll see if the husband suspects anything. He’ll believe everything he is told. Everything [. . .] But do you think that will teach him a lesson?

Affoue returns home with Kouassi behind her. Her husband simply asks about her whereabouts, and she says that she went to get water and that is the end of the story. Most people in the village will probably never suspect Affoue of having an affair. They expected such behavior from N’Guessan, but not from her. Affoue’s boldness in leading the sexual encounter is very interesting and avant-garde because this is probably the first time an African filmmaker has shown such an intense sexual scene. Yet, many critics have accused Désiré Ecaré of “selling out.”10 Ukadike writes that Visages de femmes “is notorious for having Africa’s steamiest erotica” and was “prohibited in Côte d’Ivoire for its explicit love scenes and nudity” (213). He also notes that the film, shown in the United States on cable television, “indulges in a Hollywood kind of sexual exploitation . . .” and “does not accurately fit into the concept of genuine African aesthetics” (197). It is not clear what is considered “genuine African aesthetics,” but what is obvious is that Ukadike, an African male critic, appears to be uncomfortable with the display of sexuality. I believe that the scene is discomforting and shocking for many because it shows an African woman enjoying sex. The concept of love is in many ways culturally defined. However, as the world is changing and becomes more global, ideologies are evolving as well. Perhaps Ecaré wants to present this avant-garde notion of love that is “Western” but that is being considered by many in African communities. Furthermore, the film Visages de femmes examines the notion of sexuality in Africa as well as the African woman’s relation to her sexuality and to her body. Had the love scene been with a white woman, more than likely African critics would not have made such a big issue of it, perhaps because they would expect this type of overt sexual expression from a white woman. The issue seems to be both about a black woman who is comfortable with her sexuality, which makes people uneasy, and about what is considered genuinely African or Western. In the second story of Visages de femmes, Bernadette, a businesswoman, tries to expand her business and must deal with the bureaucratic powers in place. The bank refuses her a loan because she does not have any secured guarantees. Her husband does not understand why a woman has so many

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plans and ideas. The first scene depicts Bernadette at the fish market giving some words of wisdom to her youngest daughter, Minouche: Ma fille, la vie à deux est une très bonne chose. Tu sais, une femme sans mari ne peut pas faire beaucoup de choses. Mais, on ne serait usé tout son existence à laver des slips, des pantalons, faire à manger. [. . .] Il faut mener notre vie par autre chose que par faire le ménage et faire à bouffer. [. . .] Il faut quand même avoir quelque chose dans sa vie qui nous occupe, qui nous absorbe. [Daughter, married life is a very good thing. A woman without a husband is hindered from doing many things. But you cannot spend your whole life washing underpants, cooking, and doing housework. You must find something else to do with yourself besides cleaning the house and cooking. You must have something in your life that absorbs you and occupies your time.]

Bernadette wants to instill in her daughter the idea that, while marriage is important in their culture, it is also crucial for a woman to be financially independent. She tells her other daughter, Tcheley: “Depuis l’âge de seize ans que ton père m’a épousé, je ne fais que faire la cuisine, laver les assiettes, recevoir ses parents . . . faire des enfants, enfants, enfants. Voilà tout ce que moi j’ai fait dans ma vie. Je veux maintenant monter une affaire. Une affaire à moi! [Since the age of 16, when your father married me, all I do is cook, wash dishes, entertain his family . . . have children, children, children. That is all I have done in my life. Now, I want to have my own business. My own business!”] At first, Tcheley discourages her by saying she has no clue what running a business entails and that it is something for men to do: “Laisse les hommes faire leurs affaires Maman, laisse les gagner leur argent. [Let the men do their business, let them earn their money.”] However, Tcheley understands that women are the backbone of the economy. She explains to her mother how women can use their so-called God-given powers: Soyons femmes, soyons femmes Maman. Notre banque à nous, ce sont nos cuisses, ce sont nos seins, ce sont nos fesses. Avec ça Maman, nous avons tous les pouvoirs, tous les pouvoirs. Avec mes fesses Maman je peux faire dissoudre le gouvernement demain si je veux. Faire nommer un nouvel ambassadeur à Paris, à Péking, et même au Vatican. Le Pape n’y verra que du feu, parce que ce que femme veut, Dieu veut. [Let us be women, Mother, let us be women. Our bank is our thighs, our breasts, and our asses; with these we have all the power. With my ass, Mother,

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I can get the government toppled tomorrow if I want. I can have a new Ambassador appointed to Paris, Peking, and even to the Vatican. The Pope won’t even flinch. God and women always see eye to eye.]

For Tcheley, women should use their bodies as a tool to allow them to obtain what they want. When her mother looks at her with contempt and disgust, she adds: “Seulement pour ça, il faut avoir vingt ans et être jolie.” [Only in order to do that, you need to be beautiful and be twenty years old.] To this, the mother replies: “être jolie, être jolie, ça va durer combien de temps ma pauvre fille, combien de temps. Tu feras mieux de chercher à te marier.” [Being beautiful, being beautiful, how long will that last? You’ll be better off getting married.] Bernadette believes that being married is a sign of stability. However, she also wants to instill in her daughters the desire to make something of themselves and not simply rely on men. She wants her younger daughter, Minouche, to go to military school, because, for her, times are changing, and women need to do things that men are doing. As promised, Tcheley and her sister go to the bank and give the banker “secured guarantees” (with their bodies) by flirting with him. His attitude changes drastically, and he promises to consider Bernadette’s demand as long as Tcheley and Minouche remember to stop by and see him. Through the “faces of [different] women,” Ecaré paints the lives of women from urban and rural areas from all walks of life and their struggles to insert their voices in their communities and their own lives. It is evident in the second story that Bernadette is the main breadwinner in her household, yet as a woman she is still marginalized. Women like her are everywhere in Africa; they are the backbone of the African economy. Yet, the powers that be, for the most part patriarchal, too often fail to give women the necessary tools to better their lives and the lives of others. Through the representation of women’s struggles, Ecaré shows the struggles for economic survival and the ongoing exploitation of women. As is the case with Bernadette, both her side of the family and her in-laws exploit her, and they do not think that as a woman she should have a say in the family’s finances while she is the one who is struggling to provide for everyone. Visages de femmes portrays the various ways in which women can take charge of all aspects of their lives including economic stability. By doing so, they question and redefine their marital relationship as well as re-appropriate their bodies. The reappropriation of the body and the self is one of the first signs of revolt. Marriage is one of the official ways in which society controls women; this control extends to the body as well. Being able to control one’s body can be

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essential to controlling other areas of one’s life. The practices of excision and infibulation often prevent this. Although in the Caribbean the rituals of excision and infibulation do not exist as they do in African societies, the woman’s body is mutilated in other ways. Both Francophone Africa and the Francophone Caribbean are patriarchal and gender-structured societies with a strong male hierarchy. Virginity is also highly valued in both cultures. In Breath, Eyes, Memory (1995), Edwidge Danticat exposes the mutilation of the body of her protagonist, Sophie, a Haitian-American who is subject to virginal testing by her mother because in the mother’s mind, virginity is an important asset to find a husband. One night after Sophie comes home at three o’clock in the morning, her mother tests her to see if she is still ‘pure’: She took my hand with surprised gentleness, and led me upstairs to my bedroom. There, she made me lie on my bed and she tested me. I mouthed the words to the Virgin Mother’s Prayer: Hail Mary . . . so full of grace. The Lord is with You. . . . You are blessed among women. . . . Holy Mary. Mother of God. Pray for us poor sinners. [. . .] As she tested me, to distract me, she told me [about the] Marassas. [. . .] She pulled a sheet up over my body and walked out of the room with her face buried in her hands. I closed my legs and tried to see Tante Atie’s face. I could understand why she had screamed while her mother had tested her. There are secrets you cannot keep. (84–85)

These tests continue every week. After a while, Sophie gets tired of them and chooses to mutilate her own body as a way of re-appropriating it and as a form of revenge against this tradition and these tests: I was feeling alone and lost, like there was no longer any reason for me to live. I went down to the kitchen and searched my mother’s cabinet for the mortar and pestle we used to crush spices. I took the pestle to bed with me and held it against my chest. [. . .] My flesh ripped apart as I pressed the pestle into it. I could see the blood slowly dripping onto the bedsheet. I took the pestle and the bloody sheet and stuffed them into a bag. It was gone, the veil that always held my mother’s finger back every time she tested me. My body was quivering when my mother walked into my room to test me. My legs were limp when she drew them aside. I ached so hard I could hardly move. Finally, I failed the test. My mother grabbed me by the hand and pulled me off the bed. She was calm now, resigned to her anger. (87–88)

As a result of her having failed the test, Sophie’s mother throws her out of the house. Because of these traumatic tests, Sophie is unable to obtain sexual pleasure in her relation with her husband, Joseph. She sees sex as a duty

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she must perform, as part of being a wife, something she “owed to him” (130). For Sophie, there is no fulfillment, even though she conceives a child after her first sexual encounter with Joseph. She finds sex “very painful” and has no desire; she thinks that “it is an evil thing to do” (123). She tells her grandmother: “I call [the test] humiliation. I hate my body. I am ashamed to show it to anybody, including my husband. [. . .] I hated the tests. [. . .] It is the most horrible thing that ever happened to me. When my husband is with me now, it gives me such nightmares that I have to bite my tongue to do it again” (123, 156). The problem intensifies to such a degree that she has to see a psychiatrist and take part in a sexual phobia group with other women who have been abused sexually either through rape or circumcision. For Sophie’s mother, the test was a tradition like so many others that was passed on to her from her great-grandmother. Sophie returns to Haiti, talks to her grandmother, and tries to understand why she was subject to the test and why this tradition is so important. Her grandmother explains to her that it is a matter of honor, grace, and respect. Daughters must stay “clean until they [have] husbands” (156). Grandmè Ifé explains: “From the time a girl begins to menstruate to the time you turn her over to her husband, the mother is responsible for her purity. If I give a soiled daughter to the husband, he can shame my family, speak evil of me, even bring her back to me” (156). Unfortunately, the tests could not keep Martine, Sophie’s mother, from remaining “pure.” At a very young age, she was raped. The novel intimates that it was by a Tonton Macoute, and Sophie is the result of that rape. Nevertheless, Martine wants to follow tradition and culture and attempt to keep Sophie “pure.” Like Thiam’s La parole aux négresses, this novel illustrates the importance of virginity in the Haitian cultural context. The pressure for a young woman to remain a virgin is one of the ways her body is objectified. La condition féminine aux Antilles: Le couteau seul by France Alibar and Pierrette Lembeye-Boy also contains various testimonials regarding how the woman’s body is mutilated and used by many men to maintain control over women. This control is manifested in many ways: marital rape, exploitation of the woman’s body, and the idea propagated by men that a woman’s duty consists mainly of satisfying and fulfilling his sexual desire. It is not necessary for her to be satisfied or fulfilled by him, for her sexuality is meant for procreation. This notion privileges the male by assuring him a sexual superiority that extends to other dimensions of the marriage. Nadine Magloire demystifies the male superiority in Le mal de vivre and Autopsie in vivo: Le sexe mythique.11 In these novels, she exposes the upper-class Haitian society of the 1960s and 1970s. Magloire subverts the gender barriers

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of her time in several ways. Haiti was and still is in many ways a patriarchal society that gives women limited autonomy. Magloire provides a space whereby she makes her characters not only thinking subjects but autonomous sexual beings. She questions the supposed superiority of the Haitian male and challenges women to take charge of their lives and not to be so dependent upon their male counterparts. The two novels, though written seven years apart, intersect with each other and almost function as a single work. The characters in both novels echo each other and are often placed in similar situations. These novels are not simply love stories that depict female/male conflicts but stories in which Magloire questions the Haitian upper-class attitudes, duplicities, and games. In both novels, the central narratives are relatively simple. The first novel, Le mal de vivre, tells the story of Claudine and her relationships with various lovers. Claudine, who has a job and is not married, does not conform to the Haitian norm. During a tea party given at her house for her elite friends, she exposes their hypocrisy: Il semble que l’acte sexuel garde un goût de péché même dans le mariage. [. . .] Toutes ces soi-disant personnes vertueuses qui s’indignent si facilement quand il est question de sexe ont une langue féroce et se délectent à déblatérer sur le dos des autres pour nuire à leur réputation, inventant des choses au besoin. Le mal, c’est le sexe! [. . .]. (55–56) [It seems that the sexual act still has a taste of sin even in marriage. (. . .) All these so-called virtuous people that are so easily shocked when it comes to sex have ferocious tongues and take pleasure in talking about other people and inventing stories as needed in order to defame them. Evil, it is sex!]

Throughout the novel, Claudine discovers her sexuality, a sexuality that is repressed by her education, since a girl from a good family is supposed to neither enjoy nor discuss certain topics. Sex is considered a taboo topic in her milieu. However, through her own experiences, Claudine realizes that the sexual act is normal and natural: Mes idées sur le sexe ont changé avec Jean. . . . Notre aventure a modifié ma vision des choses dans ce domaine. . . . Il y a une conspiration des adultes concernant le sexe, sans doute pour ôter aux filles l’envie d’y toucher avant le mariage. Ils s’entendent pour les en dégoûter. Mais, une fois mariée, elles continuent de considérer l’acte sexuel comme quelque chose de honteux, seulement tolérable parce qu’elles ont eu la bénédiction de monsieur le curé et elles ne deviennent jamais des femmes sexuellement épanouies. Si elles aimaient faire l’amour, si elles n’avaient pas le sentiment de s’avilir un peu en accomplissant l’acte sexuel, elles trouveraient normal d’en parler. Mais c’est un sujet

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de conversation qui les choque ou du moins elles font semblant d’être choquées. (57–58) [My ideas about sex have changed with Jean. . . . Our adventure has modified my vision of things in that area. . . . There is a conspiracy among adults concerning sex, without any doubt to keep girls from having a desire to have sex before marriage. They agree with one another to make them disgusted by sex. But, once married they (the girls) continue to think of the sexual act as something shameful, only bearable because they had the blessing of the priest, and they never become sexually fulfilled. If they enjoyed making love, if they did not have the feeling of debasing themselves a bit while performing the sexual act, they would find it natural to talk about it. But it is a topic of conversation that shocks them or at least they pretend to be shocked.]

After her experiences, she comes to understand that she enjoys sex and is not ashamed to talk about it, but that is not the case with most of her friends, who remain closed to new ideas and new experiences. Claudine’s society has a set of rules regarding sex that must not be transgressed. By transgressing these rules, Claudine oversteps established class and gender boundaries. The works discussed depict the different ways Francophone African and Caribbean women take charge of their own destinies by contesting the colonial and patriarchal orders that have seemed immutable for centuries. By taking this step, they necessarily challenge the status quo and must redefine themselves. They do so by constructing new identities for themselves, by choosing what to do with their bodies and finding new ways to explore their sexuality. They also challenge the rules that govern the behavior of women. This act necessitates a general questioning of preconceived notions about women’s bodies, sexuality, and femininity. Gender conditions both sexuality and sexual behaviors in Francophone African and Caribbean culture. From an early age, girls are not given the same freedom as the boys, who are allowed to go out with their friends to explore and discover new things. This lack of freedom extends into the marriage relationship where the woman’s primary role is to be a wife and mother. Several of the characters in the works studied revisit and rethink their roles as women and sexual beings.

Notes 1. For current statistics on the condition of women in sub-Saharan Africa, visit the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women: www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/ csw/ (accessed May 29, 2007).

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2. There is a large body of research on genital mutilation/female circumcision or excision. For more on this topic see Obioma Nnaemeka, ed., Female Circumcision and the Politics of Knowledge (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2005); Ylva Hernlund and Bettina Shell-Duncan, eds., Female Circumcision in Africa: Culture, Controversy and Change (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001); Françoise Lionnet, “Dissymmetry Embodied: Feminism, Universalism and the Practice of Excision,” Passage Issue 1 (1991): 2. 3. Frank Ukadike, Black African Cinema (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 272–273. 4. It is of utmost importance to note that this is not a practice that occurs on the entire African continent. Statistics about the number of countries in Africa that practice excision is unclear. UNICEF published a very in-depth report in 2005, “Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Statistical Exploration 2005.” It states “Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is a traditional practice with severe health consequences for girls and women. It occurs mainly in countries along a belt stretching from Senegal in West Africa to Somalia in East Africa and to Yemen in the Middle East.” For the French-speaking West African countries, the following statistics are given regarding prevalence of FGM/C among women aged 15–49: Senegal, 28 percent; Mauritania, 71 percent; Guinea, 99 percent; Côte d’Ivoire, 45 percent; Mali, 92 percent; Benin, 17 percent; and Niger, 5 percent. At the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children in 2002, governments committed to end FGM/C by 2010. In February 2003, thirty African countries committed to end FGM/C. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 100 million and 140 million women have experienced some form of mutilation. For more information, visit the UNICEF website at www.unicef.org/publications/index_29994.html or see Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Statistical Exploration 2005. UNICEF: November 2005. 5. Ukadike, Black African Cinema, 273. 6. Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, “Transcending the Boundaries of Power and Imperialism: Writing Gender, Constructing Knowledge,” in Female Circumcision and the Politics of Knowledge: African Women in Imperial Discourses, ed. Obioma Nnaemeka (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2005), 73. 7. Obioma Nnaemeka, “African Women, Colonial Discourses, and Imperialist Interventions: Female Circumcision as Impetus,” in her Female Circumcision and the Politics of Knowledge, 33. 8. Awa Thiam, La parole aux négresses (Paris: Editions Denoël/Gonthier, 1978), 81–83. Translated by Dorothy Blair under the title Speak out, Black Sisters, Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa (London: Pluto Press, 1986). 9. The first story in Désire Ecaré’s Visages de femmes (Faces of women) is in Baoulé, Jula, and Bété. The quotations here are from the subtitles; the second part of the film is in French so the quotations I am using are in French, (along with their translations). Although there are English subtitles, I have used my own translations.

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10. Veronique Mahilé, the actress who played Affoue during the sexual scene, was highly criticized and shunned in the Ivory Coast. For more information on the film, see Désiré Ecaré, “Quelques réflexions sur ‘Cinémas et libertés’ à propos de Visages de femmes,” Présence africaine (1993): 21–24. 11. Nadine Magloire’s novels are not well-known and were not very well accepted when they were published in 1968 (Le mal de vivre) and in 1975 (Autopsie in vivo: Le sexe mythique). She made it clear that she was unveiling and revealing the Haitian bourgeoisie and their treatment of women, a topic that was unacceptable at that time. In the preface to Le mal de vivre, she writes: “Ce que j’ai voulu, c’est justement ce ‘dévoilement’ dont parle Jean-Paul Sartre. Je ne me suis nullement souciée de donner aux gens (comme ils l’ont cru) un jouet pour jouer à qui est qui. Le mal de vivre n’a pas de clés mais des passe-partout, car c’est toute une tapée d’individus qu’il faudrait glisser sous chaque portrait. Au lieu de chercher une clé aux personnages de ce roman, le lecteur ferait mieux de se demander s’il n’est pas lui-même concerné. Bien-sûr c’est plus amusant d’essayer de découvrir qui l’auteur a voulu viser. Mais, chers lecteurs, vous êtes tous en cause. D’une manière ou d’une autre, vous êtes personnage de ce roman!” (7) [What I wanted is precisely this disclosure that Jean-Paul Sartre talks about. I do not care whatsoever to give to people (as they believed) a toy to figure out who is who. Le mal de vivre does not have a specific key but master keys because it is a whole bunch of people who should slide under each portrait. Instead of looking for real life characters in this novel, the reader will be better of asking if he or she is not himself or herself involved. Of course, it is more amusing to try to discover at whom the author wanted to aim. But, dear readers, you are all involved. One way or another, you are a character in this novel!]. Magloire has been living in Canada (Montréal and Québec) since 1979. For more on Magloire, see “Voix/voies migrantes haïtiennes: Nadine Magloire, de la parole au silence” in Elles écrivent des Antilles: Haïti, Guadeloupe, Martinique (Paris: Harmattan, 1997).

C H A P T E R

T H R E E



Marriage and Motherhood

Human reproduction is a function of adult sexuality. Both womanhood and manhood are fully achieved not by the act of intercourse but by reproduction. For the woman, pregnancy and childbirth are the fulfillment of womanhood; for the man impregnation is the proof of manhood.1 —Barry Chevannes, “Gender and Adult Sexuality,” Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought Motherhood is a raw, tender point of identity, and its relationship to other aspects of ourselves––our other aspirations, our need to work, our need for solitude––almost inevitably involves a tension . . . which is one reason discussions of motherhood tend toward a split view of the world. When femininity and motherhood are spuriously linked, what gets lost is the character of motherhood as vividly self-expressive, and goaldirected. Equality feminists may treat motherhood as another feminine option, and difference feminists may imply that it expresses feminine quality of self. But neither group fully communicates the ways that motherhood transcends the trappings of gender, putting us in touch with the deepest meaning of being human. —Daphne de Marneffe, Maternal Desire: On Children, Love, and the Inner Life

For many women in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean, education in the home is designed to prepare them to become wives and mothers. Therefore, virginity is highly prized. A common mode of thinking among some 53

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men and women is that most if not all males want to marry virgins; yet, they (the males) are frequently sexually active. For some men, having children is a sign of sexual prowess and male pride. The more children they have, the more powerful they are in terms of their manhood. In her book Voix/es libres: Maternité et identité féminine dans la littérature antillaise, Florence Ramond Jurney analyzes the different representations of motherhood and how Francophone Caribbean women are defining it for themselves. This chapter scrutinizes the relation between marriage and motherhood. Women want to be in control of their sexuality and the number of children they have. France Alibar and Pierrette Lembeye-Boy in Le couteau seul . . . note: “Dans tous les récits en effet, ce qui frappe, c’est l’acharnement des hommes à vouloir un enfant: à tout moment, il réclame un enfant, un enfant.” [What strikes one in all the stories is the men’s determination to have children at all times: he demands a child, a child.] The men consider having children as proof of their virility. The author reveals: “Le mari de Popo n’accepte pas qu’elle se soit fait ligaturer les trompes, or, ils ont eu 20 enfants ensemble! Le mari de Francelise la traite avec mépris de ‘brahanne’ parce qu’elle pratique la méthode Ogino. . . . Désir d’enfant et répugnance à la contraception vont de pair; là encore, l’enfant est-il désiré pour lui-même? Ne s’agit-il pas pour ces hommes de montrer et d’exercer un pouvoir?” (166). [Popo’s husband cannot come to terms with the fact that she had a tubal ligation, although they had twenty children together! Francelise’s husband treats her with contempt and calls her ‘brahanne’ [sterile] because she practices the Ogino method.]2 There are several testimonials of men and women who refuse all methods of contraception. Married or not, oftentimes the woman ends up as a single mother taking care of the physical, psychological, and financial needs of the children. In many instances, the single woman is caught in a double bind; she enters into a relationship with a man temporarily in order to better her financial situation and becomes pregnant. After the first child comes, the man leaves her and another comes along to “help” her out, impregnates her and leaves once again, and thus the cycle continues. These women described by Alibar and Lembeye-Boy do not generally have access to birth control. Often they are convinced by the men that they don’t need it, or see a child as a way to create a lasting tie to the man. Claudie Beauvue-Fougeyrollas, in Les femmes antillaises (1979), explains: Les raisons qui font qu’il existe tant de mères célibataires sont très variées. Outre le passé esclavagiste, et c’est d’abord lui qui en est responsable, les Antillais ont développé-ou peut-être cela leur a été transmis par les colons pour

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mieux les subordonner-un certain mythe de la virilité. Il semble que pour les Antillais la finalité du rapport sexuel est normalement la fécondation de la femme, même si l’enfant doit être abandonné avec sa mère par le père. Pour beaucoup d’hommes, le fait d’avoir beaucoup d’enfants avec des femmes différentes est la preuve de leur virilité.3 (57) [There are various reasons for so many single mothers. Besides the colonial past, which is the main reason, the Antillean has developed—or maybe this was passed down to them to keep them more dependent—a certain myth of masculinity. It seems that for the Antillean male, the finality of the sexual relation is impregnation, even if the child has to be abandoned by the father. For many men, having many children with different women is proof of their masculinity.]

Even today in some places, particularly among certain classes in the Francophone Caribbean, the perpetuation of the myth of a child being representative of the male’s virility is common. For many men, being able to show a tangible proof of their manhood by fathering a child is crucial to their identities. There is also the belief that the more children one has, the greater one’s chances of becoming more comfortable later in life, because the roles will be reversed and the children will take care of the parents. In the case of Haiti, for instance, where so few people (men and women) have stable jobs that can provide security for them when they get older, having many children is seen as crucial. There is even a proverb that states “Pitit se byen malere,” literally translated as “Children are the possessions/fortunes of poor people,” meaning that children are their parents’ security. Likewise, as noted by Livia Lesel in Le père oblitéré: Chronique antillaise d’une illusion, having a child is accepted as a social norm, because the mindset is “Bon Dié ba mwen ï, mwen ka pren ï” (Le Bon Dieu me l’a donné, je le garde [God gave it to me; I am keeping it]),” thus the attitude women have vis-à-vis contraceptive method and pregnancy remains ambivalent (35). Even though this belief is shared by men and women, it is generally women who have to worry about the children. Oftentimes, the man takes care of neither the woman nor the children, and the latter end up being merely more mouths to feed. Because the woman is not economically independent, she continues to hope that the man will provide for her and their children. If he decides to leave her, she will often welcome a new man in her life in the hope to better her financial situation. Unfortunately, the woman finds herself in a cycle of single motherhood with no financial security. There is a common Caribbean proverb to illustrate this problem, “Mal chache pen, mwen jwen vyann.” [I went to look for bread, but I found meat.]

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Thus, when a man is with a woman who already has several children, he sometimes behaves as if he is doing her a favor by engaging in a relationship with her, since she is no longer a marketable or desirable commodity. The woman who frequently changes partners is often referred to as a bouzen (Haiti) or putain (Martinique and Guadeloupe) [whore] or une femme de mauvaise vie [a woman of loose morals]. Knowing this opinion could be used against her, she tries to keep her current mate. As Beauvue-Fougeyrollas states: Avec les mères de plusieurs enfants naturels, les hommes se sentent davantage encore dégagés de toute responsabilité. [. . .] [La femme] de son côté, est consciente de cet état d’esprit de l’homme; elle sait bien qu’une nouvelle relation n’apporte pas forcément la sécurité. Pour une femme, changer de partenaire est mal vu; cela l’amène donc, sous la pression sociale, à se soumettre à son [copain] tant que lui n’a pas jugé bon de la quitter. C’est pourquoi le vieux mythe du mariage tient toujours. (176) [When men are involved with women who have several children born outside of marriage, they further deny all responsibilities. (. . .) The woman is conscious of the man’s state of mind; she knows very well that a new relationship does not necessarily bring security with it. For a woman, changing partners is not well viewed; thus, this brings her to be submissive to her boyfriend as long as he does not yet feel like leaving her. That is why the old marriage myth still holds.]

Hoping to get married, women submit to different forms of male domination and often end up being worse off financially than they were before. Despite all these struggles, in many ways the Caribbean woman remains the backbone of her society. As Simone Schwarz-Bart notes: Ce sont les femmes qui ont tout sauvé, tout préservé, y compris l’âme des hommes. Ce sont des gardiennes jalouses qui ont toujours lutté en silence. Quand l’homme antillais faisait des enfants sans revendiquer la paternité, celle qui devait assurer la lignée, accomplir les tâches quotidiennes, s’occuper des enfants tout en leur transmettant les traditions ancestrales, c’étaient naturellement la femme.4 [It was women who saved and redeemed everything including the men’s souls. They are jealous guardians who have always struggled in silence. When the Antillean man was having children without claiming responsibility for the children, the woman was the one who had to insure the lineage, carry out

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the domestic tasks [and] take care of the children while passing on ancestral traditions.]

Married or not, the Antillean woman plays an important role in her community and in maintaining the family. Unfortunately, she is still marginalized and treated as a second-class citizen and as a child. In many cases, she is not respected unless she is somebody’s wife and mother. As in the Francophone Caribbean, having children in Francophone African societies is one of the ways, if not the main way, in which a woman is validated. Motherhood and barrenness are two privileged topics in Francophone African literature by both male and female writers. Motherhood is the basis upon which female identity is typically constructed. In “The Female Writer and Her Commitment,” Molara Ogundipe-Leslie states that “the way African writers enthuse about motherhood, one wonders if there are no women who hate childbirth or have undeveloped maternal instincts.”5 In Male Daughters, Female Husbands (1987), Ifi Amadiume reinforces Ogundipe-Leslie’s observations regarding maternity: “Maternity is viewed as sacred in the traditions of all African societies” (191). Marriage and children go hand in hand. Women must have children, and many will go to any length to have them. A barren woman is not a “real” woman. In some societies, a woman who cannot have children is subject to repudiation and demeaned even by other women, since it is believed that the woman’s main function is to reproduce. Women often have limited rights in marriage relationships. However, they are responsible for raising children according to the rules and morals established by their particular societies. In L’image de la femme, Kembe Milolo writes: “Toute l’éducation de l’enfant repose sur la mère. Elle inculque les habitudes et les notions matérielles ou morales de la société” (100) [All the child’s education hinges on the mother. She inculcates habits, ways of conducting oneself in the world, or social mores]. It is not a coincidence that most of the terminology that describes a person in relation to her/his country employs the term “mother.” In a collection of essays on the concept of motherhood entitled Motherlands: Black Women’s Writing from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia (1991), Susheila Nasta demystifies the common links that are often used when talking about land, culture, and tongue: [mother]land, [mother]culture, [mother]tongue. The use of “mother” is misleading because, in actuality, these notions are often controlled by the patriarchal order, even in cases when the women have a say in the social order, which often includes having children.

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The great societal pressures involved with having children are a primary focal point in the novel Fureurs et cris de femmes (1989) by Angèle Rawiri, from Gabon. The novel traces the life and struggle of Emilienne, an educated woman who has been obsessed for eight years with her inability to produce a son for her husband, Joseph. She has had several miscarriages and nervous breakdowns over this issue. Although the couple has a daughter, Rékia, matters do not improve. Emilienne tells herself: “Il faut que je lui donne un garçon qui lui ressemble” (25). [I have to give him a boy who looks like him.] Not only must she give him a son, as if she were the one who could decide the child’s sex, but he must resemble the husband. The daughter dies at the age of twelve, which widens the rift between the couple. The husband’s mother incites him to divorce his wife and marry his lover. According to the gender norms set in her society, Emilienne is not a “real woman” because she does not have a male child. Regardless of the fact that she has given birth to a child, it is only after the birth of a male child that she will become a true woman. Thus, womanhood, femininity and motherhood are interrelated. Gender identity is not automatic but is gained or denied through the birth of children, particularly male children. From the very beginning of Joseph and Emilienne’s relation, both of their families are against the marriage, because the two are from different ethnic groups. Having met in France, they returned home to Gabon to visit their respective families. Eyang, Joseph’s mother, reacts in the following manner: Tu n’épouseras pas une fille de cette éthnie tant que je vivrai! . . . Si c’est bien moi qui t’ai fabriqué et porté dans ce ventre pendant neuf mois, avait repris la mère en donnant plusieurs fois de grands coups dans son abdomen, je t’interdis de revoir cette personne. Ne sais-tu pas que ces gens-là nous méprisent et se croient plus évolués que nous? Je me demande parfois s’ils ne sont pas malades dans leur tête. Il existe de jolies filles instruites chez nous aussi. Elles attendent que tu t’intéresses à elles au lieu d’avoir les yeux sur cette . . . [fille]. (14) [You will not marry a girl from that éthnic group as long as I am alive! . . . If I am the one who made you and carried you in this womb for nine months, continued the mother while hitting herself several times in the abdomen, I forbid you to see this person again. Don’t you know that these people despised us and believed that they are more enlightened than us? I sometimes wonder if they are not crazy. There are beautiful and educated girls here as well. They are waiting for you to become interested in them instead of being interested in that girl.]

Emilienne’s mother, Rondani, had a similar reaction, once she found out that Joseph was from a different ethnic group: “Qu’est-ce qui t’arrive? T’aurait-il

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envoûtée ou quoi? [. . .] Ne me dis pas que tu veux te marier avec un étranger pour salir notre lignée. Aucun de tes aïeux n’a épousé une femme de cette région. Même mon grand-père qui avait chié des bâtards un peu partout dans ce pays n’est pas monté jusque là-bas” [What happened to you? Did he put a spell on you? (. . .) Do not tell me that you want to get married to a stranger to ruin our lineage. None of your ancestors married a woman from that region. Even my grandfather who screwed bastards everywhere in this country did not go all the way over there] (17). Before Rondani knew Joseph’s ethnic background, her reaction was totally different. When Emilienne first arrived and introduced Joseph as her fiancé, Rondani was so excited that the mortar she was holding fell and she stated: “Il était temps, ma fille. Je commençais à m’inquiéter de ton manque d’intérêt pour le mariage. Fais-le entrer par l’autre porte. Il ne faut pas qu’il me voit dans cet état” (15). [It was about time, daughter. I was starting to worry about your lack of interest regarding marriage. Have him come in through the other door. He should not see me in this state.] After fulfilling her first duty as a woman, that is, get married, she must perform the second one: have a male child. Childbearing or the lack of it shapes Emilienne’s whole identity as a woman and as a human being. Though she has a good job, is highly respected, is successful in her field, and is economically independent, her relation to her body is completely negative: “A quoi me sert d’entretenir un corps incapable d’assumer son rôle vital? [. . .] Tout en moi se vide, se dessèche et se disloque. Bientôt je serai l’épave de mon reflet. Et dire qu’il faut malgré tout entretenir et nourrir cette chair inféconde” (27). [What’s the use of maintaining a body incapable of assuming its vital role? (. . .) Everything in me is empty and dry. Soon, I will be the wreck of my reflection. And yet, in spite of everything, I have to maintain and nourish this infertile flesh.] Her obsession with her period is intense and psychosomatic; each time she has it she becomes physically and emotionally sick. She is in pain but not the type of pain that will produce a child. In one of her many interior monologues, she wonders: “Que dois-je faire pour le récupérer? La naissance d’un second enfant lui ferait-elle abandonner cette femme? [. . .] Que n’essaierais-je pour rectifier la courbe de notre union et la rendre nette et ascendante!: (24–25) [What should I do to get him back? Will the birth of a second child make him leave this woman? What I would not do to correct the curve of our union and make it straight and rising!] . Emilienne blames herself and her inability to have a second child as the primary reason for the deterioration of her marriage. The narrator observes: “Le besoin de procréer est en train de reprendre le dessus. D’autant plus que derrière ce besoin se cache une volonté opiniâtre de reconquérir son

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mari. Quoiqu’on puisse se demander si elle sait elle-même lequel des deux désirs prime sur l’autre” (25). [The need to procreate is about to become dominant. Furthermore, behind this need lies a persistent desire to win back her husband. Although one can wonder if she herself knows which one of the two desires prevails over the other.] For Emilienne, the equation is as follows: Having male children will make Joseph love her and save her marriage. Her identity as a woman is measured by her ability to reproduce male heirs. In the introduction to The Tie that Binds: Essays on Mothering and Patriarchy (1990), the editors (Jean O’Barr, Deborah Pope, and Mary Wyer) point out that “no woman comes to motherhood in a vacuum. From her earliest years, she has been the recipient of a continuous stream of dictates, determinations, representations, and symbols emanating from her culture and instructing her in the norms of femininity—a condition exemplified by heterosexual marriage and motherhood” (1). This norm of femininity is challenged by what is viewed to be one of the most subversive aspects of Fureurs et cris de femmes, Emilienne’s lesbian relations with Dominique, her secretary and, unbeknownst to her, rival (Dominique is also Joseph’s mistress). The first encounter between the two women allows Emilienne to explore her sexuality: Les deux femmes se dévisagent comme si elles se rencontraient pour la première fois. Le cœur d’Émilienne se met à tambouriner et au même moment, une joie incommensurable l’inonde. Son visage s’illumine. [. . .] Emilienne s’est refusée à analyser les nouveaux besoins de sa chair. Tout ce qu’elle sait, c’est que ses sens s’éveillent à un désir étrange suscité par ce premier frisson ressenti au contact de cette autre femme. (113) [The two women look at one another as if they were meeting for the first time. Emilienne’s heart starts beating like a drum and at the same time, she was overcome with an immeasurable joy. Her face shines. [. . .] Emilienne stops herself from analyzing her body’s new need. All she knows is that her senses awake to a strange desire aroused by the first thrill she felt at the touch of this other woman.]

The feelings of desire that Emilienne experiences with Dominique are similar to feelings she had felt for Joseph. Her relations with Dominique allow Emilienne to appreciate her body: “Elle s’étire avant de poser sa tête sur les cuisses de sa nouvelle amie. Souriante, Dominique lui relève le chemisier et fait parcourir délicatement ses longs ongles vernis sur ses seins qu’elle sort de leur soutien-gorge” (115). [She stretches before putting her head on her new friend’s thighs. Smiling, Dominique takes off her shirt and delicately runs her long polished nails on her breasts that she takes out of her bra.] Emilienne

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has become a new woman: “Emilienne s’épanouie au fil des jours. . . . Pendant une semaine, Emilienne se laisse entraîner par ce cri nouveau de son corps qu’elle peut faire taire à volonté par les caresses qu’elle échange avec sa secrétaire dans son bureau” (115). [Emilienne blossoms over the next few days. . . . For a week, she allows herself to be led by her body’s new cry that she can voluntarily satisfy through the caresses that she exchanges with the secretary in her office.] She no longer responds to her husband’s lovemaking, whereas before this relationship with Dominique, she would give anything to have her husband make love to her and pay attention to her. She no longer needs her husband to be sexually satisfied. It is important that the author, Angèle Rawiri, chooses to have her heroine come to an awareness of her sexuality via a lesbian relationship because African homosexual relationships are strongly looked down upon in many communities.6 The relationship between Dominique and Emilienne is ambiguous and complex. Dominique’s approach to it is disingenuous because she uses Emilienne’s weakness and vulnerability to get close to her and then proceeds to plot with Eyang, Emilienne’s mother-in-law, to get her to leave Joseph. Nevertheless, the fact that Rawiri includes a lesbian relationship in her novel is a form of subversion in and of itself. In Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence, Irène d’Almeida further explains that Emilienne seems to be liberated “of her prison of cultural expectations” through her lesbian relationship, even though she is “redefined . . . again by her pregnancy” (98). This seems to suggest that she has chosen motherhood over sexual fulfillment and that her expectation as a mother surpasses that of her desire as a woman. By engaging in a relationship outside of marriage, Emilienne takes charge of her own body and by extension, her sense of her self. That is to say, she chooses how to use her body and with whom to share it. Even if the relation is temporary, she achieves sensual pleasure: Her body is no longer simply a machine used to reproduce children, but a part of who she is and a way for her to give and take pleasure. Emilienne liberates herself psychologically, physically, and emotionally, and at the end of the novel she is aware of her strength, permitting it to end with the possibility of a new beginning. She asks her mother-in-law and husband to leave the house and she can now conceive of a life by herself as an independent woman. Rawiri’s novel opens up a debate about whether or not women must have children, and especially male children, in order to be considered “true women” and have a satisfying marriage. Is her primary role that of a wife and mother only? Within the marriage bond both women and men need to be aware that it is crucial to create a space where both partners can equally assert themselves

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in a harmonious fashion. The relationship should be an open one between two individuals who respect one another and decide mutually to come together. Cultural traditions determine what a woman’s role should be in marriage. However, when these traditions prevent women from being personally fulfilled, they begin to question the traditions and ultimately overthrow them. Views of gender, sexual identity, and motherhood are among the connections between Francophone Africa and Francophone Caribbean.

Notes 1. Emphasis mine. 2. The calendar or Knaus-Ogino is a natural birth control method in which the number of “safe” days and fertile days are calculated from the woman’s menstrual cycle as a way to achieve or avoid pregnancy. 3. The author further exemplifies this notion by illustrating the case of a Guadeloupean mayor in the Basse-Terre region who proudly announces being the “père géniteur” (genetic father or sperm-giver) of as many children as there are saints in the calendar. 4. René Larrier, Francophone Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 17. 5. Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, “The Female Writer and Her Commitment,” Women and African Literature Today (1987): 6. 6. Although I do not consider same-sex marriages in this book, they exist in Africa. For more information on woman-to-woman marriage, see Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society (London: Zed Books, 1987), and Oyèrònké Oyewùmì, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997) which discusses the notion of gender in pre-colonial Yoruba culture. Homosexuality is a controversial topic both in Africa and in the Caribbean. There is a tendency among many Africans and Caribbeans to state that homosexuality is not an “African or Caribbean problem.” But this is not the case at all. This debate has been an ongoing topic of discussion. Several African presidents have openly adhered to anti-African policies. For more in-depth discussion, see Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities, eds. Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998). In Breath, Eyes, Memory, Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat implies a lesbian relationship between Atie (Sophie’s aunt who raised her) and Louise, the friend who is teaching her how to read. Grandmè Ifé, Atie’s mother, disapproves of their “friendship.” Atie writes poetry, and on one occasion after having read a poem to Sophie, the narrator notes: “She [Atie] and Louise strolled into the night, like silhouettes on a picture postcard” (135). Regardless of some critics’ refusal of recognizing homosexuality in Africa, there is an awareness by many people that homosexuals are “coming out” as is evident by two films. Woubi-Chéri, by

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Philip Brooks and Laurent Bocahut (1998), depicts the lives of transvestites, homosexuals, and bisexuals in Côte d’Ivoire. These marginal elements of African society have developed a coded language and have their own communities. Likewise, Dakan, by Mohamed Camara (Guinea: California Newsreel 1997), is a powerful and controversial film that depicts the love story of two young boys and their families’ attempt to “cure” them of their unacceptable homosexual behaviors. For more information, see Thérèse Migraine-George, “Beyond the ‘Internalist’ vs. ‘Externalist’ Debate: The Local-Global Identities of African Homosexuals in Two Films, Woubi-Chéri and Dakan” Journal of African Cultural Studies 16.1 (2003): 45–56. Regarding homosexuality in Haiti, there is an interesting documentary (Anne Lescot and Laurent Magloire, Des hommes et des dieux [Of men and gods], Port-au-Prince, Haiti: DIGITAL LM Film Prodution, 2002) that provides insight into the connections between the Vodou religion and homosexuality.

C H A P T E R

F O U R



Marriage, Religion, and Polygyny

Un musulman complet est un homme marié. [A complete (true) Muslim is a married man.] —Tahar Ben Jelloun, L’enfant de sable1 Le cœur d’un homme est comme une cathédrale: il y a l’autel principal et des chapelles latérales. Place ton épouse dans l’autel principal et remplace souvent les saintes des chapelles latérales par d’autres saintes. [The heart of a man is like a cathedral: there is the main altar and lateral chapels. Put your spouse on the main altar and often replace the saints in the lateral chapels with other saints.] —France Alibar and Pierrette Lembeye-Boy, Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles, Vol. II

Marriage is one of the celebrations or rites of passage, along with birth, baptism, and death, considered part of the life cycle. For some, the marriage ceremony symbolizes the reinforcement and validation of the marriage contract and a way of making the couple accountable to family and friends. Marriage is an institution that creates a continuity leading to the standardization of lifestyles. In this way, marriage functions in much the same manner as organized religion. Religion plays a crucial role in marriage because it shapes and reflects systems of beliefs and values. In fact, marriage and religion are

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often interdependent in many societies, and Francophone Africa and the Caribbean are not immune to this dependency. This chapter analyzes how marriage and religion operate as a complex but coherent entity. Among the issues discussed are the dynamics among marriage, the social order, and religion. Religion is used by the patriarchal society to sustain the male social privileges in marriage. It will also explore polygyny and religious marriage versus common-law marriage, usually referred to as concubinage or plaçage in the Francophone Caribbean. The introduction of religion during the colonial era coincided with the institutionalization of marriage among slaves. Historically, religion has exercised a great influence on society as a whole and on the institution of marriage in particular. In both the Christian and Muslim religions, marriage is considered an important and sacred covenant ordained by God. It serves to maintain the acceptable family structure that is considered by many to be the basic unit of society. Islam also regards marriage as a duty for its followers, thus the saying “Un musulman complet est un homme marié.” [A complete (true) Muslim is a married man.] 2 In the Islamic tradition, the primary roles assigned to women are those of wife and mother. In Women in Muslim Family Law (1982), John L. Esposito defines marriage in the Islamic context as “a civil contract legalizing intercourse and the procreation of children. Marriage, reflecting the practical bent of Islam, combines the nature of both ibadat (worship) and muamalat (social relations)” (16). Likewise, in the Bible, the apostle Paul encourages men and women to marry in order to remain chaste and avoid sexual immorality: “But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am [unmarried]; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”3 In Islamic society, marriage contracts can be negotiated between the fathers and grandfathers of families without the consent of either member of the young couple. This is justified by the following belief: “Men are those who support women, since God has given some persons advantages over others, and because they expand their wealth on them. [Furthermore], men have authority over women, because, Allah has made the one superior to the other and because [men] spend their wealth to maintain [women].”4 The Bible echoes this hierarchy: “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. . . .”5 Giving the man the traditional role of protector places him in a position of power, while the woman becomes a subordinate. Although the Koran and the Bible differ in how women should be treated in marriage, they are both regarded within their respective cultures as authoritative scripture that can be used to support male hegemony. In several coun-

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tries in the Muslim world, polygyny is one of the traditions that serves to benefit men. Even though the Bible (the New Testament) forbids polygyny, the religious and economic structures in place in some parts of the Christian world privilege males and indirectly support a form of polygyny, as will be seen in the case of some of the works analyzed in Francophone Caribbean. Polygamy is the practice of a man or a woman having more than one wife or husband at one time. Polygyny, often mistakenly referred to as polygamy, is a practice by which a male has more than one female sexual partner; it is the most common form of polygamy. Polyandry, the opposite, is when a female has more than one husband. Although the practice that will be discussed in this chapter is often referred to as polygamy, it is in fact polygyny. Since only works in which men have more than one “wife” are analyzed in this chapter, the term polygyny will be used to avoid confusion. Historically, in Africa, polygyny was a sign of prosperity, power, and longevity. The number of polygynous couples varies from one country to another but is believed to be about 30 percent. West Africa has the highest number of polygynous marriages; one out of every two married women is in a polygynous household. Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso have the largest number of polygynous marriages.6 The percentages in Senegal and Mali are lower. In North Africa, polygyny is diminishing.7 This is intriguing because it brings into question the common belief that the majority of Muslims are polygynous. There are generally two types of polygyny, one linked to tradition and another linked to the Muslim faith. Some Islamic supporters of polygyny argue that the Prophet states that in a polygynous marriage all wives are to be treated justly, but not necessarily equally. There are religious laws that govern polygynous marriages, and each wife has certain rights regarding matters like the number of days she spends with her husband; the laws also state the ways in which the husband is to provide equally for all his wives and children. However, as the literary texts discussed show, these rights and responsibilities are often neglected. Polygyny often turns out to be a selfindulgent means for males to have many mates and affirm their powers, whether social, economic, or religious. This demonstration of power is well represented in Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre (1980). This novel has become a classic of African literature in the past twenty years. It problematizes the issue of polygyny, setting up dichotomies of tradition and modernity, self and family, the individual and society. It is crucial to remember that this representation of polygynous life is that of an urban middle-class Senegalese society and is not representative of all Senegalese polygynous marriages. Bâ uses the epistolary form to allow her character to have a socially accepted space to describe her emotions. At the

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beginning of the novel, the narrator, Ramatoulaye, states her reason for writing to her longtime friend: “Aissatou, j’ai reçu ton mot. En guise de réponse, j’ouvre ce cahier, point d’appui dans mon désarroi: notre longue pratique m’a enseigné que la confidence noie la douleur” (7). [“Dear Aissatou, I have received your letter. By way of reply, I am beginning this diary, my (touchstone) in my distress. Our long association has taught me that confiding in others allays pain.(1)]”8 For Ramatoulaye, writing the long letter is first and foremost a form of therapy. As per the Muslim custom, she is in forced seclusion for four months and ten days following the death of her husband, Modou. Her confinement serves as a catalyst and allows her to observe, meditate, question, and reflect upon her life, her marriage, her individual self and basic beliefs. Ramatoulaye’s story is quite simple. After over two decades of marriage, her husband, Modou, decides to take a second wife. However, despite Ramatoulaye’s Western education, she chooses to remain with him, because the forces of her Islamic religious upbringing and tradition are stronger than her will to be independent. She notes: “[Mon] coeur s’accorde aux exigences religieuses. Nourrie, dès l’enfance, à leurs sources rigides, je crois que je ne faillirai pas” (18). [“My heart (bends to) the demands of religion. Reared since childhood on their strict precepts, I expect not to falter”] (8). Her religious upbringing prevents her from dissolving the marriage, even though her husband has not followed Islamic law in deciding to take a second wife without her consent. Furthermore, he betrays her in several ways. He meticulously plans his second marriage, and Ramatoulaye is perfunctorily informed that she has a co-wife. Modou does not even have the courage or the decency and respect to announce to Ramatoulaye that he has married, leaving that task to the Iman and his brother, Tamsir. Ramatoulaye describes in detail that fateful day when she discovers that her husband had taken another wife. The male contingency, consisting of Tamsir, Modou’s brother, Mawdo Bâ, his best friend, and the local Iman come to announce the “good” news to Ramatoulaye. By letting others announce his wedding, the responsibility is shifted from Modou. This might imply that he is uncomfortable with his actions and maybe has a certain degree of shame, guilt, and remorse. Everyone knew about Modou’s marriage except for Ramatoulaye; as the saying goes, “the wife is always the last to know.” First, Tamsir thanks Ramatoulaye on behalf of Modou and congratulates her for their quarter century of marriage, then further states that destiny decides people’s fate and that God has given him a second wife, as if he had no choice in the matter. He also praises her for being both a friend and a “mother” to Modou. It is as if after all the years of marriage, Ramatoulaye’s role as Modou’s “mother” has superceded that of wife, friend, and lover, so he “must” take a second wife. The idea of being a

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mother implies a certain responsibility vis-à-vis Modou (the child), and as a mother she should accept this situation, her fate. It is also intriguing that Tamsir refers to her role as the first wife, acknowledging that she has a special place in his heart and certain privileges as the first wife. Religion is used to justify Modou’s fickleness and his desire to attain the status that a second wife would give him in the community. He did not just take a second wife; God gave him a second wife. Religion allows Modou to be passive when he is in fact active—it masks his true desires. After this shock, Ramatoulaye recalls all the absences, late lunches and dinners, the various times he would change clothes before going to a meeting at the office as well as the diet that Modou had started lately. She puts together the pieces of the puzzle. Though she is furious, in accordance with her education and religion, Ramatoulaye accepts the news with dignity and even pride. She thanks each of them: the Iman, Tamsir and Mawdo, Modou’s best friend. To worsen the situation, Ramatoulaye learns that her new co-wife is none other than her daughter´s best friend, Binetou. Binetou would come to the house and study with Daba, Ramatoulaye’s daughter, and Modou would take her home afterwards. No one suspected this was the beginning of a romance that would lead to marriage. Innocently, Binetou used to talk about “le vieux” [the old man] who bought her designer clothes. When Daba notices the change in her dress style, Binetou comments: “Je tire leur prix de la poche d’un vieux” (54). [“I have a sugar-daddy who pays for them”] (35). One day Daba comes home and tells Ramatoulaye that Binetou’s parents wanted to take her out of school and marry her to the old man. Binetou’s parents are from a very poor family, and for them, particularly for her mother, marrying her to a rich man, no matter how old he is, is the surest way to move up the social ladder. To convince her daughter, the mother cries, begs and manipulates Binetou into helping her have a few good days in her old age. Feeling guilty and wanting to please her mother, Binetou accepts, because she is in an environment where religion demands that children respect and obey their parents in all circumstances. Both Daba and Ramatoulaye are betrayed in many ways by this marriage. Ramatoulaye feels hurt because Modou does not have the courage to tell her that he is marrying a second wife, a young woman who could very well be his daughter. In fact, she is almost interchangeable with his daughter. Daba feels betrayed both by her friend and by her father. However, Ramatoulaye considers Binetou a victim of her parents, of Modou, as well as of her socioeconomic background and a culture that allows such marriages to take place. For her, Binetou is “un agneau immolé comme beaucoup d’autres sur l’autel

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du matériel”(60) [“a lamb slaughtered on the altar of affluence”] (39). Daba, hurt and angry, pleads with her mother to leave her father and divorce, but Ramatoulaye remains. Why does Ramatoulaye remain in the marriage? Critics’ explanations range from her adherence to tradition to Ramatoulaye’s fear of being alone.9 Why did she not leave like her friend Aissatou had many years before when her husband took a second wife without her permission? In her choice, Ramatoulaye is torn between her heart and reason. Her choice is one of the heart; although logic condemns it, her “immense tenderness” for Modou led her to stay. In fact, the decision to stay with her husband makes sense if we see Ramatoulaye as preserving what is left of the social value of her womanhood because she felt that leaving would further wound her womanhood. She would be considered by her milieu as someone threatened by a new co-wife, a jealous woman who is not strong enough to handle the challenges brought upon her marriage by a co-wife. Furthermore, she sees herself as a traditional woman who must follow her religious upbringing. In some ways, this religious education provokes the fear that prevents her from considering possible alternatives. Moreover, she questions her ability to start over: Partir? Recommencer à zéro, après avoir vécu vingt-cinq ans avec un homme, après avoir mis au monde douze enfants? Avais-je assez de force pour supporter seule le poids de cette responsabilité à la fois morale et matérielle? Partir? Tirer un trait net sur le passé. [. . .] Je comptais les femmes connues, abandonnées ou divorcées de ma génération. [. . .] La misère [. . .] était le lot de ces femmes. [. . .] J’en connaissais qui avaient perdu tout espoir de renouvellement et que la solitude avait mises très tôt sous terre. (61) [Leave? Start again at zero, after (having lived) twenty-five years with one man, after having borne twelve children? Did I have enough energy to bear alone the weight of this responsibility, which was both moral and material? Leave? Draw a clean line through the past. . . . I counted the abandoned or divorced women of my generation whom I knew. . . . Misery . . . was the lot of these women. . . . I knew others who had lost all hope of renewal and whom loneliness had very quickly put underground.] (39-40)

For Ramatoulaye, remaining in an unfulfilled union is better than being alone and incomplete. Religion and society teach women from an early age that in order to be complete and successful they must be with a man. They must also accept their roles as women, roles defined by their particular community, and respect the caste system. Following tradition, Ramatoulaye does marry within her milieu, but her friend, Aissatou, defies tradition from the

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very beginning by marrying a man from a different social class and ethnic group. Her husband, Mawdo Bâ, a Toucouleur, should not have been able to marry a jeweler’s daughter. Nabou, Mawdo’s mother, believes that one can only be virtuous by birth, and, in her eyes, Aissatou does not possess any virtue. Nabou embraces the traditional social roles imposed on women and used to maintain the socio-economic hierarchy. Later, Nabou will use this system to her advantage to encourage her son to take a second wife who better conforms to the dictates of tradition. At the time of his marriage to Aissatou, Mawdo stood up to his mother and declared: “Le mariage est une chose personnelle” (30). [“Marriage is a personal thing”] (17). However, when he wants a second wife, he allows himself to be manipulated and influenced by his mother. Nabou, Mawdo’s mother, had meticulously planned her revenge against Aissatou. To make sure she has complete control over this second wife, she goes to the village and coerces her brother into giving her one of his children. She tells her brother that she feels lonely since her children no longer live with her. As she had anticipated, her brother, Farba Diouf, was thrilled and eagerly gave her one of his children, whose name was also Nabou. The younger Nabou was given to her aunt as if she were an object. Thus began Nabou’s wifely training of her future daughter-in-law, young Nabou. Mawdo’s mother molds, shapes, and trains young Nabou as she deems appropriate. Young Nabou’s training included learning the secrets of making delicious sauces and using an iron, among other womanly “qualities.” She learned the most important trait in a woman, “docility.” Such so-called virtues fit the mold of a new wife because they focus on the woman’s domestic skills and the need to please her husband. Mawdo’s mother does not want young Nabou to be too educated; she wants her to acquire the minimum so as not to have ideas of rebelling against her husband. Keeping the woman’s education at a minimum is a way of maintaining the hierarchy. Nabou sends her protégé to “L’Ecole des Sages-Femmes” to become a midwife, because that is a worthy occupation, unlike Aissatou’s job as a school teacher. Young Nabou is remunerated while earning grace from the prophet Mohammed, since her job will consist of helping new followers to be born. This school’s main purpose is to teach young Nabou to be a servant, to be docile and to obey her husband. The midwife curriculum is grooming her to be the ideal wife for Mawdo. The curriculum is so focused on women, children, and the home that it will keep her in her role as a wife. It will also allow her solely the level of education necessary to be a wife, mother, and nurturer. It will not teach her to be an independent thinker like Aissatou. What is noteworthy is how Mawdo’s mother plans her scheme. The mother-in-law

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and daughter-in-law dynamics are very complex. Since Nabou (the mother) could neither manipulate nor mold her first daughter-in-law, Aissatou, she is happy to have young Nabou, the new daughter-in-law, whom she can easily control. In general, the mother-in-law plays a vital role in the making and breaking of a marriage. If she does not like the daughter-in-law, she will do everything to either destroy the marriage or introduce a third party, if she can, as is the case with Mawdo’s mother. Her feeling of possession of her son is natural for her, and she believes that she owns him, since she gave him life. When Mawdo’s mother thinks that the time is right and that young Nabou is ripe for the marriage market, she places the second part of her plan into effect. Consequently, Farba, Mawdo’s uncle, gave him young Nabou as his new wife, a symbol of gratitude for taking care of Nabou (the mother). Young Nabou, as a person, is objectified and becomes a sexual commodity. According to Mawdo, he must take this second wife offered by his uncle in order not to offend his family. After all, in their tradition: “La honte tue plus vite que la maladie” (48–49). [“Shame kills faster than disease [itself]”] (30). Everyone knows about Mawdo’s new wife, young Nabou, except Aissatou, his first wife. He tells her about the new arrangement only after his mother has made the appointment for the consummation of the marriage. Choosing not to deceive his mother, he consummates the marriage. He justifies his choice by telling Aissatou that his mother is old and will die if he were to refuse this second wife. As a doctor, he declares that he must have sex with this young girl or else drive his mother into her grave with the shock his refusal would give to her weak heart. Like his friend, Modou, Mawdo does not take direct responsibility for his actions and behavior. Mawdo is marrying young Nabou out of a sense of duty, adherence to tradition and respect for his mother, as if he lacks a sense of duty or respect vis-à vis his wife. The hypocritical nature of culture and tradition is relevant because it proves how tradition can be used along the same lines as religion to perpetuate certain beliefs and desires. By choosing to marry young Nabou, Mawdo chooses his mother over his wife. He manipulates tradition to fulfill his desires to marry a younger woman. Originally, when he wanted to marry Aissatou, tradition did not matter, but it suddenly matters, and he worries about what people will say if he refuses to marry his cousin. For her part, Aissatou follows her heart and puts her individual self before society. Although many well-meaning people discourage her from leaving Mawdo, she chooses to leave. As a parting message, she writes a simple yet powerful letter10 in which she criticizes a society whereby the individual is

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forced to follow duty to her or his detriment. In leaving Mawdo, she refuses to submit to the privileges of male supremacy. Aissatou accuses Mawdo of being a coward, of using the system for his personal benefit, and of avoiding responsibility for his actions. She defies tradition once more and does not follow the culture and religion of her society, which dictate that she must accept his choice. She is highly criticized by her milieu, those around her who think her unable to raise four boys on her own, yet she proves them wrong by providing financial and emotional security for her children. Although Mawdo claims to have a broken heart and sadness by Aissatou’s departure, he maintains his relationship with young Nabou and impregnates her on a regular basis. To justify his action, he proclaims to Ramatoulaye: “On ne résiste pas aux lois impérieuses qui exigent de l’homme nourriture et vêtements. Ces mêmes lois poussent le ‘mâle’ ailleurs. Je dis bien ‘mâle’ pour marquer la bestialité des instincts. . . . Tu comprends. . . . Une femme doit comprendre une fois pour toutes et pardonner; elle ne doit pas souffrir en se souciant des ‘trahisons’ charnelles. Ce qui importe, c’est ce qu’il y a là dans le coeur; c’est ce qui lie deux êtres”11 (52–53). [“You can’t resist the imperious laws that demand [that man provide] food and clothing. These same laws compel the ‘male’ in other respects. I say ‘male’ to emphasize the bestiality of instincts. . . . You understand. . . . A wife must understand, once and for all, and . . . forgive; she must not worry herself about ‘betrayals of the flesh.’ The important thing is what there is in the heart; that’s what unites two beings”] (34). For Mawdo, the flesh is weak, and there is a complete separation of heart and body. He deeply loves Aissatou, but since young Nabou is given to him in marriage, he accepts her. Religion and society educate a woman to accept the male’s “bestiality.” These religious and social dogmas are instituted by the male hierarchy. Aissatou chooses not to live by these rules and starts a new life. Unlike Aissatou, Ramatoulaye stays after her husband takes a second wife. However, after his death, she defies tradition and religious norms by refusing to marry Modou’s brother, Tamsir. As required by Islam, Ramatoulaye celebrates her fortieth day in seclusion and forgives Modou. Soon after the celebration and the reading of the Koran, Tamsir comes very arrogantly, accompanied by Mawdo and the Iman, to inform her that he will marry her when she comes out of mourning: Tu me conviens comme femme et puis, tu continueras à habiter ici, comme si Modou n’était pas mort. En général, c’est le petit frère qui hérite de l’épouse laissé par son aîné [. . .] Tu es ma chance. Je t’épouse. Je te préfère à l’autre [Binetou], trop légère, trop jeune. J’avais déconseillé ce mariage à Modou. (84)

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[You suit me as a wife, and further (more), you will continue to live here, just as if Modou were not dead. Usually it is the younger brother who inherits his elder brother’s wife. . . . You are my good luck. I shall marry you. I prefer you to the other one (Binetou), too frivolous, too young. I advised Modou against that marriage.] (57)

Ramatoulaye is an object, a commodity, part of the inheritance on the same level as the house and the land. This “declaration of love” (57) or rather “order of marriage” unlatches something from deep inside Ramatoulaye, who has been silent for thirty years. With a despising look to Tamsir, Mawdo, and the Iman, she unleashes this tirade directed at Tamsir like a river unable to stop its flow: Tu peux déjà construire un foyer neuf sur un cadavre chaud. . . . Tu oublies que j’ai un coeur, une raison, que je ne suis pas un objet que l’on se passe de main en main. Tu ignores ce que se marier signifie pour moi: c’est un acte de foi et d’amour, un don total de soi â l’être que l’on a choisi et qui vous a choisi. (J’insistais sur le mot choisi.) Et tes femmes, Tamsir? . . . Je ne serai jamais le complément de ta collection.12 (85–86) [You already want to build a new home for yourself over a body that is still warm. You forget that I have a heart, a mind, that I am not an object to be passed from hand to hand. You don’t know what marriage means to me: it is an act of faith and of love, the total surrender of oneself to the person one has chosen and who has chosen you.’ (I emphasized the word ‘chosen’.) ‘What of your wives, Tamsir? . . . I shall never be the one to complete your collection.] (58)

All three men are shocked at her outburst, and the Iman notes: “Quelles paroles profanes et dans des habits de deuil!” (86). [“Such profane words and still in mourning!”] (58). The Iman does not consider Tamsir’s words profane, but, as a woman, Ramatoulaye does not have the right to such an outburst. Her outburst is also a revolt against traditional patriarchal order. She asserts her individuality and personal worth, deconstructing Tamsir’s objectification and thus defying male-constructed standards and definition of marriage. This was Ramatoulaye’s revenge regarding the announcement made years ago of Modou’s marriage to Binetou. Ramatoulaye also raises the important economic dimension of polygyny. Many men, like Tamsir, want to be polygynous and continually update their collection of wives even when they cannot adequately sustain their current families. Ramatoulaye and her children are victims of this male privilege. When Modou took a second wife, Ramatoulaye expected to be treated fairly in the new polygynous marriage, but that

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was not the case. His new wife and his new life did not allow room for his first wife and children. She did not receive any material or emotional support from him, and he did not even bother to come see his children. Mawdo’s children had to take public transportation to go to school, and Ramatoulaye would go shopping on foot; meanwhile, his car was being used to take his mother-in-law, ironically referred to as “Dame Belle-mère,” around town and his new wife alternated between a white and a red Alfa Romeo (79). Ramatoulaye appears to be powerless to object. In spite of the way Mawdo mistreats her and her children, it seems as though she still loves him. Society’s hypocrisy and its religious structures are clear. On the one hand, the Iman, Tamsir, and Mawdo––all part of the patriarchal hierarchy–– supported Modou when he decided to take a second wife. They were there to help announce the “good” news to Ramatoulaye and stressed that it was her duty as a good Muslim to accept his choice. However, when Modou fails in his duty as a husband and a father, there is no religious or patriarchal order to set him on the right path. Religion is thus an excuse and a weapon for those with power, mostly males, to maintain the status quo and do what pleases them. Ramatoulaye, having been silent for so long now, knows what she wants. She also eloquently and gracefully rejects the marriage proposal of Daouda Dieng, a former suitor. She still believes in the complementarity of men and women. Although she has been betrayed, she believes in love and the free choice of partner. For this reason, she refuses to settle for just anyone and prefers to remain alone and wait. Like Ramatoulaye, other women choose to stay in an unsatisfactory relationship in the name of religion even when that same religion rarely acknowledges the fact that many polygynous males, as in the case of the husbands of Ramatoulaye and Aissatou, do not adhere to their religion’s regulations and abandon their first wives. The roles assigned to women in society imply that when the man decides to take a second wife, she must bear the responsibility for his leaving, as if he chooses to leave because she somehow fails in her responsibility and duty as a wife. Although Ramatoulaye knows that it was her husband’s personal choice to take a second wife, she is filled with guilt and self-doubt. This is another intended effect of the patriarchal structures in place—that the victim of wrongdoing feels responsible for her own abuse. She questions her role in her husband’s betrayal: “Et je m’interroge. Et je m’interroge. Pourquoi? Pourquoi Modou s’est-il détaché? . . . J’essaie de traquer les faiblesses de ma conduite” (82–83). [“And I ask myself. I ask myself, why? Why did Modou detach himself? . . . I am trying to pinpoint any weakness in the way I conducted myself”] (56). It is ironic that while Modou is the one who goes astray and takes a second wife, it is Ramatoulaye

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who feels guilty and questions herself. This is due partly to the fact that some cultures tend to blame women for their marriage’s failure. As Bâ’s novel underscores, religion can be used as a tool to oppress women and make them conform. In supporting institutionalized polygyny, religion in some instances allows for the destruction of the marriage bond and family structure and can bring about other fatal consequences, as we will see in Abibatou Traoré’s novel Sidagamie, which will be discussed in chapter five. The links between marriage and religion in Francophone Caribbean are just as complex as they are in Francophone Africa. Even though there is no legal or religious precedence for polygyny in the Caribbean, it is still an everyday reality for many. Whereas the Muslim bourgeois male in Africa may have several wives as part of religious and social status, a situation that is sometimes casually referred to as having un deuxième bureau [a second office], in the Caribbean, the non-Muslim or Christian male may have one or many mistresses that, though “unofficial,” his surroundings accept and support. This behavior is openly or secretly acknowledged. The male may have a second or third family with the non-official woman, also sometimes referred to as his wife; at times, he supports these children along with the woman. Often, the wife may be aware of the husband’s other woman/women. In the case of Haiti, a well-to-do woman, economically and socially stable (commonly referred to as a bourgeois woman), may know that her husband is having an extra-marital affair but may not react negatively because of her upbringing. Her education, religion, or her status prohibit such behavior. Since religion and culture are interwoven, she must perform her religious duties and remain married. Moreover, the priest will often discourage the wife from divorcing even if the evidence is clear that her husband has mistresses. The acceptance of these kinds of tacit or unwritten rules further problematizes polygyny. There is no religious structure in place that supports polygyny. However, based on the texts that are examined in this chapter, I refer to cultural polygyny as a permissible practice in many Caribbean societies. In Alibar and Lembeye-Boy’s Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles (vol. 2), the life stories of the women interviewed depict their tolerance of polygyny in the French Caribbean. To underline its prevalence, the authors devote two chapters to that practice, “Polygamies” and “Femmes du dehors” [outside women]. The great number of women (over two-thirds of the women interviewed) who invoked polygyny as one of their major concerns indicates that it is as common a reality in the Caribbean as in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. Polygyny is defined as the state or practice of having two or more spouses at the same time; a spouse is a partner in marriage. In the Francophone Caribbean context, concubinage and plaçage are similar to marriage. Cultural

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polygyny, though it does not completely correspond to the African’s idea of polygyny as it relates to state recognition and openness, reflects the way in which cultures allow men to have multiple partners or wives. In the Caribbean context, it is not only a question of fidelity but an accepted or acceptable behavior for some. I spoke to various friends from Haiti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe who shared stories with me about their grandfather, father, or other male members of their families who had other women. Most people are aware of the situation but do not openly talk about it. Sometimes, when wives confront their husbands regarding their other women, the men may become angry with, threaten to leave, or abuse them. Men create a type of network with different women and children. There are instances where the wives even raise the children their husbands have with other women. As in many other societies, marriage in the Francophone Caribbean signals social status, stability, and approval. For some, marriage is also a sign of legitimacy. Often, one’s economic status does not allow the luxury of a church wedding. In many instances in Haiti, even when there is a civil marriage, if there is not a church wedding ceremony it is referred to as plaçage légal, meaning two people living together legally but not in the eyes of God. The term plaçage or plasaj13 in Haitian Creole will be used to describe marriage when discussing the relations between two people who are not legally married. In Guadeloupe and Martinique, these types of union may be referred to as “de type ami” [friend type] and in Haiti as “rinmin, vivavek, ou plaçage” [going out, living together or plaçage].14 In Haiti, until the 1960s, plasaj was the most common mode of relationship among peasants and urban lower class. Because of the influx of religion, mainly Protestantism, and pressure from the Church to conform, more couples started having legal marriage. However, plasaj still remains the most common forms of marriage for the majority of women. There are different types of plaçage. Plasaj onèt, literally “honest plasaj,” a term used mostly in rural areas, is a type of union whereby a woman is given a house and furniture or even land; the man does not necessarily live in the house with her but she is considered his wife and is respected as such. The term plaçage contains a sense of permanency—it is not a superficial relationship because there is an exchange of support similar to a marriage. The woman is generally faithful to the man. The man, however, may be with other women. Many factors, primarily social status and religion, determine how plaçage is viewed by society. A wedding ceremony can be expensive; sometimes it will be years or even a decade before a couple can afford a legal and/or church wedding. A woman who lives in plaçage can be negatively viewed, depending on her milieu and

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the status of her partner. Legal marriage is preferred to plaçage even though, to some people, it is still considered plaçage légal. A common Haitian statement claims that politicians, hougan (Vodou priests), musicians, bus drivers, and freemasons have more than one woman because of customs, expectation, and social status. In Étre femme en Haïti hier et aujourd’hui: Le regard des Constitutions des lois, et de la société, Mirlande Manigat notes that plaçage is a social reality in Haiti—80 percent of the population of marriageable age lives in plaçage. It is a structured union based on customary rules and forms the basis of most Haitian families. She further elaborates on the two types of union: legal marriage and plaçage which coexist and should be acknowledged in the laws (202–207). This would give more rights and protection to women. Plaçage can be regarded as one of the outcomes of the mélange that occurred in the Caribbean. A number of factors contributed to the cultural métissage of the contemporary Caribbean—forced migration, slavery, the colonial legacy, and the plantation era—help explain the current structure of marriage in the Caribbean. The lack of official marriage can be considered a form of resistance. To understand the ambiguous nature and structure of marriage in the Caribbean, it is important to consider how it was forced upon the slaves during the colonial period. According to Jean-Baptiste Dutertre, in Histoire générale des Antilles françaises, the colonizers knew the importance of the slaves’ ability to reproduce and started a marriage campaign using religion to assure the continuation of slavery: “Nos Français ont soin de marier [les esclaves] le plus tôt qu’ils peuvent pour en avoir des enfants qui dans la suite des temps prennent la place de leurs pères, font le même travail et leur rendent même assistance” (507). [Our Frenchmen have good cause to marry the slaves as soon as possible so that they can have children who, in turn, will replace their fathers, do the same work and assist them in the same way.] Assuring marriage among the slaves was a way to maintain authority, male authority from all slaves—male and female. In the Francophone Caribbean, slaves were allowed to marry legally within the Christian church as early as the latter part of the seventeenth century. In 1680, the king of France, Louis XIV, wanted to evangelize the slaves to guarantee their reproduction: Sa Majesté a été informée de l’extraordinaire prostitution qui règne parmi les négresses et du peu de soin qu’on a eu jusqu’à présent de l’empêcher et comme Elle veut que ce désordre soit réprimé, non seulement pour l’intérêt des bonnes mœurs et de la religion, mais aussi pour celui de la colonie parce que cette prostitution empêche les femmes de devenir grosse et qu’elle se trouve privée du

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secours qu’elle tirerait des nègres qui naîtraient dans le pays. Sa Majesté veut qu’elles s’appliquent à faire les règlements nécessaires et qu’elles portent autant que faire se peut les nègres et les négresses se marient entr’eux.15 [His Majesty was informed of the state of prostitution that rules among the female negroes and of the lack of care that was put to stop it and since He wants this to be suppressed, not only in the interest of good mores and religion, but also for that of the colony because prostitution keeps women from becoming pregnant and (the colony) finds itself deprived of the assistance that it will gain from the negroes who will be born in the country. His Majesty wants (the colony) to make the necessary regulations and have the male and female negroes marry one another as much as possible.]

What the king considered “prostitution” was slaves living together without the church’s blessing. Furthermore, for the master, marriage implies the ability to force slaves into having more children, thus producing more slaves for the colonies. According to Arlette Gautier, religious leaders were actively campaigning for marriages.16 The slave masters and the priests were working together to marry off the highest number of slaves possible. The master could marry a slave to whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Slaves’ children automatically became the master’s property. This campaign of marriage among the slaves was not a religious one; rather, it was a long-term investment on the part of the slaveholders. Marrying slaves to each other was a way of increasing and controlling their property. The Code Noir (édit de 1685)17 further encouraged marriage to reinforce its struggle against “concubinage.” The Code Noir is a set of racial laws passed to regulate how slaves could behave and how they should be treated. Article 47 of the Code Noir contains regulations concerning slave marriages. In theory, a slave husband and wife could not be sold separately. However, this rule was not always followed. The church gave the male slave complete control over the female. Since each slave was considered property, similar to cattle and land, the plantation owners did not want their slaves to marry other slaves from neighboring plantations unless this union resulted in more slaves. An exterior marriage might mean losing money or authority. For the slave, who was accustomed to a different marriage structure in Africa, this religious marriage was problematic. The Jesuit priest Mongin oversimplifies the cultural structure of African marriage when he notes the following: “Les nègres veulent avoir la liberté de prendre et de quitter toutes les femmes qu’il leur plaira sans être obligés d’entretenir une famille.” [The negroes want to be free to take and leave as many women as they want without being under the obligation of supporting a family.]18 It is neither clear how Mongin got

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this information nor how much he really knew about the African marriage structure. Similarly, Victor Schoelcher in De l’esclavage des noirs et de la législation coloniale affirmed: “Let us remember that Negroes rarely get legally married for the simple reason marriage would impede the licentiousness habitual to them, or more precisely because, deprived of all knowledge of social principles, incapable of raising their slave mentality to conceive of such a moral aim, they instinctively resort to concubinage as the most natural condition.”19 As was the case with Mongin, Schoelcher assumes that the slaves’ refusal to marry is solely based on their immorality. What is obvious is that forcing the European marriage structure on slaves was a way to maintain control of them and of the slave owner’s economic interest. This marriage propaganda continues in the nineteenth century after the 1848 emancipation of slaves. In “Gender and Republican Citizenship in the French West Indies, 1848–1945,” Myriam Cottias notes that “marriage was presented as a core aspect of citizenship; it was the foundation of the family, made work possible and efficient, and stabilized property. . . . In slave communities, the absence of family, or at least the lack of a family structured around a male and officially registered through the marriage act, formed for abolitionists one of the basic reasons to criticize the slave system” (234). Many slaves resisted these forced religious marriages. The male slave does not even own his life. He is aware that even if he were to marry another slave, he will not be able to take care of her nor the children, so why bother with this type of union? He also knows that the slave owner could rape his wife whenever he felt like it. The black male was deprived of all political and economic powers and was unable to provide for his family. They were forced by the slave owners to become only studs. This concept of a male whose only objective was to impregnate the woman and leave her is treated by several Caribbean authors including Édouard Glissant in Le quatrième siècle (1964) and Tony Delsham in Tribunal femmes bafouées (2001). During the plantation era, the refusal of official marriage could be considered a form of resistance and a refusal to conform. One may wonder how much that legacy contributes to the current state of legal marriage in the Caribbean today. The lack of marriage does not mean that all men are not a part of their children’s lives; the situation is much more complex. Although Martinique and Guadeloupe are overseas French departments with different political and economic realities than Haiti, they still undergo problems of unemployment. Perhaps many males continue to feel incapable of sustaining their wives and as a result prefer to maintain other relationships and not be devoted to one woman. This by no means implies that only unemployed males have several women.

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In Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848, Bernard Moitt writes: “With regard to conjugal relations, the most persistent and resounding complaint among contemporary observers and church officials in the French Antilles was that slaves refused to engage in legal marriages, that is, marriages conducted by a priest either in the Catholic Church or on a plantation” (80)20. This statement can be interpreted to mean that the slaves were involved in other types of “marriages.” Moitt also notes the few legal marriages in the French Caribbean and the late age when the slaves got married, some of them when they were in their seventies and eighties (86). This proves that marriage was not a main priority for the slaves. This is not surprising, since slaves tended to view the type of marriage prescribed by the church as another form of bondage. Marriage was another form of control by the colonial order to keep the plantation machine working and to prevent the birth of more mulattoes. The church’s view on slaves’ marriage was ambiguous. On the one hand, it seemed to encourage marriage, as it did baptism, to keep the slaves from going to hell and prevent sins like adultery and fornication; on the other hand, some plantation owners considered marriage and pregnancy too expensive and often preferred buying fresh slaves. Furthermore, some masters preferred to encourage slaves to remain together even if they were not legally married. This is in part because the masters did not want their slaves to marry outside of their particular plantations and recognized that forced marriages among slaves from the same plantations oftentimes did not work out well. It was also true that once a slave was married, it became harder for the master to sell him to another master without also selling his wife and children. Although the Code Noir stresses the slaves’ religious education as the responsibility of the masters, when it comes to religious affairs, the masters’ financial well-being mattered more. Many masters did not even want their slaves to go to church for fear that they would think they had the same status as the masters, that is, that they were human beings and not merely property. In most instances, the male slave was considered a simple donor and the female slave only a machine to produce more slaves. The idea of the slave being simply a donor is complex. Slavery did not allow for maintaining a stable family structure. In the Caribbean, female slaves were regarded as the master’s property and sexually exploited by him. As Gilberto Freyre states in Maîtres et esclaves, “le ventre qui donne les enfants est la partie la plus productive de la propriété esclave” (301). [The stomach that bears children is the most productive part of the slave.] The woman’s body, because of its ability to reproduce, was an important commodity in the slave market. Women on the plantations often had to care for their children

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alone, creating in many cases a matriarchal society. Fritz Gracchus claims that women were supposedly “privileged” during slavery and were not victims; they were the master’s concubines and they ignored their male counterparts while fantasizing about the white master.21 According to critics like Gracchus, the female slave had certain powers because the masters used her body. However, critics such as Gautier and Richard Burton demystify these claims, stressing the impossibility for female slaves to have had a privileged status on the plantation because the very structure of the plantation as a place whose main purpose was to benefit the European capitalist system did not allow any so-called privilege for female slaves. As a matter of fact, women had to work just as hard as the men while also taking care of their children. Many women avoided having children as a form of resistance to keep from producing additional victims of the colonial machine. Gautier states: “Sur les plantations, [. . .] un tiers des femmes élevaient seules leurs enfants sans que l’on sâche si c’était l’effet d’une liberté sexuelle ou d’un amour hors de la plantation. De nombreuses femmes surtout ne se ‘multipliaient’ pas” (78). [On the plantations, . . . one third of the women were raising their children alone. It is not known whether this was because of a certain sexual freedom or a lover outside the plantation. More significantly, many women were not having children.] The relation between the white master and the black female slave is more involved than many critics allow. The female slaves belonged to the master as much as the male slaves, but one of the main differences was that the white master wanted her body as well. Although it can be suggested that the relationship between male slaveholders and male slaves could be similarly difficult, actual heterosexual sex was more frequent than homosexual. These types of misunderstandings of the exploitation of the female slaves from their masters may lead to accusations, conflicts, and tensions, between black males and females because some black males may still think that the females had some advantages over them in the plantation. As a result of this misunderstanding, the family structure in the Caribbean becomes difficult. Commandeur du sucre (1994), a novel by Raphaël Confiant, explores the complex male-female relationship between slaves as well as the relation between white masters or mulatto males and black female slaves. Firmin Léandor, the mulatto overseer of the Bel-Event plantation in Martinique, recounts the plights of male and female slaves on the plantation: “Je vis des mères éplorées charger sur leur dos des bâtées d’enfants couverts de rhume. [. . .] Mon père fit un geste: cinquante sous dans le plat de la main d’une négresse rouge dont j’appris fort longtemps après qu’elle était l’une de ses nombreuses femmes-

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en-dehors” (14–15). [I saw weeping mothers with a packsaddle of children with colds on their backs. . . . My father made a gesture: he placed fifty cents on the palm of a light-skinned negro woman’s hand. I later found out that she was one of his numerous mistresses.] His paternal grandfather was a rich béké whose main vocation was impregnating female slaves. Firmin, the narrator of the novel, the “commandeur du sucre,” literally, sugar commander from the title, is the result of one of these rapes. The female slaves, like the sugar cane, belonged wholly to him. It is very natural for the békés to have a mulatto mistress. One of the myths regarding the mulatto women’s sexuality is that “[Elles] sont douces comme des cannes créoles” (135). [They are as sweet as Creole sugar canes.] Like the sugar canes on the plantations, one of their main functions is to be available to quench the béké’s thirst. For Firmin and many other men in the novel, polygyny is a natural occurrence. It is understood and accepted that many men will have concubines or mistresses. Firmin states: Ma femme-en-dehors [Laetitia] envoie même des abondances à ma femme endedans [Éléonore], comme des plats raffinés cuits dans la journée même et auxquels j’ai déjà le plus souvent goûté. . . . Apparemment, l’odeur de Laetitia ne s’imprègne ni à mon linge-kaki ni à mes vêtements puisque Éléonore n’y a jamais fait allusion. Elle se contente de brefs: I byen, fanm-lan? (Elle va bien, la femme?). (50) [My other woman/mistress (Laetitia), even sends things to my wife, (Eléonore), such as refined dishes cooked during the day and from which I have already tasted. Apparently, Laetitia’s smell fills neither my khakis nor my clothes since Eleonore never mentions it. She is satisfied with a simple: “How is the woman?”]

In the Caribbean context, femme (French) or fanm (Creole) may connote wife or woman, depending on the specific situation. Thus, when Firmin refers to his “femme en dehors” and “femme en dedans,” he distinguishes between his mistress and his wife. The above lines demonstrate what is common in many cultural polygynous situations in the Caribbean. The two women know of each other; it is culturally acceptable for the man to be with another woman. As in the African texts, these women seem to accept polygyny because they do not have a choice. Polygyny is a function of shared Africanness between the Caribbean and Africa. Polygynous relations between plantation owners and mulatto or black women are a common occurrence. Like Firmin, Duplan de Montaubert, the plantation owner, has his mulatto mistress, Justine, who happens to be Firmin’s cousin.

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While Firmin is worrying about the sugar cane because of the weather, the owner is in bed with Justine: “Duplan a probablement une nouvelle fois déserté la couche de son épouse Virginie et ronfle . . . sur le ventre de sa concubine Justine. Qu’est-ce que ma cousine peut bien trouver à ce rustaud qui considère les mulâtresses comme des putaines nées?” (57). [Duplan has probably left his wife’s bed once again and snores on his concubine Justine’s stomach. What does my cousin see in this country bumpkin who considers mulatto women to be born prostitutes?] Justine has two children with Duplan and has been his mistress for over fifteen years without it being “un secret d’État” [a state secret] (135). Justine seems to enjoy certain privileges as a result of being Duplan’s mistress, but she still has to work hard on the plantation. Justine is not a fool, and she knows that she is still merely a slave and can never be Duplan’s true love. In this way, the novel explores the complexity of physical and emotional love between the béké and the woman who is part of his property. Although he owns her body, her heart belongs to her. As a matter of fact, she has “un amant de cœur” (144), [a lover of the heart], named Bérard. Justine, like many men on the plantation, is involved in several relationships. She has an occasional lover, Antonin, her “lover of the heart” Bérard, and the béké Duplan de Montaubert. As a result, she has the reputation of giving herself freely without caring about what anyone thinks. By taking different lovers, Justine defies social and religious norms. Unlike the men, however, she is criticized by others and is considered a loose woman. Confiant is trying to demonstrate that a woman can also challenge social orders by being a polyandrist. In fact, because Justine is the master’s legitimate concubine, like the legitimate wife, she insists that people call her “Madame Justine” (216) and demands to be honored and respected by all. Being called Madame is a sign of an official marital status, even when there has not been a legal marriage. Eléonore, Firmin’s wife, also demands that she be called Madame: “Elle exigeait qu’on lui baille ce titre [Man Firmin], réservant celui d’Éléonore pour de très rares intimes) (268). [She insisted that she be given this title (Man [Madame] Firmin), saving the name of Eleonore for close friends.] Religion supports this identity status because it encourages a woman to take her husband’s name once she marries him—thus the importance of marriage for many women even after having lived with a man for several years. In Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles, vol. 2, Louise, one of the women interviewed, states: “On a eu la première relation avant le mariage, parce que je n’avais personne pour me marier (assurer ces frais). On est resté dix-huit ans en ménage avant de nous marier; j’avais déjà fait cinq enfants, je me suis mariée au baptême de l’un deux” (18). [We had sex before

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the wedding because I did not have anyone to marry me (pay for the expenses). We stayed together for eighteen years before getting married; I had five children and I got married during one of their baptismal ceremonies.] As this example shows, it is common for some women in the Caribbean not to get married due to lack of financial resources. The wedding celebration is often very expensive, involving the unnecessary appearance of wealth. Marriage is considered the outcome of a successful life. Although “illegitimate” children are welcomed and accepted, the culmination into marriage is what many women wish for. As Livia Lesel notes in Le père oblitéré: Chronique antillaise d’une illusion, for young Martinican women, the ideal life is to have a European-style nuclear family (36). Having this ideal is not only a sign of success for the woman but is also a way to show society that she is a reputable and moral woman. Édouard Glissant examines the lack of official marriage in Martinique in Le discours antillais. He notes the case of three couples who have been living together for over twenty years. One of the couples finally decides to make their union official during the baptismal ceremony of the twelfth child in order to obtain certain social advantages. Glissant states that because of the network of relatives that defines the Caribbean family, an official marriage might not have the same meaning for a Caribbean individual as it would for others, because the concept of family is different (150– 151). The official marriage is not necessarily due to religious beliefs in many cases but is rather linked to the achievement of a certain social status, often financial. In a similar way, Bernard Moitt observes that even among slaves, class plays a significant role in conjugal relations (88). The individual’s social class becomes particularly important in the Caribbean today because it determines what behavior one must follow. For the middle or upper-middle class, this behavior is often dictated by religious and other social rules. Although the middle class Caribbean women do not openly adhere to polygyny, it is sometimes imposed on them by their partners, and due to their upbringing, education, religion, and socio-economic backgrounds, they consent to it. In Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles, [vol. 2], Alibar and Lembeye-Boy narrate the plight of women facing polygyny. One woman talks about her husband in the following terms: Il avait d’autres femmes, je le savais, mais qu’est-ce que je pouvais faire? Je le laissais faire ses affaires; il a même fait un enfant au-dehors. L’enfant qu’il a eu de la concubine a 30 ans, l’âge de mon dernier enfant. Il me faisait voir de la misère à cause d’elle et maintenant, c’est encore avec une femme qu’il est parti.

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[. . .] Je me suis toujours tenue, parce que, comme je vous dis, un monsieur fait ce qu’il veut, mais c’est l’honneur d’une femme de rester chez elle. (18–19) [I knew he had other women, but what could I do? I let him do his thing. He even had an illegitimate child. The child he had with his mistress is thirty years old, the same age as my youngest child. He made me go through hell because of her and now, he has left with another woman. . . . I have always remained faithful because, as I tell you, a man can do what he wants but a woman must stay at home in order to maintain her dignity.]

Society, and particularly religion, teach women that they have to accept the man’s attitude and remain in the marriage. This attitude of acceptance is learned from an early age. The idea of the men collecting children from different women is a behavioral norm in some Caribbean communities. Another woman explains: “Pour la femme, c’est quelque chose de presque normal que ton mari te trompe” (25). [For the woman, it is something almost expected that your husband cheats on you.] The women also observe these behaviors within their own communities: their own parents, their extended families, and friends. Again, women even deem it “natural” for their husbands to cheat on them because that is what their societal milieu and education have inculcated in them. The psychological and emotional damage that the woman may suffer is not an issue. For her part, she must remain faithful and keep her dignity in the eyes of God, her society, and culture, which are often governed by religious and social norms. For these women, they feel powerless to change the circumstances. After all, “Le coeur d’un homme est comme une cathédrale: il y a l’autel principal et des chapelles latérales. [L’homme doit] place[r] [s]on épouse dans l’autel principal et remplace souvent les saintes des chapelles latérales par d’autres saintes (9). [The heart of a man is like a cathedral: there is the main altar and lateral chapels. The man has to put his spouse on the main altar and often replace the saints in the lateral chapels with other saints.] This interesting metaphor uses religious symbols to justify the man’s will and desire to be involved with only one woman. It is similar to Une si longue lettre where to justify his second wife, Mawdo tells his wife Aissatou that what is in the heart is what unites two people. As noted in Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles, vol. 2, and Commandeur du sucre, several attempts to rationalize polygyny exist in Francophone Caribbean society. The most commonly used ones are: the perpetuation of the slave system, that is, the Christian religion forced upon the slaves broke the male slaves’ “natural” tendencies towards polygyny; and the French bourgeois morality that encourages men to continue the lineage by

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marrying, but to find sexual pleasure before marriage and after marriage with a mistress. However, in the case of Haiti, I would like to suggest yet another possibility for the cultural acceptance of polygyny. In the Vodou religion, men and women can be married to one or more lwa or spirits at the same time. Perhaps, for some Haitians, particularly men, this religious tradition of being with two or more spirits is carried over into daily lives, whether consciously or unconsciously. Is there a connection between the Vodou tradition and the cultural acceptance of polygyny in Haiti? In the Vodou religion, it is common for initiates to marry one or more spirits. Vodou is not only a religion but a culture and tradition that is very embedded in some Haitians’ daily lives and history. The term Vodou or Vodun, originating from Benin, means the family of spirits. As such, Vodou is a religion that comprises an elaborate belief system and rituals and contains many spirits.22 When the slaves were uprooted from the African continent, the only emotional element of their identity that the colonizer could not take from them was their religion. As a result, the different ethnic groups who came to Haiti with their different gods produced what is present-day Haitian Vodou. One of the most interesting aspects of Vodou is the ability to adapt itself to a new environment. Thus, when the French colonizers wanted to justify their mission civilisatrice by converting the slaves to Catholicism and outlawing all Vodou practice, the slaves “accepted” the conversion and adapted the Catholic saints to the different Vodou spirits. For example, Ogou or Ogoun, the god of fire and war is associated with the Catholic Saint Jacques. Ogoun is believed to be the one who inspired the slaves to revolt against the French. As a religion that has its roots in Africa, Vodou has been stigmatized by the media, and people generally associate it with black magic, dolls, pins, needles, and other negative images. In reality, Vodou is a way of life, a way of conceiving God, referred to as Bon Dye in Haitian-Creole, the good God. God is a spirit. In the Vodou religion, as in other religions, there are rituals and traditions to follow. While a Catholic or Protestant may go to church on Sunday, a Vodou practitioner may attend ceremonies on a particular holiday. In addition, a Vodou practitioner performs daily rituals similar to those of a Catholic and/ or a Protestant. The number of people present during the ceremony can be anywhere from a few friends to a few hundred, depending on the feast. An important aspect of Vodou is the focus on living a harmonious, balanced life and interacting with the universe and others. Generally, the middle or upper-middle class in Haiti does not adhere to openly practiced Vodou. However, they practice it in secrecy. Because Vodou was mostly associated with the peasants or individuals living in rural areas,

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the well-to-do individuals did not want to counteract that reality. Thus, the common saying is that Haiti is 90 percent Catholic and 100 percent Vodou. During his second presidency in April 2003, former Haitian President JeanBertrand Aristide declared Vodou, the religion of the masses, as an official religion. This officialization brought about controversy, particularly from Protestant religious leaders who interpreted that as a “pact with the devil.” This also means that Vodou wedding ceremonies are as valid as Christian ones. While some individuals may choose to have an elaborate Vodou wedding ceremony, others will sometimes marry a lwa in a private and simple ceremony. Spiritual marriages are common among Vodou practitioners. The idea of a Vodou marriage is one whereby an individual comes together with invisible forces or spirits called lwa. The marriage is supposed to bring spiritual wealth and material well-being. Like a human marriage, this marriage demands mutual nurturing. The initiate takes care of the lwa on a daily basis by giving food, water, and alcoholic beverages, etc. In a Vodou marriage, the lwa appears to an individual in a vision or dream and proposes marriage. The lwa does this by asking an individual to “mare vi li avek li” [join his or her life with him or her]. If the individual accepts the lwa’s proposal, like a marriage with a human, there will be a celebration with various rituals. Depending on the lwa, he or she may request a ring. This is how someone can say that he or she wants to marry a particular lwa; that person establishes a special link with the lwa because he or she is satisfied with him or her. The lwa, in return, promises to protect the person and help him or her in his or her daily struggles, similar to the way a human partner would. Some individuals have said that being married to a lwa is even better than being married to a human because the lwa does not deceive you, and he or she is always available for the individual. Other people believe that a spiritual marriage can be a valid option to a traditional marriage with a human; however, one does not have to choose. You can have a human spouse and still have one or two spirits as husbands or wives. Once an individual is married to the lwa, divorce is very difficult, unlike when one is married to a human being. Many in the Protestant religion believe that divorcing the lwa is possible in the context of renouncing that which is “evil.” In some cases, the lwa may or may not persecute the individual, depending on the sincerity of the conversion. Marrying a lwa is not necessarily an obligation but a personal decision that someone makes after the person is convinced that it is a good choice for him or her. However, in certain families where the Vodou religion has been practiced for generations, some members of that family may feel compelled to serve the lwa so as not to

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be persecuted in their daily lives (marriage, work, etc.). The person can always say no when the lwa asks to marry him or her, but in the case of a negative response, that person may be persecuted depending on the person’s faith and psyche. A person cannot ask a lwa to marry him or her. The lwa chooses the person to whom he or she wants to be married. The concept of marrying a lwa can be compared to that of the Catholic practice of continued reverence to a saint. People can pray to a particular saint and worship him or her as he or she fulfills the request. A person can be married to one or more lwa. A man or a woman can marry a lwa of the same sex. Generally, women marry up to three spirits: Dambala, the serpent god who portrays knowledge, and wisdom is identified by the color white; Ogou or Ogun, the god of protection, is associated with red and blue; and Kouzen Zaka or Azaka, the god of agriculture who is the spirit of work and prosperity, usually wears denim and his colors are green and white. Zaka is an extraordinary spirit. It is a lwa that promotes gender equality. In addition, Zaka teaches about the norms of married life. For instance, there is a popular marriage song in which Kouzen Zaka states: “Kouzen, ou pa pran kouzin ou poutèt ti moso patat.” [Cousin, you do not take (marry) your cousin because of a piece of sweet potato.] What Kouzen Zaka is saying is that a man should not marry a woman simply because she can cook for him. There are more crucial factors to take into account before someone marries. Many people like to be married to the lwa Kouzen because he embodies work, which is fundamental in life. Men, on the other hand, tend to marry two spirits, usually Erzulie or Ezili Freda and Erzulie Dantò. Erzulie or Ezili Freda is the mistress of love and beauty. Often known as Mètrès Ezili (Mistress Erzulie), she has three husbands: Ogou, Dambala, and Agwe. She wears three rings, one for each husband. By contrast, Erzulie Dantò is a mother figure who is always protecting her children; she is a strong and independent woman. The two Erzulies are regarded as sisters but do not get along. Feelings of jealousy and tension inundate their relationship. It is intriguing in Vodou that women oftentimes marry up to three spirits and men only two. Women also marry the practical spirits (Dambala, Ogou, Zaka); these spirits provide knowledge, wisdom, protection, and prosperity. The spirits that the men usually marry are the ones who provide romance and children. In the realm of the Vodou religion, women appear to have more power and freedom than men. However, this power or freedom is not carried over into daily life, because it is socially acceptable for the men––not the women––to have many spouses. What women gain in the lwas they marry are what they yearn for in a partner, primarily prosperity and economic

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stability. Perhaps men also obtain what they want in their marriage to Erzulie: love, romance, and children. As mentioned earlier, many people still neither fully accept nor respect Vodou as a religion and culture in Haiti and around the world. Whether it is accepted or not, it remains an important link to understanding Haitian cultural practices and traditions. While they may not even be aware of it, some Haitians in Haiti and abroad accept the practice of polygyny as part of their cultural traditions, even when they do not openly accept or adhere to that practice. This is in no way suggesting that Vodou practitioners tend to have more “wives” than other Haitians who may not practice Vodou at all or those who do not practice it openly. Considering the cultural and religious traditions in Haiti, there may be a link between the practice of polygyny for men and their marriage to one or more lwa in the Vodou religion. There can be several reasons why the Haitian patriarchal society would not be as open to women having more than one husband, even if they can be married to several lwa in the Vodou religion. Apart from the practiced law, many men in their personal lives may believe that they will be unable to control the woman’s sexuality and therefore their legitimate offspring and property. While the argument can be made of how closely men are really able to control women’s sexuality and offspring, the law is traditionally patriarchal. Second, it is understood that men tend to have more economic power than women; they are able to sustain more than one wife. Even though men have more economic means, they do not necessarily provide their wives or mistresses with regular financial assistance. Third, Haiti is a highly stratified society where gender and class are intertwined. Because the ruling class perpetuates the notion that it is acceptable for men to have more than one woman, many women from all social classes attempt to obtain the respectability that marriage seems to offer. While the masses or the peasant class may not be able to afford a traditional wedding, many aspire to follow and appropriate the values of the middle class so that they can progress socially. In Haitian-Creole, when a man is said to have three or four madanm or fanm, the term may be misconstrued as “wife” in the legal sense. However, in the Haitian cultural context, it connotes mistresses. The link between Vodou marriage and the cultural acceptance of polygyny in Haiti is one of many possible explanations for the widespread occurrence of polygyny. In Haiti, as is the case in Martinique and Guadeloupe, as noted in the texts we studied, polygyny is deemed expected for men. Many of the women interviewed in Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles gave the authors justifications such as: “C’est presque normal que ton

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mari te trompe. [. . .] L’homme [a] une plus grande avidité sexuelle que la femme [. . .] dès que la femme est mariée, elle se néglige, traîne en bigoudis toute la journée, par exemple, alors il est normal que le mari aille voir ailleurs.” (10–11). [It is almost natural that your husband cheats on you. . . . The man has a greater sexual appetite than the woman . . . once the woman is married, she does not look after her appearance, dragging around with her hair in rollers all day, for example, in that case, it is normal that the husband goes looking elsewhere.] Why do women keep themselves beautiful before courtship and during the engagement? The question remains, once women obtain what they have been looking for (marriage), is their quest over? Can they now let themselves go because now they have to take care of their children and husband to their detriment? These kinds of rationalizations further objectify the woman. This objectification is done with women’s complicity—she must keep her man, and in order to do so has to remain attractive so that he does not go elsewhere. This kind of reasoning made by a woman further debases the woman and relegates her to a subordinate status while allowing the man to maintain his male supremacy. Other reasonings include statements such as “Les relations multiples de l’homme semblent faire partie aux Antilles de la normalité” (10–11). [Multiple relations for men seem to be normal in the Antilles.] Most women do not question these norms and transmit them to their daughters. These justifications seem to be most beneficial to men. The complication associated with this kind of acceptance is that both men and women are perpetuating them and passing them along to their daughters and sons. The woman must change her attitude vis-à-vis polygyny, something that is not easy to do, since she has experienced or witnessed it throughout her upbringing. By eagerly accepting her husband’s illegitimate children, she seems to be saying that this is part of what is ordinary, and she accepts it as such. She becomes an accomplice in her own victimization. Furthermore, it contributes to the man’s ego; he may proudly inform anyone who will listen that a particular woman was his mistress at one point. While polygyny in Francophone African and the Caribbean are very different from social and religious perspectives, some of the arguments for staying in these types of relationships are similar for women in both areas. The socio-economic and religious systems force women to accept this situation, as their education and upbringing prepare them for it. Men are expected to be promiscuous; it does not matter that they stray, flirt or have children with different women as long as they come back home to the wife. A man supposedly marries the woman he truly loves. She becomes Madame Untel, the chosen one. He is allowed to have one or several mistresses at once, but if he

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even suspects that any one of his women might have somebody else, he will either publicize the information to shame her or privately punish her. Either reaction may depend on several factors: family name, economic status, personal reputation in town, etc. She will be blamed by her family and her social group for transgressing the religious and social norms. The works studied in this chapter question the religious and social structures in Africa and the Caribbean. Religious and social traditions have been set in place by a patriarchal hegemony over the course of centuries. It will take conscientious effort to generate different power structures that allow a space for fairness and equity in marriage or plaçage. In the case of Francophone Africa, Une si longue lettre depicts how men, in particular, exploit religion to support polygyny, as it benefits them. Polygyny, whether religious or cultural, is in many instances an institution that degrades women, though this is not to say that some women are not happy in polygynous marriages, nor that all polygynous marriages debase women. Carole Boyce Davies and Buchi Emecheta each note the “advantages” of polygyny, among them extended family and child care, as well as the liberation it provides for educated women by not inhibiting them from their work-related activities and fulfillment.23 But as Irène D’Almeida argues, their positions “are those of intellectual academics who––like most of us––do not have to confront a problem of polygamy in their own lives. . . . What we are witnessing here is a certain idealization of polygamy, in ways that do not necessarily coincide with the experience of women who endure that institution” (14–15). In theory, Christianity in the Caribbean forbids polygyny. However, it also discourages divorce, even when it is a known fact that the husband has a mistress. This further nourishes cultural polygyny. It sustains a gender politics that accepts male behavior. While the politics of religion as it relates to marriage is different in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean, there are several similarities. In areas in Francophone Africa where Islam is the acceptable religion, polygyny is an acceptable practice with rules and regulations that are not always adhered to by the followers of polygyny. Caribbean Christian practices do not allow polygyny, but they often condone it. What comes out of the texts examined is the use of religion and its social implications as an effective tool to maintain the status quo for men.

Notes 1. Tahar Ben Jelloun, L’enfant de sable (Paris: Seuil, 1985). Ben Jelloun’s novel depicts the complexity of identity at different levels: religious, gender, and cultural. Hadj Ahmed’s eighth child is another girl; this means that he will not have any male

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heirs, so he decides even before the child is born that it will be raised as a boy. Later, Ahmed, the girl-boy demands to have a spouse and confronts his father in the following manner: “Je suis homme. Je m’appelle Ahmed selon la tradition de notre Prophète. Et je demande une épouse. . . . Comme dit notre Prophète bien-aimé, ‘un musulman complet est un homme marié’” (51). [I am a man. My name is Ahmed according to the tradition of our Prophet. I am requesting a wife. . . . As our beloved Prophet says: ‘A complete (true) Muslim is a married man.’] 2. Ben Jelloun, L’enfant de sable, 51. 3. 1 Corinthians 7:8–9 4. Koran 4:35 5. 1 Corinthians 7:4 6. See special issue on polygamy “Polygamie d’hier à aujourd’hui” Le français dans le monde (November 2003) 6. 7. Tunisia is the only country in the Muslim world to have constitutionally banned polygyny. 8. Throughout this chapter I will be using a translation of Une si longue lettre by Mariama Bâ, Modupé Bodé-Thomas, trans. as So Long a Letter (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1981). 9. See in particular Fumi Ojo-Ade, “Still a Victim? Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre” African Literature Today 12 (1982): 71–87, and Renée Larrier, Francophone Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 69–87. 10. In the letter, Aissatou writes: “Mawdo, les princes dominent leurs sentiments, pour honorer leurs devoirs. Les ‘autres’ courbent leur nuque et acceptent en silence un sort qui les brime.Voilà . . . le règlement intérieur de notre société avec ses clivages insensés. Je ne m’y soumettrai point. [. . .] Si tu peux procréer sans aimer, rien que pour assouvir l’orgueil d’une mère déclinante, je te trouve vil. . . . Mawdo, l’homme est un: grandeur et animalité confondues. Aucun geste de sa part n’est de pur idéal. . . . Je me dépouille de ton amour, de ton nom. Vêtue du seul habit valable de la dignité, je poursuis ma route. Adieu Aissatou” (emphasis mine, 50) [Mawdo, princes master their feelings to fulfill their duties. ‘Others’ bend their heads and, in silence, accept a destiny that oppresses them. That (. . .) is the internal ordering of our society, with its absurd divisions. I will not yield to it. . . . If you can procreate without loving, merely to satisfy the pride of your declining mother, then I find you despicable. (. . .) Mawdo, man is one: greatness and animal fused together. None of his acts is pure charity. I am stripping myself of your love, your name. Clothed in my dignity, the only worthy garment, I go my way. Goodbye. Aissatou] (31–32). 11. Emphasis mine. 12. Emphasis mine. 13. The term plaçage (plasaj in Haitian Creole) dates back to the nineteenth century in Haiti; it referred to a peasant who “places” one of his companions on a piece of land so that she can work the land. Thus, the idea of having many companions or “wives” (I use the term wife interchangeably with partner, wife does not mean a

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legal marriage) is parallel to that in some African cultures where polygyny was in the beginning a solution to the necessary farming labor. See Yves Charbit, Famille et nuptialité dans la Caraïbe (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1987), 112, 335. 14. Charbit, Famille et nuptialité dans la Caraïbe, 60. 15. Arlette Gautier, Les sœurs de solitude: La condition féminine dans l’esclavage aux Antilles du 17e et 19e siècle, (Paris: Éditions Caribéennes, 1985), 62–63. 16. Arlette Gautier, Les sœurs de solitude: La condition féminine dans l’esclavage aux Antilles du 17e et 19e siècle, (Paris: Éditions Caribéennes, 1985), notes: “À Saint Christophe, le jésuite Mongin baptise au cours de l’année 1680, 123 adultes, unit religieusement 128 esclaves, reconstitue 88 ‘mauvais ménages’ et arrache à leur état 355 concubins” (64–65). [In the year 1680 in Saint-Christophe, the Jesuit priest Mongin baptized 123 adults, religiously uniting 128 slaves, and legitimizing through marriage 88 couples. This action rescued 355 concubines from common-law status]. 17. For more on the Code Noir and regulations regarding slave marriage, see Doris Garraway, The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean (Durham, N.C. Duke University Press, 2005), and Antoine Gisler, L’esclavage aux Antilles françaises (XVIIe–XIXe siècle) (Paris: Katharla, 1981). 18. Gautier, Les sœurs de solitude, 67. 19. Myriam Cottias, “Gender and Republican Citizenship in the French West Indies, 1848-1945,” Slavery and Abolition 26.2 (1995): 235. 20. For an in-depth analysis of slave marriage regulations, slaves’ thoughts on marriage, see Bernard Moitt, Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), chapter 5, “Marriage, Family Life, Reproduction, Assault”; see also Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean Society 1650–1838 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990). 21. Fritz Gracchus, Les lieux de la mère dans les sociétés afro-américaines (Paris: Editions Caribéennes, 1986). 22. For more information about Vodou, see Alfred Métraux, Le vodou haïtien (Paris: Gallimard, 1958); Laënnec Hurbon, Dieu dans le vaudou haïtien (Port-auPrince, Haiti Editions Deschamps, 1987); Leslie Desmangles, The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Joan Dayan, Haiti, History and the Gods (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), Elizabeth McCalister, Rara! Vodou, Power and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); and Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Michel, eds., Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006). Scholars of Haitian Vodou usually spell the word Vodou to refer to the religion practiced in Haiti. This is to differentiate it from voodoo or hoodoo, which often have negative stereotypical representations. 23. Irène A. D’Almeida, Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), 14–15.

C H A P T E R

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Polygyny, AIDS, Sexuality, and Status

Le Sida c’était bien cette maladie sexuellement transmissible dont on commençait à beaucoup parler dans les médias. Il en avait ri avec ses copains mais ne s’était jamais imaginé que cela pût lui arriver. Sa douleur, sa peine pour N’Deye Marème, se transforma en une sourde colère. [AIDS was that sexually transmitted disease that the media had started talking a lot about. He had laughed with his friends but had never imagined that could happen to him. His pain, his sadness for N’Deye Marème, changed to rage.] —Abibatou Traoré, Sidagamie.

While polygyny, often supported by religion, is sometimes accepted because it is viewed as a sign of wealth, one of its possible downfalls is not often discussed. This chapter studies the relation between polygyny and social status; it also investigates the links between AIDS and polygyny through the novel Sidagamie (1998) by Abibatou Traoré. The title of the novel apposes two words, SIDA (the French acronym for AIDS) and gamie, the suffix from the French word for polygamy (polygamie) in order to stress the interconnection between AIDS and polygamy. Traoré exposes this complex issue of polygyny by presenting it in relation to the AIDS epidemic in the African continent where, according to recent statistics, the continent, and particularly its sub-Saharan regions, are currently the most affected in the world.1 This is not to say that polygyny alone is responsible for AIDS in Africa. According to the UNAIDS/WHO (United Nations Aids/World Health Organization) United Nations AIDS, poverty, 95

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underdevelopment, and education are the main factors in contributing to HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, the lack of sufficient health care for AIDS patients and other factors such as silence, stigma, and discrimination must be taken into account. However, as Traoré’s work shows, polygamy/polygyny is a factor in the transmission of AIDS that should not be neglected. Sidagamie presents the issues of AIDS and polygyny being linked in Senegal. The storyline resembles that of Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre in that the second wife, Maïmouna, is in close proximity to the first wife. Moussa had been happily married to Pauline for about fifteen years when he decided to take a second wife. Raised in a Christian family, Pauline’s uncle was against her marriage to a Muslim man and forbade her to marry him. Believing that Moussa was different, since he had promised her that he did not believe in polygyny, Pauline marries him and cuts all ties with her own family. But as in other novels that treat this question, Pauline experiences the institution of marriage as it is codified by religion, as a source of betrayal and humiliation. Moussa’s new conquest is Maïmouna; coincidentally, she is his daughter’s best friend’s sister. This type of scenario happens with some frequency as the two novels suggest. Moussa’s daughter, Aïda and her friend Mariétou, were naively discussing Maïmouna and her “old man” without realizing that the old man in question was none other than Aïda’s father. Mariétou tells Aïda that the relationship with the forty-yearold man appeared to be serious and will probably lead to marriage, even though the man was already married. Aïda wonders why some men need two wives, while most women are satisfied with one husband. She points out that religion supports this “need”: “Je ne comprends vraiment rien aux hommes. Pourquoi leur faut-il deux épouses alors que les femmes se contentent d’un seul mari? Dieu devrait punir tous les hommes polygames” (30). [I really do not understand men. Why do they need two wives when women are satisfied with one husband? God should punish all polygamous men.] To this, she adds that religion allows men to have up to four wives, but she would not tolerate a polygynous marriage because of the myriad problems it brings. From this general discussion with her friend, Aïda never imagines that her own father could be engaged in a polygynous relationship. Mariétou, who knows more than she is telling, subtly cautions her friend not to be too confident of anything. On her way home from Mariétou’s house, Aïda meets her father, who is coming to see Maïmouna. When Aïda asks about his whereabouts, he just replies that he was visiting a friend. It is only after he realizes that his daughter might find out about his wife-to-be and tell her mother that Moussa decides to tell Pauline he is taking a second wife. Like Modou’s friends had done for Ramatoulaye in Une si longue lettre, Moussa announces

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his marriage by first affirming Pauline’s qualities as a good wife, thanking her for the last fifteen years they have spent together, and avowing his love for her. When Pauline questions his coldness of the previous few weeks, he replies “En fait, je me sentais coupable envers toi. J’avais quelque chose à te dire et je n’arrivais pas à me décider. Je vois une autre femme, Pauline, et j’ai décidé de la prendre comme épouse” (33–34). [As a matter of fact, I felt guilty. I had something to tell you and I could not make up my mind. Pauline, I am seeing another woman, and I have decided to take her as my spouse.] This confession forces Pauline to reminisce about her wedding ceremony fifteen years ago when Moussa had insisted on signing a paper that would allow him to be polygynous, thus arousing Pauline’s fears and prompting him to justify himself: Tu es et tu resteras la seule femme de ma vie. Je dois signer pour la polygamie parce que je suis musulman. Ce n’est pas pour autant que je pense à me remarier. Tu penses que je serai assez bête pour le faire malgré tous les problèmes que cela occasionne? [. . .] Si je veux signer devant l’option polygamie, c’est par respect pour ma religion. C’est juste un geste, une formalité, rien de plus (35). [You are and you will always be the only woman in my life. I have to sign the polygamous decree because I am Muslim. That does not mean that I am thinking of remarrying. You think I will be so stupid as to do that in spite of all the problems this brings about? . . . I want to sign the polygamous decree out of respect for my religion. It is only a gesture, a formality, nothing more.]

At the time, Pauline believed him. Like many other men, Moussa is not a practicing Muslim, but when it comes to taking a second wife, he becomes a zealous Muslim. He could not have Maïmouna as his mistress because, for him, that was morally wrong. Furthermore, Moussa adds that the Muslim religion allows men to have more than one wife in order to avoid adultery. For Moussa, this reason is valid and logical and supports his desires. This is a common justification of polygyny. Many supporters argue that polygyny is a practical and logical practice because it allows men to have up to four wives, whereas monogamy encourages adulterous relationships with other women. Yet, being polygynous does not automatically guarantee that a man will not have a mistress, nor does it mean that after four wives the man will be satisfied. Moussa starts out with one wife, then he takes a second one to avoid being an adulterer, and then a third wife to satisfy his new social status. He does not care about his first wife’s feelings in acquiring a second wife. In fact, he keeps insisting that she did not do anything to make him want a second wife

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and that his decision has nothing to do with her. He is in his home where he is the master and is only informing her of his decision, not opening up the ground for argument. Moussa’s decision to take a second wife is to a great extent to satisfy his ego. He feels flattered by Maïmouna’s attention, younger, like a new man. The attention from a 25-year-old woman is enough for him to conveniently fall in love again and forget that he has a stable home with a wife and three children. For Moussa, this relationship is simply like a new toy. The novelty of it is more important to him than the potential problems it might bring. Pauline thinks of leaving her husband, but unfortunately that choice is not an option. She sacrifices her personal dignity because she depends on him financially and is unable to provide for her children. Because she cut all ties with her own family when she married Moussa, she cannot turn to them now. The structure of this society limits women’s opportunities for independence, self-fulfillment, and self-emancipation. Leaving Moussa would mean that she and her children would become beggars. Her friend and neighbor Aminta, who is about sixty and a mother figure for Pauline, tells her to think of her children first and not let herself go. Her duty as a mother must prevent her from revolting against what she considers an injustice. Furthermore, a divorced woman is still not accepted in her society. These traditional arguments are to keep women subjugated. Aminta, “the voice of reason” and wisdom, encourages Pauline to simply accept what she cannot change. After all, she notes, Moussa is a man, and many men take second wives; it is nothing new in their community. Pauline is not the first, nor will she be the last, to face such a dilemma. Aminta tries to remain optimistic and points out the main “advantage” of polygynous unions, that of sharing domestic duties with another woman. For Aminta, the person who will have the most problems with this arrangement is Moussa, and she alludes to a common song: “‘Deux femmes, deux problèmes,’ tu connais la chanson” (55). [You know the song: ‘Two women, two problems.’] For Moussa, however, it seems that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, hurt, and betrayal he inflicts on his family. The novel plays out the rivalry that exists among co-wives and other problems that a polygynous union brings about. The religious patriarchal structures set in place that support polygyny often ignore these detrimental effects. In response to Aminta’s sanguine perspective on polygyny, Pauline notes that marriage cannot be reduced to household tasks. She knows that once Moussa introduces a third party into their relationship, their rapport can never be the same. Pauline feels as if she can no longer give Moussa all her love because he will only be giving her part of his affection. For her, there is

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or should be a sharing of everything, including body and soul. Pauline refuses to accept the rules imposed by society whereby the woman is inferior to the man: La société [. . .] a toujours fait de la femme l’inférieure de l’homme [. . .] Il faut que ça change. Les hommes ne se gênent pas pour exploiter les femmes. Ils utilisent pour cela la tradition et la religion. (55–56) [Society (. . .) always makes women inferior to men. (. . . ) That has to be changed. Men do not mind exploiting women. They do that by using tradition and religion.]

While Pauline wants to rebel against the system and refuses the rules that keeps her from evolving, she knows that Aminta is right regarding the economic impact leaving Moussa will have on her and her children. Co-opted by patriarchal logic and the economic reality, she chooses to stay. However, she henceforth refuses to have any sexual relationship with Moussa, focusing only on taking care of her children, and lets Moussa’s new wife play the role of his wife and lover. A wife in name only, Pauline does not openly fight the system; she already knows that it is she who would be the loser because of her lack of financial independence. Her fight is internal and personal. This does count, because she does not remain a silent victim; she chooses not to be doubly victimized. Her fight is also important because of the values she passes on to her daughters. Moussa believes that Pauline accepts his choice, and congratulates himself. For him, it is natural for a man to be tempted by another woman. Little does he know that Pauline’s weapon is a silent subversiveness. Her way of defying the polygynous order is to become completely indifferent to Moussa. For Pauline, it no longer matters what he does. Her indifference includes refusing to have any type of intimacy with him, be it emotional or sexual. When Moussa expresses the desire to have her meet Maïmouna, his future wife, Pauline answers nonchalantly that she will see her new co-wife after he is married, and to her, the woman will be simply his wife; she will not open her arms and see her as a friend or “sister” as many co-wives do. Pauline chooses to remain with Moussa because she is dependent on him financially; however, she refuses to be victimized twice by pretending that the ménage à trois benefits her. She uses the same rhetoric that Moussa had used when he announced his intention to take a second wife by appropriating his arguments for herself. What Pauline is saying ultimately is that she is the master of her own body.

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At this stage, Moussa does not seem to understand Pauline’s terms, or maybe he believes that she will change her mind at a later date. His main concern is to see how he can please his new wife. He has heard that for a polygynous marriage to be successful, there must be a balance between the two wives, so he decides to take his oldest daughter’s bedroom and give it to his new wife. Of course, this brings about new conflicts between the parties. Pauline angrily tells him to find where to put his new wife but to keep her children out of it. This is another way for Pauline to be subversive. She finds her voice by standing up for herself and her children. Moussa answers that he has no choice because he does not have the means to buy another house. To this logic, Pauline responds: “La polygamie n’est pas faite pour les pauvres mais cela, la majorité des hommes ne le comprennent pas. Plus ils sont pauvres, plus ils ont tendance à pencher vers cette pratique” (77). [Polygamy is not meant for poor people, but most men do not understand that. The poorer they are, the more they are inclined toward this practice.] There is not necessarily a direct correlation between polygyny and wealth. Many “polygynists” such as Moussa do not have the means to maintain all their wives and children, yet they continue to accumulate wives. Apart from the financial stress Moussa’s decision to take a second wife puts on his family, there is also the emotional stress that they will suffer through when it comes to how the AIDS virus has affected their family, as we will see later. In spite of Moussa’s incapacity to provide a house for his second wife, he marries Maïmouna nonetheless. The wedding takes place and Maïmouna and Pauline have to live in the same house. Since she no longer has any type of intimacy with Moussa, Pauline does not constitute a threat for Maïmouna. She is the first one surprised by Pauline’s indifference, because she was expecting to have to fight for her rights as the second Madame Konaté. She had received a lot of unnecessary “advice” from well-meaning friends and family members on how to deal with her co-wife. They instructed her on how to carry herself as a second wife and told her to be on guard. However, these warnings appear unnecessary to her. Pauline treats Maïmouna with indifference but never disrespects her or shows any sign of enmity toward her. Maïmouna appears to have the best of both worlds: She marries as her family wishes, despite the fact that she has a child out of wedlock from a previous relationship, a situation that had radically decreased her chances on the marriage market; furthermore, her co-wife is not in competition with her at any level. Pauline stands by her words: Moussa is nothing more than the father of her children. He does not share her room. In the private realm of their home, Pauline has a certain degree of control over her life, since she reclaims

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her body as her own. Thus, Maïmouna has no reason whatsoever to be jealous of her. In time, even Aïda accepts the situation, so all is as well as could be expected at the Konatés.’ However, this equilibrium will not exist indefinitely. One day, Moussa, who has been a civil servant for many years, is offered early retirement. He decides to take it because his financial situation had begun to crumble after his second wife came into the house. He decides not to tell his wives about his decision. Nevertheless, when one of his colleagues inadvertently mentions it, he is forced to tell them. Maïmouna insists on knowing how much money he has received. This insistence leads to a fight in which Moussa accuses her of not performing her wifely duties because it has been three years since their marriage and she still has not provided him with children. For Moussa, this fact, in the religious context, is the woman’s primary role. To this, Maïmouna replies that in order to have a child, it takes two, and she has been to the doctor to check herself and all is well. This statement vexes and angers Moussa greatly. He feels that his masculinity has been called into question. He shakes his wife authoritatively and proclaims: “Je te signale que je ne suis pas impuissant et tu es bien placée pour le savoir” (125). [I am telling you that I am not impotent and you of all people should know it.] To this, Maïmouna replies: “Nous ne parlons pas d’impuissance mais de stérilité. C’est deux maladies qui n’ont rien à voir.” (126). [We are not talking of impotency but of sterility; these two diseases are completely different.] Moussa’s ego is shattered and he refuses to see a specialist because he is convinced that he does not need one: “ Je te prouverai Maïmouna, que je suis un homme, encore capable de procréer” (126). [I will prove to you, Maïmouna, that I am a man still capable of having children.] She does not immediately understand what he means by this statement, but it will soon become clear to her. Moussa intends to avenge himself by taking a third wife to add to his collection. He takes this new wife because he feels challenged by Maïmouna and to boast of his new financial status. After all, the Koran states that a man can have more than two wives if he can provide for them. Moussa does not have to look far to find a new wife. Once the local Iman hears that the latest neighborhood “millionaire” is looking for a new wife, he proposes his eighteen-year-old niece who lives in the village. Maïmouna is furious when she learns of this. When she confronts Moussa and tries to reason with him, he tells her that he needs to have sons, his own flesh and blood. Although he has three children with Pauline, they are all girls and do not count as heirs. Maïmouna has a son from a previous relationship, but he does not count either: “Mon plus grand voeu, à présent, est d´être le géniteur

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d’un garçon, et pourquoi pas de plusieurs garçons?” (129). [My greatest desire is to be the parent of a male child, and why not several male children?] Maïmouna tries to rally support from Pauline. But Pauline tells her that once Moussa had taken a second wife, their relationship changed and it no longer mattered to her what he did. Maïmouna cannot return to her parents, since, according to them, she has already caused them enough shame with her pregnancy out of wedlock and was lucky to have found someone to marry her. When she tells Moussa that she does not want to share him with another woman, his response is: “Tu me partages déjà avec Pauline. Une femme en plus, qu’est-ce que cela risque de changer, hein? Je t’aimerai toujours autant. [. . .] Je veux cette femme, rien que pour avoir des enfants. Elle ne te volera pas ta place” (132). [You are already sharing me with Pauline. What difference will one more wife make? I will still love you just as much. . . . I only want this wife in order to have children. She will not take your place.] These reasonings are similar to the ones he had used previously with Pauline. He is not taking a third wife because he does not love Maïmouna but simply to fulfill a desire that the first two wives have not satisfied, in this case, have children, preferably male children. For Moussa, women are objects: He can have three different ones, each serving a different purpose and fulfilling his needs, obeying him, as he is master of his domain. Society and religion support his status. Like Ramatoulaye in Une si longue lettre, Maïmouna questions herself once she learns that Moussa is about to take a third wife. She also tries to please him by making his favorite dishes. Several people at the market blame her for Moussa’s desire for a new wife: “Quand un homme va voir ailleurs, c’est sa femme la principale responsable. Il sort tout simplement chercher ce qu’il n’a pas chez lui et c’est légitime” (135–136). [When a man goes looking elsewhere, his wife is responsible. He only goes to look for what he does not have at home, and that is legitimate.] Maïmouna cannot really complain to anyone else, because the taking of a third wife is the norm in her milieu; she must show good faith and understanding; after all, she is a second wife, so what if there is one more? That is how those around her view her dilemma. Despite all her efforts, the big day arrives, and Maïmouna has to live with the fact that Moussa has taken a third wife, N’deye Marème. N’deye Marème comes fresh from the village. Although Moussa had only seen a picture, he is not disappointed when he sees her: “[Elle] était belle et fraîche. [. . .] On lui avait aussi assuré qu’elle était vierge, elle l’était vraiment” (138–139). [She was young and beautiful . . . they had assured him that she was a virgin, and she really was.] Moussa’s sexual past is not important, but he has to insure that his new wife is a virgin. The cultural, religious,

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and social value of virginity is highly important in many societies in Africa. This view of the value of virginity is sometimes linked to how men interpret religious laws and ideology. The woman’s virginity is regarded as a sign of her “purity,” but the man does not have to be a virgin in order to be “pure.” It is not clear what male purity consists of, but his purity is not important and is not necessary to define and prove his manhood. N’Deye Marème is highly regarded by Moussa because she is a virgin, whereas Maïmouna already had a child. Maïmouna is ready to make life miserable for the new wife, who soon learns the rules of the game and refuses to allow Maïmouna to control her. The two are constantly at each other’s throats. Aïda notes: “Elles étaient rivales et grâce à elles, la famille Konaté offrait désormais le visage macabre d’un ménage polygame” (152). [They were rivals and thanks to them, from then on, the Konaté family presented the gruesome face of a polygamous household.] What was a home before becomes a war zone. The rapport between the co-wives, particularly Maïmouna and N’Deye Marème, is complex. On the one hand, they share the same man and the same household; on the other, they are all competing for one man’s attention and this brings about tension. Moussa encourages this rivalry because it prevents the possibility of the two women siding together against him. This antagonism between them further maintains the subordination of women because it gives men more power over women. As a young adult at nineteen, Aïda, the eldest daughter, is tired of this environment. She tries to focus on her relationship with her boyfriend Armando. The two want to marry, but when she tells her parents, her father’s response is that she is too young. Aïda points out the hypocritical nature of the situation by reminding her father that he has just married a girl a year younger than she. Her father’s response is that she should do as he told her because he is her father. “Je suis ton père et tu n’as pas à copier ce que je fais” (153). [I am your father and you do not have to imitate me] or “Do as I say, not as I do.” Aïda tries to reason with him and defies him, stating that his own family is so chaotic that he has no right to tell her what to do. Aïda is angry and revolts against her father’s rule. Pauline tries to make Aïda see reality and wants to prevent her from making the same mistakes that she made years before. She tries to convince Aïda to focus on her studies first and then consider marriage. She tells her about her own regrets over not finishing school and having to depend on Moussa financially, which puts her in the position of not being able to leave when he took a second wife. She urges Aïda to finish her studies and then marry and have children, to be her own person first and foremost and not to live in Armando’s shadow, to take her future and destiny into her hands by being independent. For Pauline, Aïda should learn from

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her mother’s experience and not repeat her mistakes. Blinded by love, Aïda believes that Armando is not like her father and will never behave as he did. But Pauline warns her that human beings are like chameleons and can change from one minute to the next. Aïda decides to accept her mother’s words of wisdom and wait for a year before she marries. Like Pauline before her, Maïmouna is completely dissatisfied (emotionally and sexually) with her life with Moussa but must remain because she is financially dependent on him. The novel shows an interesting twist of female desire when Maïmouna meets an old flame, Ricardo, and goes to him to get the love and care that she no longer receives from her husband. N’Deye Marème, the third wife, has now become Moussa’s favorite. This brings up the issue of female desire and adultery, a form of subversiveness and revolt on Maïmouna’s part. As Maïmouna describes her years as the second wife of an older man (Moussa) to Ricardo, she mentions the possibility of Moussa’s sterility and the pregnancy of his third wife. Moussa is convinced that there cannot be any problems with him, so he blames Maïmouna for their inability to conceive a child. She confesses to Ricardo that she believes N´Deye Marème is not pregnant by Moussa. When Ricardo questions her, she explains to him that in the three years she has been with Moussa he did everything so that she could have children. She also affirms that she is not sterile, a fact confirmed by doctors. Maïmouna finds an ally and a friend in Ricardo. She is able to share her thoughts with him and they eventually become lovers. While Maïmouna questions her life with Moussa as well as his love for her, N´Deye Marème is flourishing in her pregnant state. As this is her first child; she impatiently waits for the birth even though she is told that it will be an ordeal. But having gone through excision without shedding a tear in spite of the tremendous amount of grief, she could not imagine there could be anything more agonizing. The pain of excision is linked to that of childbirth, implying that excision helped prepare her for childbirth. N’Deye Marème wants to experience motherhood because that is what she believes will make her fully a woman. The novel is ambiguous as to whether or not N’Deye Marème got pregnant outside of marriage to satisfy her husband’s desires and societal pressures of producing an heir or because she buys into the notion that being a true woman implies having children. Traoré deliberately leaves this point ambiguous because she wants the reader to focus on the fact that N’Deye Marème is infected with the AIDS virus, yet she does not want to lay blame. Moussa treats N’Deye Marème like a queen because he believes that she will give him the son he desires. Unfortunately, her pregnancy is problematic.

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Though her belly grows larger each day, her bones also show. She is so weak that one morning while doing house chores she falls and has to be taken to the hospital. After several tests and some days later, Dr. Tendeng tells Moussa that N’Deye Marème, his third wife, has AIDS. After the initial shock and denial of the situation, Moussa starts to think about the ramifications: “Le Sida c’était bien cette maladie sexuellement transmissible dont on commençait à beaucoup parler dans les médias. Il en avait ri avec ses copains mais ne s’était jamais imaginé que cela pût lui arriver. Sa douleur, sa peine pour N’Deye Marème, se transforma en une sourde colère” (178). [AIDS was that sexually transmitted disease that the media had started talking a lot about. He had laughed with his friends but had never imagined that could happen to him. His pain, his sadness for N’Deye Marème changed to rage.] The doctor tries to reason with him and make him face the reality of the AIDS virus: “Il y a quatre suspects dans cette affaire. Ce n’est pas parce que N’Deye Marème est couchée qu’elle a forcément contracté le virus la première. Cela ne veut absolument rien dire. Une de vos trois femmes a pu vous tromper et n’excluez pas l’hypothèse que vous, vous ayez eu des relations à l’extérieur sans songer à vous protéger” (178–179). [There are four suspects in this affair. It is not because N’Deye Marème is sick that she necessarily contracted the disease first. That does not mean anything. One of your three wives could have betrayed you, and do not exclude the hypothesis that you could have had extra-marital affairs without thinking of protecting yourself.] For Moussa, the idea of protecting himself seems strange, and he asks the doctor how he should have protected himself. When the doctor tells him with a condom, he is outraged, a response very typical of many males who believe that using a condom insinuates having sexual relations with a prostitute or that there will be a decrease in sensation. Such scenes dramatize misconceptions about AIDS and condoms as well as scientific reality versus social norms and male privileges. Once she is faced with her destiny, N’Deye Marème’s only concern is saving her child. Moussa is in a state of shock, panic, and despair, not knowing what to do and feeling useless. He thinks about what this tragedy means and how it goes beyond N’Deye Marème’s death: “Au-delà de la mort de sa femme, il entrevoyait la sienne, la destruction de sa famille” (182). [Beyond his wife’s death, he anticipated his death, the destruction of his family.] No one had sensed the tragedy that he was living. Family and friends try to encourage him by telling him to focus on his family and new child, that all will eventually go back to normal. Little do they know the gravity of the situation. Only three people really know what happened: Moussa, Pauline, and

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Maïmouna. Moussa finally tells them the truth about their co-wife’s illness the day before she dies. The transmission of AIDS is one of the many possible consequences of polygynous relations that many do not address. Abibatou Traoré does not state or even imply how N’Deye Marème contracted AIDS. The narrative suggests several possibilities: It could have been that she was involved with someone else and the child she was carrying was not Moussa’s; it is possible that Ricardo, Maïmouna’s ex-boyfriend with whom she had rekindled an adolescent romance and started a new relationship had AIDS; it could also be that Moussa had sexual relations with other women and one of them gave him the virus which N’Deye Marème later contracted. However, it can be argued that the manner in which the disease was acquired is less important than its effects on people and its follow-up. The novel ends somewhat ambiguously in this regard. Maïmouna tells Ricardo about the possibility that she has AIDS and is carrying his child, who might also be HIV positive. This is a source of hope that Moussa and Maïmouna may seek treatment and live for a while, assuming that they are HIV positive. But, AIDS is still such a taboo subject in many African societies that it will be difficult to live with the stares and criticism of their community. Sidagamie brings to light the complexity of polygyny by introducing how it connects to a modern plague. One of the most interesting aspects of Sidagamie is that the author does not moralize; rather, she presents the story and consciously encourages the readers’ reflections on the relationships among AIDS, polygyny, economy, religion, and marriage. Men and women in marriage follow a set of rules prescribed by religion. Consequently, religion sustains the institution of polygyny, an institution that primarily benefits men. However, religion does not adequately address the problems that arise in polygynous unions and possible deadly consequences like AIDS. Religion contributes to the perpetuation of what amounts to personal and social injustice. Another text which criticizes the religious justification for polygyny is Xala2 by Sembène Ousmane. The author specifically looks at the role of Islam in vindicating this practice in Africa. Sembène is an unconventional novelist and filmmaker who has been raising these issues for a long time, having produced in 1969 a documentary entitled Traumatisme de la femme face à la polygamie. He was raised Islamic. In Xala, he depicts the rise and fall of El Hadjii Abdou Kader Bèye, a representative of the new Senegalese bourgeois class. As he climbs the ladder of success, El Hadji finds it necessary to take a third wife to match his new socio-economic status. On his wedding day, he is paralyzed with xala (sexual impotence). Unable to perform, he tries every-

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thing to remove this curse. The text tells the story of his obsession and ultimate downfall. His first two wives are complete opposites. The eldest one, the first wife, Adja Awa Astou, is a pious woman who dresses only in white since her return from “[le] Lieu Saint, de la Kaaba” (26), [“the (Kaaba) Holy Place”] (11).3 She had converted from Christianity to be a better wife to a Muslim and as such, accepted her husband’s second wife, and now his third. She tells her children, Mactar and Rama, “Avec ma co-épouse, nous devons être présentes à cette cérémonie. Votre père le veut” (27). [My co-wife and I must attend the ceremony. It’s your father’s wish] (12). Her daughter, Rama, incites her to revolt and get a divorce. She answers: “Tu me conseilles de divorcer? Où trouverais-je un mari [,] un homme de mon âge encore célibataire? Si je quittais votre père, avec de la chance, et avec la volonté de Yalla [Allah], si je trouvais un mari, je serais troisième femme ou quatrième. Et vous, qu’est-ce que vous deviendriez?” (27–28). [“You think I should get a divorce. Where would I go at my age? Where would I find another husband, a man of my own age and still a bachelor? If I left your father and with luck and (Allah’s) help found a husband, I would be his third or his fourth wife. And what would become of you?”] (12). Like Ramatoulaye in Une si longue lettre, Adja Awa Astou cannot conceive of herself as a divorced woman; her upbringing does not allow her to do so. Besides, her reasoning is “better to be a first wife than a third or fourth.” In theory, the first wife has certain rights and privileges, although El Hadji, like many polygynous men, does not respect these rights. Rama refuses to attend the wedding. N’Goné, the new wife, is twenty, like her: “ Je n’irai pas à ce mariage. . . . Mère, cette femme de mon père, cette N’Goné a mon âge. C’est une salope. Tu ne vas là-bas que pour les gens, de peur qu’ils médisent de toi” (28–29). [“Mother, that wife of my father’s, that N’Gone, is my age. She’s . . . a whore. You are only going because you’re afraid of what people will say”] (13). Rama goes so far as to tell her father that she is against his marriage because “un polygame n’est jamais un homme franc” (30); [a polygamist is never an honest man”] (13). Her father considers her behavior insolent and slaps her. As customs encourage both wives to be present at their husbands’ wedding, El Hadji goes to the house of the second wife, Oumi N’Doye, after having picked up his first wife, Awa. When they arrive, Adja Awa Astou refuses to go inside the second wife’s house. When her husband insists, she tells him: “El Hadji, d’avance je te demande pardon. Mais tu sembles oublier que je suis ta AWA [première épouse]. Je ne mettrai pas les pieds dans cette maison. J’attendrai ici” (32). [“El Hadjii, I beg you to forgive me. You seem to forget

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that I am your Awa (first wife). I will not set foot in that house. I’ll wait here”] (14). Although she does it with a lot of respect, Adja Awa stands up to her husband and asserts her right as the first wife by refusing to enter the second wife’s house. This polygynous family is not a big, happy one; rather, tension, jealousy, and resentment exist between the two wives. In the film version of Xala, Oumi N’Doye’s frivolity and anger against the first wife plays out in a visually interesting manner. The conflict between the co-wives is evident through their body language and particularly their facial expressions. When they arrive at the wedding reception, at first the two women simply sit next to each other in silence, a silence that says more than words. The wedding ceremony is also a display of wealth and excessive materialism, of El Hadji’s social status. The bride is dressed in a traditional Western white gown. Oumi, the second wife believes that Awa, the first wife, pushed El Hadji into taking a third wife to spite her. When she is alone with him, she interjects: “C’est elle qui t’a poussé à épouser cette troisième! Uniquement par jalousie. Parce que je suis plus jeune qu’elle, cette vieille peau. [. . .] Elle m’attend dehors pour voir comment je vais me comporter, han? Je vais entrer en compétition avec ta vieille peau de poisson sec. Pas de doute qu’elle s’entendra avec cette N’Goné pour m’emmerder, mais nous allons voir!” (33–34). [“She persuaded you to marry this third wife purely out of jealousy. Just because I’m younger than she is, the old cow. . . . She’s waiting outside just to see how I will take it, isn’t she? Your old piece of dried fish-skin thinks I’m her rival. I bet you she’ll gang up with that N’Gone to annoy me. But we’ll see about that”] (15). Oumi is already planning her attack once the new wife arrives. She is too angry, jealous, and bitter to realize that the first wife feels equally betrayed. The binary opposition between rich and poor, tradition and modernity, and the description of El Hadji as a man with “a bourgeois education and a feudal education” is made even clearer in the film with the beggars’ constant presence. The businessmen are all wearing Western suits in spite of the heat. There are bottles of Evian water everywhere, a symbol of their Frenchness. In one of the scenes, El Hadji’s daughter, Rama, comes to his office; he offers her Evian and she refuses, saying that she prefers the local water. El Hadji even uses Evian to wash his Mercedes-Benz, while he would not give it to a thirsty beggar. The beggars are treated like sub-humans. They are at once feared and ignored. One of them simply sits by El Hadji’s office and sings. But his very presence bothers El Hadji, and he has the police remove him. This is probably because his presence is a daily reminder of a crime committed by El Hadji

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some time back: He stole the beggar’s land and had him arrested so that he wouldn’t protest. This beggar, who became the voice of the oppressed community, is the one who put the xala on him as part of his revenge and to shame El Hadji. His sole desire and obsession is to remove the xala. Although he has two other wives and several children, being unable to sexually perform with this third wife makes him appear as less than a man. This fixation leads to his financial and social downfall. His “friends” and business partners abandon him when he needs help and throw him out of the group. In fact, El Hadjii is worse off than a beggar; one of them tells him that he is a social disease, destroyed by modernity and its power, money, and greed. The humiliation of El Hadji is at its height at the end of both the film and the novel.4 The beggars literally take over his house; they sit in his living room and appropriate his space as a way of taking their dignity back. They are the ones who now have the right to speak. The ending is a satire with the beggars calling the shots and El Hadji allowing them to spit on him and humiliate him in order to remove his xala. An important feature of Xala is at once the simplicity and the complexity of the stories weaving through different scenes. Sembène brilliantly mocks the Senegalese nouveaux riches who have replaced the former colonizers by juxtaposing scenes of rich and poor, employed and unemployed, powerful and powerless. For instance, the wedding scene depicts several transactions that are taking place at once: business transactions that unveil the corruption of the elite and personal transaction whereby El Hadji proves his great wealth by the acquisition of a new wife. During the wedding reception there is also a display of extravagance through the guests who come in wearing their Sunday best, the amount of food that is being served, as well as the gift giving. The reception is an opportunity for members of the upper class who had the privilege of being invited to see others of the same class and to be seen. As is often the case in Sembène’s works, women characters are strong. Here Rama, El Hadji’s young daughter, represents Senegal’s hope and future.5 Xala is a masterpiece because it uses interconnected tropes of marriage, a wedding ceremony, and sexual impotency to reveal intrinsic links among economic, social, and religious powers.6 El Hadji’s fall is a metaphor for the ineptitude of the new independent African government (Senegalese in particular) officials who are not capable of governing. He fails in his business (he is no longer part of the Chamber of Commerce), he fails in his religious duties (he does not have enough faith that Allah will remove his “xala”) and finally, he fails in his marriage because both his second and third wives leave him once he is financially ruined. Xala remains a classic depiction of Senegalese society because the issues portrayed remain relevant.

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There are several other sub-Saharan African films that use polygyny as one of the topoi.7 For instance, Bal poussière (1988) by Henri Duparc is a social comedy that exposes the polygynous urge of another man like El Hadjii. The “hero” in the film is a rich man, about fifty years old, who refers to himself as Demi Dieu (Halfgod). He already has five wives but feels the need to take a sixth one. A young lady, Binta, meets Demi Dieu, and he immediately finds himself deeply in love and wants to marry her. As he is very rich, Binta’s parents have no objection. He believes that a sixth wife will allow him to have a wife for each day of the week, with the seventh day, Sunday, reserved for the wife who behaves best during the week. Binta comes to Demi Dieu’s “orderly” house and brings her own set of rules. She soon becomes a modern model for the other traditional wives and teaches them new things such as naked bathing. Binta becomes a source of conflict, dividing the family into those women who are Westernized and those who remain traditional. Bal poussière, like the novel Sidagamie, also raises an important question regarding AIDS. In one scene, a prostitute in a bar is asked by a client “And what about AIDS?” implying that she should think of the deadly consequences of prostitution. This is an important question for a society where people living with AIDS (a disease that is still taboo) are frequently shunned. At the end of the film, Binta leaves Demi Dieu and goes with the man she truly loves because she is not able to adapt to Demi Dieu’s rules and regulations. Binta stands up to tradition, defies her parents by leaving Demi Dieu, and asserts her individuality creating an ending that is clearly a critique of polygyny. Although the film is primarily a comedy, it raises crucial issues such as a woman’s right to choose her husband, AIDS awareness, and the complexity of polygynous relationships. Like other women in the novels examined, Binta finds the courage to create a space for herself and obtain a voice in a society in which women’s voices are often absent. Although Bal poussière is a social comedy that uses humor to convey socio-political messages while using the theme of marriage as a topos, the filmmaker takes into account other factors such as the conflicts between tradition and modernity, religion and culture. Such films demonstrate that many women—and men—are not consenting to polygyny. By rejecting this institution they are recognizing that tradition is not static. What may have worked a generation ago in a specific society does not necessarily work in the current one. Tradition needs to evolve and change as people’s lives change. The filmmaker seeks to demystify and refute some of the earlier justifications

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for polygyny such as the argument that it provides financial support to women. Not all male characters in the works discussed are polygynist or accept society’s rules regarding polygyny, marriage, and the general treatment of women as being inferior to men. Aïda’s boyfriend in Sidagamie, Armando, when asked about his thoughts on polygyny, answers: C’est une pratique que je ne comprends pas. Je pense que c’est une pure aliénation de la femme. Hommes et femmes ont exactement les mêmes droits dans le mariage . . . Je ne suis pas musulman mais je sais ce qui se dit. Cette religion permet à un homme d’avoir plusieurs femmes s’il est capable de rester équitable. Moi je pense que les données sont fausse dès le départ. On ne peut pas aimer plusieurs personnes de la même façon. (85) [This is a practice that I do not understand. I think that it is purely a way of alienating women. Men and women have the same rights in marriage. . . . I am not a Muslim but I know what is said. That religion allows a man to have many wives if he is able to remain fair. I believe that the figures are forged from the start. One cannot love many people in the same way.]

This is a view of love that is not accepted by all because it gives women a space to question the male behavior vis-à-vis polygyny and religion. Polygyny brings about other issues and questions such as: What is love? Can one person love many people at the same time? Is love cultural? How do you define love, and what does it imply? What should be the roles of the two partners in marriage, and how do religious and social structures support these roles? Like Armando, Daba’s husband, Abou, in Une si longue lettre tells Ramatoulaye when she accuses him of spoiling Daba because he cooks and cleans the house just as she does, that Daba is his wife, and their relationship is that of a partnership: “Daba est ma femme. Elle n’est pas mon esclave, ni ma servante” (107). [“Daba is my wife. She is (neither) my slave, nor my servant”] (73).8 There is a change of mentality, whether this change is generational or otherwise. Daba does not think like her mother, Ramatoulaye, when it comes to marriage. For her, marriage does not have the same religious pulls that it had for Ramatoulaye. For Daba and Abou, marriage is a mutual agreement where any one of the two partners can decide to end the partnership if it does not work for them. Marriage, for this couple, implies two people sharing their lives together and respecting each other. It is a relationship and not a power struggle with the man making all the decisions.

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Notes 1. UNAIDS/WHO (United Nations AIDS and World Health Organization) AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 have estimated that sub-Saharan Africa has more than 60 percent of all people living with HIV, about 25.8 million. There is little knowledge about the transmission routes of HIV. In 2005, it is estimated that there were about 3.2 million new infections. Some 57 percent of HIV infected adults are women. Young women are more likely to be HIV infected than young men by a ratio of over three to one. Each sub-Saharan African country must be considered independently; it is not accurate to talk about an “African” AIDS epidemic. There are several factors, including prevention, treatment, and care, that affect a particular country. For more information, consult the following website: www.unaids.org/epi/ 2005/doc/EPIupdate2005_pdf_en/Epi05_05_en.pdf (accessed May 2007). 2. My analysis of Xala is based on the film and text versions. 3. Throughout this chapter I will be using a translation of Sembène Ousmane’s Xala by Clive Wake (Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill, 1976). 4. This part is the same in both media but it is more powerful in the film. 5. Oumar Cherif Diop and Josef Gugler in “Ousmane Sembène’s Xala: The Novel, the Film, and Their Audiences,” Research in African Literatures 29.2 (1998): 147–158, note that: “Women are central to the story: Some demonstrate the cultural alienation of the nouveaux riches; others present alternative models. The men . . . affirm their commitment to polygamy not for traditional ends––to bring labor to the kingship group and assure its continuity––but simply to enhance their status” (148). 6. It is worth noting in that regard that Xala was censored in Senegal, and Sembène had to remove a few scenes that harshly denounced the corruption of the Senegalese government. See Frank Ukadike, Black African Cinema (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 280. 7. One of these films is La vie est belle (1985), by Ngangura Mweze. In this film, Nvouandou, a rich businessman living in Kinshasa, wishes to have a second wife. His primary justification is that his first wife, Mamu, is unable to have children. He is impotent and goes to see a marabout who directs him on the steps to take to recover his virility. First, he must stay with his young virgin wife, Kabibi, for thirty days without having any sexual relations with her. Then, he has to do some dance steps and say the following words: “Pousse, pousse, piston” [Push, push, Piston]. There is also a 2002 documentary, Le mariage d’Alex by Jean-Marie Teno. It depicts polygyny as a right for the Bamiléké and demonstrates a community that believes that only when a man has three wives is he considered married and only when he has several children is he thought to be a man. 8. Translation of Mariama Bâ, Une si longue lettre by Modupé Bodé-Thomas, trans. So Long a Letter (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1981).

C H A P T E R

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Marriage, Métissage, and Identity

Abena, ma mère, un marin anglais la viola sur le pont du Christ the King, un jour de 16** alors que le navire faisait voile vers la Barbade. C’est de cette aggression que je suis née. De cet acte de haine et de mépris. [Abena, my mother, was raped by an English sailor on the deck of Christ the King one day in the year 16** while the ship was sailing for Barbados. I was born from this act of aggression. From this act of hatred and contempt.] —Maryse Condé, Moi, Tituba sorcière . . . Métissage was a term that spoke of the cultural and social matrix of diversity born of colonization and assimilation into the colonial project. Métissage was a site of dispute, for the term contained at heart an ambiguity [and] an ambivalence . . .1 —Françoise Vergès, Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Métissage I’m just a red nigger who love [sic] the sea, I had a sound colonial education, I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me, and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation. —Derek Walcott, Poems, 1965–1980

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In Greco-Latin mythology, Métis, Zeus’ first wife, is a powerful magic maker. She prepares the drink that allows Cronos to regurgitate all the children he swallowed. She was able to predict that Zeus would one day have a son who would dethrone him. As Françoise Lionnet notes in Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture, Métis’ power lies in her inability to be categorized. Like Métis, several of the protagonists represented in the novels analyzed in this chapter are characterized by an incapacity to be classified; for them, this creates confusion, shame, and selfloathing. The state of métissage2 can often be dangerous and ambiguous to those who inhabit this discursive space—for they cannot be defined by one specific culture. As a result, the construction of a unified self is problematic for some métis and the often seemingly simple category of race, based primarily on biological characteristics such as skin pigmentation but also on cultural characteristics and perceived moral attributes or failings, is no longer adequate to describe what it means to be métis. For protagonists such as Claire, Mayotte, and Nini, the challenges arise because they are not able to define a place in which they can belong. Claire feels alienated in her family and community. Nini and Mayotte are alienated in their social and cultural spaces. I use the term métissage rather than hybridity because hybridity tends to suggest a binary between colonizer/colonized and/or black/white. Métissage, on the contrary, seems to be a more general term referring to more than two categories. Métissage is also more commonly used to bring together a variety of concepts from biology, anthropology, philosophy, history, and literature. Marriage and métissage both tackle issues of identity. For some women, because of its structure, marriage as an institution typically involves a questioning of identity. The woman has certain expectations projected on her because of her cultural, religious, and/or social upbringing. At the same time, she may be struggling with a sense of who she is as an individual. The idea of métissage, by definition, challenges the notion of fixed identities that marriage often implies. In a relationship between two people, whether it consists of marriage, plaçage, or concubinage, each partner brings his or her own ideologies, beliefs, and experiences. The notion of marriage from a Christian perspective implies “two becoming one.” In the Bible, we read “God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and the twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”3 The two mates may influence each other in various ways regarding many issues. However, when two people from different cultural, social, and/or religious backgrounds come together, their

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individual beliefs can bring about greater cultural mixture and create new conflicts, problematizing the “two-into-one” question. In Les couples dominos: Aimer dans la différence, Thérèse Kuoh-Moukoury examines the problems that mixed black-white couples face in a society that has created a set of rules based on ethnicity, race, or both. These rules assume the superiority of certain races over others. Although the book focuses on black-white couples, its analysis is valid for other mixed couples. Many of the fears and stereotypes associated with interracial relationships stem from the ways in which our contemporary societies in the west, in Africa, and in the Caribbean have a propensity for categorizing people primarily by race and ethnicity. However, mixed couples have to face issues that go beyond race. They also have to deal with the same types of issues as other couples: different cultures, religions, and upbringings. These couples sometimes face a bigger challenge than same-race couples when they are alienated by both of the communities from which they come; in turn, they may have to create a new type of community based on this mixing of race. Children who are part of that new community are sometimes alienated because they are made to feel that they are “[a] transgress[ion] [of] the unwritten laws of sexual behavior between the races.”4 Métissage is an embedded ideology, in part because the métis or métisse was originally viewed as a concrete and tangible proof of colonial desire. In colonial Caribbean societies, métissage is forcibly linked to histories of exclusion, domination, and power; it remains a dominant theme in Caribbean postcolonial literatures. Colonial mixing produced mixed-race children for whom new terms had to be created in order to designate this segment of the population. This new term brought about new status (social, political, economic, classist, and racial) and new conflicts. In Le mythe du métissage, Roger Toumson states that métissage was created historically as a social construct to maintain boundaries in the colonial plantation economy of the Caribbean: “C’est au sein d’une structure familiale racialisée, dans le cadre de la société esclavagiste d’habitation et de plantation que le Métis fait son apparition. Né d’une faute charnelle, sous le signe d’une fatalité généalogique, le Métis est prédestiné à réincarner l’archétype du réprouvé primordial”(139). [It is in the heart of a racialized familial structure, in the surrounding of the slave plantation society that the métis appeared. Born of a carnal sin, under the fatal genealogical sin, the métis is predestined to reincarnate the prototype of the primordial outcast.] One of the important aspects of métissage is that it can reveal people’s xenophobia. By their mere existence, a mixed couple forces others to acknowledge the fact that we live in a society comprised of people that are different, whether

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physiologically or otherwise. The term different takes on a variety of meanings, depending on the individual and the context. But what comes across is that societies, through their rules (written and unwritten, clear and unclear), decide who is labeled different. This chapter focuses on the relation among marriage, métissage, and identity by discussing love, marriage, and self-affirmation in Amour, colère et folie5 (1968) by Marie Chauvet. It will then consider the concept of “whitening the race” or lactification, a term used by Frantz Fanon in Peau noire, masques blancs (1975) to describe the internalization of racism and the inferiority complex suffered by blacks and/or colonized individuals. These individuals feel inferior to whites and want to emulate them. This identity crisis is examined in Je suis Martiniquaise (1948) by Mayotte Capécia and Nini, mulâtresse du Sénégal (1954) by Abdoulaye Sadji. The subject of this chapter finds more echoes in the Caribbean; however, the topic of marriage and métissage is not absent in Africa, as works such as Nini, mulâtresse du Sénégal and Mariama Bâ’s Un chant écarlate (1981) demonstrate. Claire Aumont, the protagonist of Amour, is an upper-class Haitian woman struggling to understand and accept herself. She is not married and has no children, therefore, she is marginalized and almost effaced in the Haitian bourgeois society to which she belongs. Claire is left in charge of her two younger sisters after the death of her parents. At 39, she is depicted as a frustrated virgin and an old maid who spends her time controlling her sisters’ lives and living vicariously through their experiences. In many regards, this novel is subversive for the period in which it was written. First, Claire, a well-educated aristocratic woman, describes her feelings of repressed sexuality. The novel begins with her internalization of societal views. Looking at herself in the mirror, she reflects: “Je suis la [. . .] vieille fille! Celle qui n’a pas trouvé de mari, qui ne connaît pas l’amour, qui n’a jamais vécu dans le bon sens du terme. Ils se trompent. [. . .] C’est mon silence, ma vengeance. [. . .] J’ai trente neuf ans et je suis encore vierge”(9). [I am the (. . .) old maid! The one who did not find a husband, who does not know love, who never lived in the proper sense of the word. They are mistaken. My silence is my vengeance. (. . .) I am thirty-nine years old and a virgin.] Although being a virgin is a positive attribute in her society, Claire knows that people pity her because she has never been loved or been attached to a man. Claire wears many masks in search of some form of fulfillment. Her inferiority complex is caused mainly by her inability to reconcile with the color of her skin. As a result, she suffers an identity crisis. She is extremely jealous of her sisters, whose coloring is lighter than hers. Claire once had a suitor, but the relationship did not work, and she is convinced that it is due to her lack of clarté [lightness]. She remembers the time when her father told her

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mother about his plans to buy her a suitor due to his fear over Claire’s prohibitive color: Le petit Camuse semble s’intéresser à notre fille, dit un soir mon père à ma mère. Faisons valoir sa dot pour l’encourager. Puisque je ne peux rien tirer de cette tête de bourrique autant la marier. Les Camuse se trouvent a moitié ruinés, ils seront heureux de redorer leur blason. Ils se croient sortir des cuisses de Jupiter, lui répondit ma mère. J’ai assez d’argent pour faire taire leur préjugés. . . . Ce mariage se fera, continua mon père, mon argent aidera à leur faire oublier certaines choses. (119) [The young Camuse seems interested in our daughter. Let’s talk about her dowry to encourage him. Since I cannot get that stubborn donkey to do anything, we might as well marry her. The Camuses are nearly ruined. They will be happy to refurbish their coat of arms. They think they come from Jupiter’s loins, my mother said to him. I have enough money to make them forget their prejudices. This marriage will take place, my father continued. . . . My money will help them forget certain things.]

The intersections of class, skin color, and money are real in the Haitian upper-middle class. As a woman, Claire’s parents cannot conceive of any other life for her; she must be passed on to another man as required by their social milieu. Unfortunately for her parents, Claire’s body is a commodity of exchange that will not be purchased by this particular bidder because she is too dark to be as marketable as her sisters. Even her younger sister, Felicia, questions their different skin colors at a young age. Felicia takes her hand and asks their mother: “Pourquoi Claire est noire, maman?” “Mais elle n’est pas noire,” répondit ma mère baissant les yeux. “Pourquoi elle est noire?” Je retirai avec brusquerie ma main de la sienne. “Le soleil l’a un peu brûlée6 fit” encore ma mère, “c’est une jolie brune.” “Non, elle est noire et nous sommes blancs” [dit Felicia] (119). [“Why is Claire black, mother?” “But she is not black,” answered my mother. “Why is she black? I pulled my hand away from hers. “The sun burned her a bit,” replied my mother once again, “she is a beautiful brown-skinned girl.” “No, she is black and we are white,” said Felicia.] Claire wonders why she must bear this fate: “Pourquoi? Pourquoi? Pourquoi? Et je me mis à haïr l’aïeule dont le sang noir s’était sournoisement glissé dans mes veines après tant de générations”(119). [Why? Why? Why? I started hating the ancestor whose dark blood had slyly slipped into my veins after so many generations.] Claire is thus marginal on two levels: as an old maid in a society that views any unmarried woman above twenty-five years

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old unmarriageable and as a dark-skinned woman whose entire family is light-skinned. She is seen as la bête noire [the black beast] of the family, an expression meant to be understood both metaphorically and literally in this context. Throughout the novel, her parents repeatedly try to use their money and power to convince people to overlook Claire’s darkness. Yet, this only further heightens her inferiority complex. She believes that the only reason she is not married is because of her dark skin, hence her obsession with being married: “Je me résignai au mien en attendant le mariage qui me délivrerait. En grandissant, j’avais organisé ma vie. Une vie secrète et bien remplie à laquelle personne n’avait accès” (118). [I was resigned to my fate while awaiting the marriage that would deliver me. While growing up, I had set up my life. A secret and full life to which no one had access.] As time passes, Claire’s wish for marriage begins to fade and she must deal with the duties assigned to her by society and her circumstances. Thus begins her double life. On the one hand, she seems to have accepted her condition and destiny as a spinster and has resigned herself to taking care of her younger sisters. On the other, she is a frustrated woman who constantly spies on her siblings. She creates her own space and in many ways defies social, religious, and patriarchal authorities by sexually liberating herself through erotic fantasies: La pureté n’existe pas et les besoins de la chair sont normaux. [. . .] Je ferme la fenêtre de ma chambre [. . .] et je me déshabille. Je suis nue, devant le miroir [et] encore belle. Mais mon visage est flétri. Visage sans charme de vieille fille avide d’amour. Je hais Félicia d’avoir introduit cet homme dans la maison. Ma tentation. Ma terrible et délicieuse tentation. Quand ils quittent leur chambre, je vais toucher, sentir les draps sur lesquels ils ont fait l’amour, cherchant comme une affamée cette odeur [de] sueur masculine qui doit être celle du sperme et qui se mélange au parfum fade de Félicia. (18) [Chastity does not exist and bodily desires are normal (. . .) I close my bedroom window (. . .) and I undress myself. I am naked in front of the mirror (and) still beautiful. But my face is withered. An old maid’s face without charm and greedy for love. I hate Felicia for having brought that man into the house. My temptation. My terrible and delightful temptation. When they leave their room, I go touch and smell the sheets upon which they had made love, searching like a hungry person that smell of masculine sweat that must be that of sperm mixed with Felicia’s bland perfume.]

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Claire is at once fighting her bodily desires and her beliefs. For her, these sexual and lustful thoughts are sinful ones that can and should only be absolved through marriage. She describes her repressed sexual desires in detail. For example: “Je suis savante sur la théorie du parfait coït. Je sais par cœur certains passages de L’Amant de Lady Chatterley. Ce livre ne quitte pas ma table de nuit: c’est mon aphrodisiaque”(46). [I am an expert on the theory of perfect coitus. I have memorized certain excerpts from Lady Chatterley’s Lover. This book does not leave my night table: it is my aphrodisiac.] Her sexual desires are more powerful than the religious education with which she was inculcated. She hides behind several masks in order to maintain her true identity. In the sanctuary of her bedroom she can reveal her repressed sexuality, and her journal allows her to unmask her desires and live her multiple lives. As an unmarried woman, she is not “productive” by societal standards. Since upper-class Haitian society considers it abnormal for a woman to be unmarried unless she is a nun, Claire thinks that the only way she can experience happiness and fulfillment is through marriage and children: “Mon temps d’aimer est périmé. Je suis un désert qui n’offre nul abri. Il est trop tard pour que je commence à vivre”(35). [My time to love has expired. I am a desert that does not offer any shelter. It is too late for me to begin living.] She regrets not being like her friend Jane Bavière, who at least has a child, even though she is humiliated and repudiated by society as an unwed mother. She admires Jane’s courage, for, although she cannot conceive of herself having a child without being married, she is obsessed with the idea of feeling needed by someone. She again lives vicariously through her sister, Felicia, who has a child whom Claire takes care of. However, that is not fulfilling, and Claire laments: Je cherche consolation avec ma poupée en la berçant derrière ma porte vérouillée. La vie m’a frustrée des joies de la maternité et en moi fermente un trésor maternel. Quel crime ai-je commis pour n’avoir pas mérité ce bonheur? Il n’est peut-être pas trop tard. Qui veut coucher avec moi? Qui veut me donner un gosse? Gratis, sans le mariage au bout. Je ne marchande plus. (66–67) [I try to console myself with my doll by rocking her behind my closed door. Life has kept the joy of maternity from me. What crime have I committed that makes me undeserving of this happiness? Maybe it is not too late. Who wants to sleep with me? Who wants to give me a child? Free of charge, without marriage at the end. I will no longer bargain.]

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This obsession grows so strong that Claire resigns herself to having a child at any cost, even out of wedlock, which would constitute a significant revolt against her bourgeois upbringing. As Claire is clearly attracted to her French brother-in-law, Jean Luze, her desire to have a métisse child with him becomes a preoccupation. She hopes that her light-skinned child will not suffer as she has. It is not clear how happy and fulfilled Jean Luze’s marriage to Felicia is, since he is having an affair with Annette, Claire’s other sister. Although Claire knows this, she does not say anything to anyone. Perhaps Felicia may know of this affair but chooses to ignore it, after all, she is married to a white Frenchman, and this offers her status. Through her portrayal of Claire, Chauvet criticizes the Haitian community’s standard regarding women and marriage as well as the complexity of class and color distinctions on the island. In that society, marriage equals happiness and acceptance. The title of the novel at first glance seems to refer to a love story. However, this is actually ironic because it reveals instead the lack of love in Claire’s life and a universe of repressed sexual desire and malaise through Claire’s jealousy and bitterness toward her sisters. She considers these sisters to be “lucky” enough to be light-skinned and be married. Yet, there is some awareness and then acceptance as the novel and Claire’s identity formation progress. For instance, she goes from considering herself an unhappy spinster to someone who accepts the fact that she can be darkskinned and unmarried and still be whole. Toward the end of the novel, Claire awakens to her true self: “Je suis libre en face de moi-même. [. . .] Des sentiments contradictoires se disputent en moi avec férocité. [. . .] Je suis en train de décider de mon propre sort. Je jongle avec mon existence. [. . .] Je me découvre, surprise. [. . .] Est-ce moi ou ce que je vois de moi?” (185). [I am free (. . .) Many contradictory feelings are fiercely stirring inside me (. . .) I am in the process of taking charge of my own destiny. I juggle with my fate (. . .) I am surprised to discover myself. Is it me or what I see of myself?] Claire no longer accepts the negative stereotypes that society has used to characterize her based on her marital status and her blackness. The end of the novel exemplifies this conflict when she uses her newfound identity and power to revolt against Calédu, the police chief of the provincial town where Claire lives. The chief of police is also a metaphor for the oppressive Duvalier government. By killing Calédu, Claire revolts against a dictator, her own confinement, and her family. Amour represents the woman’s struggle to come to terms with being unmarried in a society that considers marriage the norm. The novel also sheds light on the difficulty of being dark-skinned in a milieu that defines beauty and acceptance on the basis of light skin tone. If Claire were as light-skinned

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as Felicia and the rest of her family, she would have had a better relationship with her family and would have been accepted by them and even found a partner to marry. Chauvet’s novel reveals that color and identity intersect when dealing with marriage and relationships in general. The inferiority complex manifested in Amour and still prevalent in Haiti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe is a direct result of slavery. Slave women were constantly sexually abused by masters, overseers, and other slaves. These rapes produced light-skinned children who, in some instances, were treated better than darker-skinned children. In Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848, Bernard Moitt describes the sexual exploits of the white nephew of the owner of Cottineau Plantation in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). His mother notes: “He is given to amusement and a life of debauchery. He has fostered a harem of black women” (99). This was a common pastime for some white colonizers, for women’s bodies belonged to them as much as the land did. Many postslavery societies in the Caribbean continue this hierarchy of color, and the lighter the skin and the closer the hair and facial features to those of Europeans, the more beautiful the person is considered. This is an example of the types of neurosis and mental colonial pathologies that Fanon described in his work, Peau noire, masques blancs [Black Skin, White Masks]. Decades after Fanon’s discussion of lactification, many women and men are still trying to procreate with whiteness in mind. Sadly, this colonial legacy remains a definitive norm in the Caribbean. Peau noire, masques blancs contains a chapter entitled “La femme de couleur et le blanc” [The Woman of Color and the White Man], in which Fanon questions the extent to which there can be true love between two races that are so different. His analysis is based mainly on two novels: Mayotte Capécia’s Je suis Martiniquaise and Abdoulaye Sadji’s Nini, mûlatresse du Sénégal. Fanon’s observations are accurate in many instances. However, he fails to scrutinize the relationship between the black woman and her fellow black male as well as the role of the black woman in colonial and postcolonial contexts. Fanon remains one of the post-colonial theorists whose thoughts have most influenced post-colonial studies today. His influence on post-colonial thinking about identity and race remains crucial to understanding colonizer/ colonized relationships. Furthermore, Fanon offers a useful axis between two geographic and conceptual aspects which are integral to this book, as a Martinican who lived and worked in Algeria. While it is problematic, his analysis of Je suis Martiniquaise and Nini, mulâtresse du Sénégal are significant.

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Mayotte,7 the protagonist of Je suis Martiniquaise, and Nini, the protagonist of Nini, mulâtresse du Sénégal, demonstrate that prejudice of color and inferiority complexes are not only due to colonialism but also to women’s subservient role in society. Fanon’s criticism of Capécia’s novel is particularly harsh. He has made the following comments regarding Je suis Martiniquaise: Parce qu’enfin, quand nous lisons dans Je suis Martiniquaise: J’aurais voulu me marier, mais avec un Blanc. Seulement une femme de couleur n’est jamais tout à fait respectable aux yeux d’un Blanc.” Nous sommes en droit d’être inquiet. Ce passage qui sert en un sens de conclusion à une énorme mystification, nous incite à réfléchir. Un jour, une femme du nom de Mayotte Capécia, obéissant à un motif dont nous apercevons mal les tenants, a écrit deux cent deux pages— sa vie—où se multipliaient à loisir les propositions les plus absurdes. L’accueil enthousiaste qui a été réservé à cet ouvrage dans certains milieux nous fait un devoir de l’analyser. Pour nous, aucune équivoque n’est possible: Je suis Martiniquaise est un ouvrage au rabais, prônant un comportement malsain. (34) [After all, we have a right to be (disturbed) when we read, in Je suis Martiniquaise: “I should have liked to be married, but to a white man. But a woman of color is never altogether respectable in a white man’s eyes. Even when he loves her. I knew that.” This passage, which serves in a way as the conclusion of a vast delusion prods one’s brain. (. . .) Capécia, obeying a motivation whose elements are difficult to detect, sat down to write 202 pages—her life—in which the most ridiculous ideas proliferated at random. The enthusiastic reception that greeted this book in certain circles forces us to analyze it. For me, all circumlocution is impossible: Je suis Martiniquaise is cut-rate merchandise, a sermon in praise of corruption.8 (42)

Fanon scrutinizes this novel mainly from a psychological perspective. However, Capécia’s story must also be considered in the greater socio-cultural context of colonialism and its legacy. Moreover, any analysis of this nature must take into account the patriarchal nature of the environment that Capécia describes. Fanon refuses to acknowledge the fact that during the colonial period the master’s weapon was the following motto: “Divide and conquer.” That is to say, the master used skin color to privilege certain slaves with lighter complexions. As a result, they developed a superiority complex that helped turn slaves against one another. The vestiges of this system remain today, for example, when some people in the Caribbean, particularly women, are pressured by their families to marry or to live with a lighter-skinned mate so that their children can be lighter. This weighs more heavily on women. It is always the woman who must put “more milk in her coffee” as the saying goes, and not the other way around. In part because of this perception, Mayotte experiences an abundant joy and is very proud to discover that her grandmother was white:

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Je m’en trouvais fière. Certes, je n’étais pas la seule à avoir du sang blanc, mais une grand-mère blanche, c’était moins banal qu’un grand-père blanc. Et ma mère était donc une métisse [emphasis mine] Je la trouvais plus jolie que jamais, et plus fine et plus distinguée. Si elle avait épousé un blanc, peut-être aurais-je été tout à fait blanche? . . . Et que la vie aurait été moins difficile pour moi? . . . Je songeais à cette grand-mère que je n’avais pas connue et qui était morte parce qu’elle avait aimé un homme de couleur martiniquais. . . . Comment une Canadienne pouvait-elle aimer un Martiniquais? Moi qui pensais toujours à M. le Curé, je décidai que je ne pourrais aimer qu’un Blanc, un blond avec des yeux bleus, un Français. (59) [I find myself proud. Of course, I was not the only one with white blood, but a white grand-mother, that was less trivial than a white grandfather. So, my mother was a mulatto (emphasis mine) I found her more beautiful than ever, more delicate and refined. If she had married a white man, maybe I would have been completely white? And life would have been less difficult for me? I reminisce about that grandmother whom I did not know, who died because she loved a colored Martinican man. How can a Canadian woman love a Martinican man? I decided that I could only love a white man, a blond with blue eyes, a Frenchman.]

For Mayotte, the lighter a person is, the more beautiful he or she is. Knowing she had a white grandmother, she can now visibly conceive of being with a white man; her dream of marrying a blond Frenchman with blue eyes seems more real. In her milieu, whiteness is equal to privilege and status, thus, for her to have those, she must have a white partner to climb the social ladder of success. However, Fanon oversimplifies the complexity of race and color when he notes in Peau noire, masques blancs: “Nous regrettons que Mayotte Capécia ne nous ait point fait part de ses rêves. Le contact avec son inconscient en êut été facilité. Au lieu de se découvrir noire absolument, elle va accidentaliser ce fait. Elle apprend que sa grand-mère est blanche” (37). [I am sorry that Mayotte Capécia has told us nothing about her dreams. That would have made it easier to reach her unconscious. Instead of recognizing her absolute blackness, she proceeds to turn it into an accident. She learns that her grandmother was white”] (46). The fact that Mayotte’s grandmother and not her grandfather is white is of utmost importance. As Fanon states: Le Blanc étant le maître, et plus simplement le mâle, peut se payer le luxe de coucher avec beaucoup de femmes. [. . .] Mais une Blanche qui accepte un Noir, cela prend automatiquement un aspect romantique. Il y a don et non pas viol. Aux colonies en effet, sans qu’il y ait mariage ou cohabitation entre

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Blancs et Noires, le nombre de métis est extraordinaire. C’est que les Blancs couchent avec leurs servantes noires. (37) [The white [man being] the master can allow himself the luxury of sleeping with many women. This is true in every country and especially in [the] colonies. But when a white woman accepts a black man there is automatically a romantic aspect. [There is an open exchange, a gift and not rape]. In the colonies, in fact, even though there is little marriage or actual sustained cohabitation between whites and blacks, the number of [mulattoes] is amazing. This is because white men often sleep with their black servants.] (46)

Fanon fails to stress the fact that this high number of mulattoes, as in the case of the béké Aubéry, is also due to the master in the postcolonial plantation era still having complete power over his slaves (37/47). Both male and female workers were his property like his crops and furniture. The woman’s body was part of the transaction that took place during the selling and buying of slaves. As a matter of fact, women were often purchased based on whether or not they could have children to continue the wheel of exploitation. In her text, Mayotte Capécia ou l’aliénation selon Frantz Fanon, Christiane Makward demonstrates that Fanon’s analysis is too simplistic. She argues that Fanon remains indifferent to various historical facts as well as the subjectivity of women in post-colonial and gender-structured societies. Makward states: “Fanon semble incapable d’analyser le Manichéisme racial qui soustend sa vision de jeune mulâtre en colère. Il vient de se découvrir Nègre, alors même qu’il est amoureux et qu’il bénéficie des services de tous ordres d’une jeune et jolie Lyonnaise qu’il épousera bientôt en secondes noces” (21). [Fanon seems incapable of analyzing the racial Manichaeism underlying his vision of a young angry mulatto. He has just discovered that he is a Negro while he is benefiting from all kinds of services from a young and beautiful (white) woman from Lyon whom he will soon take as his second wife.] This illustrates the hypocrisy of Fanon’s analysis regarding Capécia; he does not question his own motives for being with a white woman, but he accuses Capécia of doing so only because she is alienated, and has an inferiority complex. Following Makward’s argument, I maintain that if being with a person who is white is a sign of alienation, Capécia and Fanon are equally alienated. Fanon seems to think that the majority of French Caribbean women are constantly in search of light skin or white men to improve their status and sense of self worth: Toute Antillaise s’efforcera, dans ses flirts ou dans ses liaisons, de choisir le moins noir. Quelquefois elle est obligée, pour excuser un mauvais in-

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vestissement, de faire appel à des arguments comme le suivant: ‘X est noir, mais la misère est plus noire que lui. [. . .] Toutes ces femmes de couleurs échevelées, en quête du Blanc, attendent. Elles aussi peut-être s’apercevront un jour ‘que les Blancs n’épousent pas une femme noire’. Mais ce risque, elles ont accepté de le courir, ce qu’il leur faut, c’est de la blancheur à tout prix. (38–39) [Every woman in the Antilles, whether in a casual flirtation or in a serious affair, is determined to select the least black of the men. Sometimes, in order to justify a bad investment, she is compelled to resort to such arguments as this: “X is black, but misery is blacker.” (. . .) All these frantic women of color in quest of white men are waiting. Possibly, too, they will become aware, one day, that “white men do not marry black women.” But they have consented to run this risk; what they must have is whiteness at any price.] (47–49)

It must be noted that Fanon describes only one aspect of the problem. He analyzes the female version of the quest for whiteness from a male point of view. He does not dwell on the fact that this type of inferiority complex is prevalent in both men and women. There are also many black men who look for white women to “purify” them and help “whiten” the race. Fanon’s discussion of “L’homme de couleur et la blanche” [The Man of Color and the White Woman] focuses more on the historical representation of the black male. It is clear how gender plays a fundamental role in issues of color and the politics of identity. For protagonists such as Mayotte, wanting to be with a white partner is a means to improve and boost their identity in a society that equates being white to having success. Fanon also scrutinizes the protagonist of Nini, mulâtresse du Sénégal in much the same way he analyzed Mayotte in Capécia’s work. His analysis focuses on the mulatto woman’s rapport with the black and European man. Nini takes the risk that Fanon mentions, that of waiting for a white male, while knowing that the social order does not freely allow white males to have open relationships with black women, even mulattoes. However, Nini prefers to take this risk instead of being with a black male. She wants to be married, but above all, she desires to be married to a white man. When Mactar, a black man, declares his love for her, she is insulted beyond measure. For how can a nègre dare ask her, a “mulâtresse” (who thinks of herself as white), to consider having a relationship with him? In spite of this, the love-struck Mactar writes to her: L’amour que je vous offre est pur et robuste, il n’a point le caractère d’une tendresse intempestive faite pour vous bercer de mensonges et d’illusions. [. . .] Je

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voudrais vous voir heureuse, tout à fait heureuse dans un milieu qui cadre bien avec vos charmes que je crois savoir apprécier. [. . .] Je considère comme un honneur insigne et comme le bonheur le plus vaste de vous avoir dans ma maison et de me dévouer à vous corps et âme. (286) [The love that I offer you is pure and solid; it is not characterized by an excessive tenderness made to cradle you in lies and illusions. . . . I want to see you happy, completely happy in a milieu that matches your charms, which I think I know how to appreciate. . . . I would consider it a distinguished honor and as the greatest happiness to have you in my house and devote myself to your body and soul.]

Mactar’s declaration of love puts Nini on a pedestal. However, in Nini’s eyes, he has essentially committed a crime. To her, it is an insult to have a black man pledge his love to her, a “white” woman. She heaps upon Mactar all the insults that she can think of for having committed this faux pas. Neither Fanon in his analysis nor the author of the novel, Abdoulaye Sadji, questions Mactar’s motives. Perhaps Mactar just wants to be with Nini because she is a mulâtresse. In her society, being mulatto increases her worth as a woman and ultimately Mactar’s own worth as a darker-skinned man. Mactar is described in very positive terms in the novel: “Idéaliste et partisan convaincu d’une évolution à outrance, il croit encore en la sincérité des hommes, en leur loyauté, et il suppose volontiers qu’en tout, le mérite seul doit triompher” (281-282). [An idealist and firm excessive supporter of improvement, he believes in the sincerity of men, in their loyalty, and he willingly assumes that merit will prevail in everything.] It is possible that Mactar believes that he deserves Nini’s love; after all, he is an accountant at the company where Nini works as a typist. He might also consider Nini an object of exchange that he can purchase because of his economic status. However, the novel offers no real criticism of Mactar’s obsessive love for Nini who is light-skinned. While Fanon’s observations of different shades of women wanting to advance to the next level via lactification is accurate, the fact that he does not analyze the black male wanting the same color advancement is telling. Fanon describes the Négresse as a woman who desires to be white while the mulatto woman “non seulment veut blanchir, mais éviter de régresser. Qu’y a-t-il de plus illogique, en effet qu’ une mulâtresse qui épouse un noir? Car, il faut le comprendre une fois pour toutes, il s’agit de sauver la race” (44) [wants not only to turn white but also to avoid slipping back. What indeed could be more illogical than a mulatto woman’s acceptance of a Negro husband? For it must be understood once and for all that it is a question of saving the race] (54–55). By eliminating blackness in her life, Nini considers

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that she has taken a step forward in the social complex color hierarchy.9 By being with someone who is lighter than she, or at least not darker, she is helping society (and especially her community and family) and providing a better life for her “race.” It is not clear in this context if she is referring to the mulatto “race” or the black race in general. The mulâtresse and the négresse ultimately have one goal: to whiten themselves. However, to attain this goal, they must subject themselves to being treated as inferior by the white man. This is the case with Nini. The feeling of wanting to be whiter reveals deeper emotional and personal conflicts that these women suffer. Yet, race can mask other issues. Both Nini and Mayotte suffer from far more than a mere color complex; their inferiority complex is also rooted in gender relations. They live in a society where women are subaltern subjects and they want to use their color in this context to gain advantages. Men also use the status their gender accords them to obtain certain privileges. However, we can argue that these women have been co-opted by patriarchy, and support a certain male hierarchy left in place by colonization to “brainwash” them into believing in the correlation between a partner’s color and status. But when women like Nini and Mayotte try to overthrow the male hierarchical order by using their color, they are criticized and looked down upon. The issue of color is not the only theme in Je suis Martiniquaise and Nini, mulâtresse du Sénégal. There are a number of identity conflicts that operate on many levels, including one’s understanding of oneself which Fanon does not analyze. He is accurate in stressing that there is a preoccupation with the issue of color in both novels. Color is a reality, and, unfortunately, even today, over a half century after Peau noire, masques blancs, it is still problematic in Africa and in the Caribbean. However, Fanon tends to reduce Nini and Mayotte to mere racial prototypes of African and Caribbean identity without teasing out the diverse and often competing elements of the complex web of Caribbean societies and postcolonial societies. In Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles, Alibar and LembeyeBoy reveal the following malaise concerning skin color: “La femme est directement impliquée et mise en cause [sur] ‘l’éclaircissement de la race.’ Les parents se soucient peu des conquêtes de leur fils et des conséquences éventuelles. [. . .] C’est donc à [la femme] qu’on . . . demandera des comptes, lorsqu’à cause d’elle la famille se sera ‘enfoncée’” (50). [The woman is directly implicated and persecuted regarding the “lightening of the race.” Parents are not very worried about their son’s affairs and the eventual consequences. . . . It is thus the woman who will be asked to be accountable when the family is “darkened” because of her.] Another woman notes: “Tout le monde sait que tant qu’à faire une bêtise, mieux vaut la faire avec un Blanc!”

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(50). [Everyone knows that if you are going to do something foolish, it is best to do it with a white man.] This negrophobia has its roots in colonialism and the psychological scars that it left on colonized people. This same thinking led some to believe that the woman was the master’s accomplice as Édouard Glissant notes. For them, “La femme doit payer l’outrage et le prix de sa complicité avec le monde de l’Habitation.10 [. . .] C’est elle la coupable!” (52). [The woman must pay the price of her complicity with the plantation owners. She is the guilty one!] These writers seem to conveniently forget that the woman had no choice when the master made advances. Orlando Patterson, in his classic study The Sociology of Slavery, notes: The scarcity of white women and the absence of moral sanctions led to a ruthless exploitation of the female slave. Sometimes this exploitation was crude and direct, being against the will of the woman, who would be compelled under pain of corporal punishment to yield implicit obedience to the will of the master. (159)

Although Patterson should be credited for his astute demystification of the supposed complicity of female slaves, most critics do not adequately focus on women’s exploitation. This is because the history of slavery for centuries has been written by men and was consciously reinterpreted by men. The black slave woman betrayed her race for pleasure; in the postcolonial era, so the argument goes, her only aspiration is to relive those days and appropriate the power of the white male by a métissage that allows her to get whiter and whiter.11 In fact, many authors, particularly male authors, refuse to acknowledge the fact that the black woman satisfied the master’s sexual desires against her will then, and she now has to deal with accusations from black men. The female slave was doubly victimized. Richard Burton remarks in La famille coloniale: La Martinique et la mère patrie: 1789–1992: On ne saurait parler d’un quelconque statut privilégié accordé aux femmes esclaves à cause de leur capacité reproductive, tout, dans la structure sociale et économique de la plantation, tendant au contraire à maintenir les femmes esclaves dans une position de subordination vis-à-vis non seulement des hommes blancs, mais aussi des hommes esclaves. [. . .] En un mot, ni sous l’esclavage ni dans la société ‘libre’ d’après 1848, matrifocalité ne veut nullement dire matriarcat. (206–207) [One cannot speak of a supposedly privileged status given to slave women because of their reproductive capacity; everything in the social and economic structure of the plantation confirms that on the contrary, women slaves were

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kept in a subordinate position not only toward the white men but also toward male slaves. . . . In other words, neither during the slavery period nor in the “free” society after 1848 does matrifocality mean matriarchy.]

The black woman is often regarded as the great strong matriarch, the backbone of her community, and the person who is able to endure all plights. This image often belittles her suffering. The slave woman’s strength lay in her ability to endure in spite of slavery’s inhumane insults to her as an individual and a woman. Many light-skinned women in particular were viewed as supposedly more privileged. Because they were more sexually exploited by their masters, they often suffered the same or worse plights than their male counterparts. Both groups were the master’s property. Patterson analyzes the exploitation of female slaves and the scarcity of marriage by focusing on Jamaica. However, his study is applicable to other islands in the region: Slavery in Jamaica led to the breakdown of all forms of social sanctions relating to sexual behavior, and with this, to the disintegration of the institution of marriage both in its African and European forms. According to one missionary “the sanctions of marriage were almost unknown” and the institution was largely ridiculed by the slaves. “Every estate on the island—every Negro hut— was a common brothel; every female a prostitute; and every man a libertine.” This breakdown of sexual mores and the institution of marriage among the Negroes occurred all over the New World. (159)

While Patterson’s argument that slavery led to the breakdown of “social sanctions” and the “disintegration” of marriage in all its forms is very valid, his position on sexual mores is problematic. He seems to agree with the missionary whom he quotes. This mode of thinking is dangerous because it further supports the common colonial myths that a black woman cannot be raped because she is sexually promiscuous. As for the black male, because of his supposedly over-active libido, it was essential that he be kept away from the respectable and pure white woman whom he allegedly wants to rape.12 This type of prejudice is often a basis for the non-acceptance of mixed couples by some individuals. The different stereotypes function to reinforce the whitening complex. Some black males, sometimes, out of a desire to avenge their race and maintain these stereotypes, have sexual relations with white women. Some black females, to lighten their race, have sexual relations with lighter-skinned or white men. Due to some black males and females considering themselves inferior to the white man or woman, the process of lactification becomes natural for both of them because they use the sexual stereotypes to their advantage, thus facilitating the process. This is in no way

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suggesting that there is/was never or cannot be healthy, open, respectable relationships among blacks and whites. However, the challenges are there and must be acknowledged. The difficulty that mixed couples surpass goes beyond the simple color barrier. The intercultural aspect of marital relationships is also crucial, as illustrated by Myriam Warner-Vieyra’s Juletane (1982), in which she problematizes the issue of métissage very clearly and shows how it can be culturally construed; métissage also becomes a universal term that cannot be attributed to one region or one island. Critics are unable to classify the novel as Caribbean or African. Juletane is by a Guadeloupean (French Caribbean) author who has lived in Africa. The plot is set in Paris and Sénégal and the main character is a French Caribbean woman. Juletane’s diary is found by Hélène, who in some ways can be considered the narrator. I believe that the author deliberately interweaves the lives of the two characters as a narrative device to further strengthen the novel and convey Hélène’s own identity struggle. The act of reading the diary stimulates Hélène’s own self-discovery process because it enables her to view her own life mirrored in the words of another woman. Like Juletane, Hélène is a Caribbean woman who is preparing to marry a Senegalese man, Ousmane. The two women’s lives become intertwined, and, by the end of the novel, Hélène realizes certain truisms about her own life that make her question her motives for wanting to get married as well as those of her fiancé’s. She realizes the complexity of being part of a mixed couple with different social, cultural, national, and religious milieus and the intercultural conflicts that this entails. Although both Mamadou and Juletane are black (in terms of race/ethnicity and color), Juletane is referred to as a toubabesse (white woman) in Senegal because she comes from a different national and cultural background. Color is not the only denominator for racism; sometimes culture is as important, if not more so, than color. With Juletane, Warner-Vieyra is making a universal statement about the inability of people to get along not only because of skin colors but also of nationalities. Juletane’s diary recounts the events of her life from the time she met Mamadou in Paris to her subsequent move to Senegal and the different prejudices that she had to deal with in regard to culture, gender, and religion while living there. Although Juletane considers herself a black French woman, once in Senegal, she is culturally alienated and is viewed by the “other” Senegalese women of her husband’s family as simply “white.” She is betrayed by Mamadou in every possible way, and her alienation turns to madness, which leads to her eventual death. She describes her depression in the following terms:

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Le monde entier ressemblait à un désert sans ombre et je me débattais au fond d’un gouffre, seule, sans soutien. [. . .] Mamadou m’emmena consulter un psychiatre et l’on me fit un électro-encéphalogramme. Le practicien, un homme cette fois, ne comprenait apparemment rien à mon problème. [. . .] J’avais maigri au point que mes habits flottaient autour de moi, comme tout ce qui m’environnait. Je ne voyais plus les autres, seule comptait ma douleur. (72) [The whole world was like a barren, hostile desert and I was struggling in the depths of an abyss, alone, defenseless. . . . Mamadou took me to a psychiatrist and I had an electro-encephalogram. The doctor, a man this time, apparently understood nothing of my problem. . . . I had lost so much weight that my clothes were floating about me, like everything else around me. I no longer saw anyone else—the only thing that mattered was my pain.] (38)

No one tries to understand Juletane’s plight. She is brought to a new land with new customs and confronted with a language she does not understand and a husband who decides to take other wives to satisfy his needs. She is disappointed by the reality of her “return” to Africa, which is totally different from what she had imagined it to be: “L’arrivée sur cette terre africaine de mes pères, je l’avais de cent manières imaginée, voici qu’elle se transformait en un cauchemar. Je ne me demandais plus comment j’allais être accueilie par la famille de Mamadou: sûre d’être une intruse, déplacée, déclassée . . .” (35). [This homecoming to Africa, the land of my forefathers, I had imagined it in a hundred different ways, and it had become a nightmare. I no longer wondered how Mamadou’s family would receive me: I knew I would be an intruder, out of place, lost . . . ] (15). She is not welcomed, nor is she given the opportunity to become a part of his community. Her nervous breakdown and madness are due to her inability to cope with what is expected of the African spouse: complete submission in all forms. Once again, gender and culture intersect, and it is evident that cultural tradition is used to maintain the gender hierarchy. Although Juletane is a black woman like Mamadou’s other wives, there is no solidarity among them. She is simply a stranger who does not belong. Juletane offers a good example of the limits of race. While both Mamadou and Juletane are “black,” it is clear that they have little in common, once they leave Paris. Juletane is a Caribbean woman who has tried to come “home” to Africa and she succumbs to madness, because this foreign space can never be truly “home.” For Juletane, Mamadou was her hope of attaining a more fulfilled life, one that would be different from what she left behind in Paris. This hope blinded the reality of the cultural differences that exist between them. As a result, her madness leads to death. Unable to cope with the cultural and

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family expectations placed on women to accept polygyny, Juletane withdraws into her madness. As Valérie Orlando notes in Of Suffocated Hearts and Tortured Souls, Juletane’s madness is also due to her “French upbringing [and] . . . her inability to adapt to the foreign environment” (78). Returning home is not an option for Juletane because she does not have real ties (social, familial, cultural) to either Paris or Guadeloupe. So, she chooses (consciously or unconsciously) to waste away in Senegal. The plot’s focus on marriage between a Caribbean woman and a Senegalese man challenges issues of color, race, class, and culture. Métissage is not confined to race. Culture and society, which include religion and language, also play important roles. Like Juletane, Mireille, in Un chant écarlate (1981) by Mariama Bâ, is a foreigner married to a Senegalese. Being accepted by her in-laws is an impossible task. The novel is divided into three parts and occurs in Dakar and Paris. Mireille de la Vallée comes from a French bourgeois family; her father is a diplomat in Dakar. Although Mireille grew up in Senegal and was exposed to Senegalese culture throughout her school years, she is still made to feel that she can never belong there. One of Mireille’s main failures as a wife, as perceived by the African community, is her inability to yield to Yaye Khadi, her mother-inlaw and in many ways her main rival. In the Senegalese community, the mother-in-law has a great deal of influence on the daughter-in-law’s personal and family life. Mireille’s mother-in-law considers it her right to control Mireille’s household and family. When Mireille refuses to bend to her rules, her life becomes unbearable. Ousmane is convinced by his mother to take a second wife. Yaye Khadi is threatened by Mireille, because, unlike most Senegalese women, Mireille has a job and does not depend on Ousmane financially. Financial liberty means personal emancipation, something that most Senegalese women of Yaye Khadi’s class do not enjoy. Mireille considers it normal to have a role in the financial decisions of the household and therefore does not respect the traditional or cultural conventions. According to the Koran, men have authority over women by virtue of the fact that they take care of the women financially. This is not the case with Mireille, who has different views concerning her financial independence. Her ideas concerning class, culture, and socio-economic issues are a result of her western upbringing and also her deep existentialist philosophical studies. She is from the generation of May 68 who believe “it is forbidden to forbid.” Mireille considers it normal to have a voice in all affairs of her family. In Senegal, traditions mandate that this is not the case, leaving women voiceless.

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In La femme dans l’inconscient musulman, Fatna Aït Sabbah acknowledges the role of silence for a Muslim woman: “Le silence et l’immobilité seraientils les seuls critères dans le choix d’une épouse et en général comme les qualités premières chez la femme musulmane?” (9). [Are silence and immobility the only criteria in the choice of a spouse and in general the principal qualities in a Muslim woman?] Though she converts to Islam, Mireille refuses to conform to this ideology of silence. Having been brought up in a home where her mother was silent and merely obeyed her father, Mireille never questions the fact that women make sacrifices. However, she has a job and believes that women should have a voice in the family and in society. She converts to Islam, as required by Ousmane, and leaves Paris and her familiar surroundings to return to Senegal with him. Although Mireille converts to Islam, it is not clear to what extent she understands what this conversion entails. She seems to be blinded by love and her desire to please Ousmane. She chooses him over family and country, but he is not ready to make any sacrifices for her. Ousmane reflects: “D’un côté, mon cœur épris d’une Blanche [. . .] de l’autre, ‘ma société’. [. . .] Osera-t-il? Choisir sa femme en dehors de la communauté [c’] était un acte de haute trahison et on lui avait enseigné: ‘Dieu punit les traîtres’” (56, 58). [On the one hand, my heart draws me to a white girl . . . on the other, to my own people. . . . Would he dare? To choose a wife outside the community was an act of treason, and he had been taught, “God punishes traitors”] (36–37). For Ousmane, as the man, it is normal for Mireille to follow him and choose him over everyone and everything else, particularly her culture and customs. In return, Ousmane refuses to make any sacrifice for the couple. He hides behind his culture and religion to do what pleases him and not what is necessarily best for him and Mireille. While Ousmane manipulates Mireille, he, like Mamadou in Juletane, is manipulated by his mother. This manipulation offers an interesting twist to the power of patriarchy. It is not clear whether these men are really concerned about their mothers’ thoughts and think that not obeying them is a sign of disrespect, or if they are simply using their mothers to collect new wives. Because Mireille defies the traditional rules and counters gender barriers, she can never be accepted in Ousmane’s society. Like Juletane, she remains a stranger. Just as Juletane became mad, she too was driven to madness. Unable to cope with the stress from the lack of support from Ousmane, she eventually murders her son who is described by Yaye Khadi (the grandmother) as a “Gnouloule, Khessoule,” someone who is neither black nor white. This term adequately reflects the polyvalent nature of métissage

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because it conveys the idea that, although the child is a combination of two races, he is not considered a complete version of either one. The struggle between interracial and intercultural couples is a common theme in Francophone literature. In Le défi (1984), a collection of short stories by Michèle Assamoua, this theme is the main focus. The stories expose the everyday problems and prejudices that mixed couples, white French women and African men living in France and Africa, must tackle. In most cases, after being unable to cope with the daily racism to which they are subjected in France from their families and communities, the couples return to Africa in hope of a better life. However, they do not often find it. Sometimes, these couples feel that they have to create their own space because they do not completely belong to either community. In Le défi, Christine, a French woman, and Kouamé, an Ivorian man, live together in Paris. After the neighbors tell her parents that she is a black man’s mistress, she is forced to confront them. Her father’s reaction is one of outrage: “Tu n’es qu’une putain, tu t’es déshonorée à jamais et ta famille avec toi. [. . .] Qui voudra t’épouser désormais et se contenter des restes d’un nègre?” (12). [You are nothing but a whore; you have forever dishonored yourself and your family. Who will want to marry you now and be satisfied with a nigger’s leftovers?] When Christine tells her parents that she wants to marry him, this further outrages her father, who reminds her of how “those people” are. According to the father, all those Africans are the same and Kouamé is no different: He is probably married with children back in Africa. That is the end of the discussion between father and daughter. When Christine decides not to renounce her relationship with Kouamé, she feels that she has no choice but to abandon all ties with her family and her community. For her parents, who had hoped that she would marry a white doctor, this is a big disappointment. As the young couple start their lives together by sharing an apartment, they also begin to face the prejudices that many mixed couples must stand up to. They call about apartments and go to sign contracts, but once the landlords see Kouamé, the apartment suddenly becomes unavailable. Some landlords were bolder and would say that they did not want to rent to “[des] gens de couleurs” [people of color] (17). However, in time, the couple manages to find an apartment. Like all couples, they have to get used to one another’s habits and customs. For Christine, it is hard to understand and accept that Kouamé’s friends constantly invite themselves to lunch or dinner. Although they have been in France for years and know about the financial difficulty of surviving in Paris, his friends are not sensitive to this. Nevertheless, the couple braves these issues and still remains together.

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After about a year, Christine and Kouamé marry and have a son. The new grandchild serves as a means of reconciliation between Christine and her parents. Even Christine’s father, who had told his wife when their daughter left their house, “Tu nous vois avec des Nègres en guise de petits enfants!” (14) [Can you see us with Negroes instead of grandchildren?], cannot resist his new grandchild. However, Christine still faces prejudice in her job because she is married to a black man, and Kouamé has to take detours when he gets off work to avoid being seen and then is insulted because his child is mixed-race. Kouamé is also constantly stopped by police who ask for his identity papers. Once he is even accompanied home by the police because he fails to produce the required documents. After so many incidents of racial prejudice and profiling, the couple decides to move to Côte d’Ivoire in hope of a better life. However, while there, the couple finds that they still face many of the same problems. In her job as a hospital nurse, Christine has to deal with the hostility of her colleagues, once they learn that she is married to a black man. Kouamé, for his part, has to deal with his family who feels his life is easy, that he allows his white wife to control him and no longer takes care of his family. Three years later and after having two more children, the couple realizes that life in the Ivory Coast is not what they thought it would be. They can barely make ends meet with their two jobs and Kouamé is unable to find a better job. After he meets an Ivorian friend who offers him the opportunity of starting a company in Tours, they return to France. Their Senegalese life was by no means filled with less prejudice. Kouamé’s family and friends accuse him of “being white” and of rejecting his race because he married a white woman. At the hospital where she works, Christine is accused of taking the place of an Ivorian woman. Many white people in Senegal act condescendingly toward both of them and suggest that Christine has also betrayed her race. One of her colleagues at work “laissa paraître un léger mépris lorsqu’elle sut que Christine était l’épouse d’un Noir” [showed a slight contempt when she learned that Christine was the spouse of a black man] (31–32). At the market place, she is harassed by two hostile Ivorian women trying to intimidate her; one of them shouts to her friend so that Christine can hear her; “Tu as vu la Blanche avec son enfant métis? Les Blanches qui ont épousé nos frères n’ont rien vu encore. . . . L’an dernier, il y en a une qui a divorcé à cause de moi” (30). [Did you see the white woman with her mixed child? The white women who married our brothers have not seen anything yet. . . . Last year, one of them divorced because of me.” The woman who said that to her even tried to physically attack Christine. Christine and Kouamé’s life together reveals a certain mentality that is generated

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through the collective, one that will not accept the foreign or the different. It is assumed that, as opposed to white society, the Ivorian nation will be more tolerant and willingly accept the mixed couple. This story aptly illustrates that this is not always the case. As the title of the collection Le défi (The Challenge) suggests, interracial couples are sometimes faced with greater challenges than those confronted by non-mixed couples. They must deal with the prejudice or racism of their own community and their different cultural, religious, or social upbringings in addition to the typical conflicts with which mono-racial/cultural couples deal on a daily basis. Sometimes, the intercultural experience of marriage occurs through exile. Like Le défi, Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak! is a collection of short stories that focus on issues of multicultural identity and exile as well as their influence on people’s behavior. In one of the stories, “Caroline’s Wedding,” Danticat exposes the complexity of intercultural marriage. Caroline, a Haitian-American born in the United States to Haitian parents, is engaged to a Bahamian, Eric. Although her mother has been living in the United States for over two decades, she is still very traditional and would have preferred for Caroline to have found a nice Haitian man. Grace, Caroline’s sister, tries to remedy the situation; she tells her mother: “[Caroline] has the right to choose whom she wants to marry. That’s none of our business” (161). The mother replies, “I am afraid she will never find a nice man to marry her. [. . .] She will never find someone Haitian. [. . .] No one in our family has ever married outside” (161). Grace answers: “Caroline is already marrying a nice man. [. . .] It’s not the end of creation that she’s not marrying someone Haitian” (161). The mother feels betrayed by Caroline and reminisces about how her late husband had asked for her hand in marriage: Do you know how your father came to have me as his wife? His father wrote a letter to my father and came to my house on a Sunday afternoon and brought the letter in a pink and green handkerchief. Pink because it is the color of romance and green for hope that it might work. Your grandfather on your papa’s side had the handkerchief sewn especially in these two colors to wrap my proposal letter in. He brought this letter to my house and handed it to my father. My father didn’t even read the letter himself. He called in a neighbor and asked the neighbor to read it out loud. (162)

For the mother, tradition is important. Her parents simply asked if she wanted to marry the man. She pretended she liked him just a little, but her parents could tell that she was in love. Grace asks her what she would have

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done if her parents had refused, and her mother replies that she would have married him anyway. In this sense, she resembles her daughter, even though she is very traditional. However, Caroline is part of a different generation and a different culture. For her, marriage is first and foremost a personal affair and not one that should implicate the family. Caroline decides to have a small, civil ceremony. This is another disappointment for her mother, who is strongly rooted in Haitian traditions and would have preferred a grandiose wedding to which she could invite her friends and other family members. Even though she has reservations about her daughter’s marriage, a wedding is, all the same, a perfect opportunity to show off and perform. Caroline, who is in many ways more American than Haitian, does not want to go through the cultural ordeal. Her mother would have liked for “Eric to officially come and ask her permission to marry her daughter. She wanted him to bring his family to [the] house and have his father ask her blessing. She wanted Eric to kiss up to her, escort her around, buy her gifts, and shower her with compliments. [She] wanted a full-blown church wedding. She wanted Eric to be Haitian” (169). Although Eric did invite the mother to his house before the wedding, he “failed miserably at the game of wooing Haitian Mother-in-Law” (185). There are some tacit Haitian rules that Eric was supposed to follow, but he does not know them, and Caroline is either too preoccupied or too American to teach him. In the end, having no choice, the mother accepts the fact that her daughter is marrying a “foreigner.” She realizes that she might have grandchildren who may never speak Haitian Creole and who may not like to eat the traditional Haitian bone soup. By her marriage to Eric, a nonHaitian, Caroline enters further into a milieu of multiculturalism that she embraces wholeheartedly. This is a reality for many immigrants and exiles. Home and traditions within the bonds of marriage are necessarily redefined by this new reality that implies a culturally different life. The challenges that interracial and intercultural couples face do not necessarily keep them from exploring the wide variety of enriching experiences these relations might bring to their lives. However, as is the case with Juletane and Mireille, sometimes the marriage fails because of the strain of trying to overcome racial and cultural differences as well as family and community prejudices. Métissage creates new identities; however, it also destabilizes old identities and blurs cultural boundaries that were once clear by forcing people to examine contradictory and incoherent elements of selfhood. In that regard, marriage functions as a discursive space within which to question self-identity.

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Marriage is interesting to consider in this context because it provides conditions for destabilizing fixed structures of identities and provoking revolt. This revolt is ambiguous because it can particularly alienate women when they have to leave their familiar surroundings to follow the ways of their partner. As a result of this new setting, some women are forced to think about how and where they fit in their society and community as well as how they view themselves as individuals. The works in this chapter help us imagine how complex the notion of identity politics is within the institution of marriage. Some of the characters have to constantly negotiate their married identities within their families, communities, and themselves. Both marriage and métissage often involve identity formation or re-formation. While métissage consists of navigating between two or more cultures, races, or traditions, marriage ideally should consist of two people sharing their beliefs and mutually supporting each other.

Notes 1. Emphasis mine. 2. I use the term métissage to refer to the fusion of different races, nationalities, religions, and or cultures. I am not referring strictly to a black and white relationship. 3. Mark 10:6–9 4. Irène D’Almeida, Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), 56. 5. Amour is part of Marie Chauvet’s trilogy: Amour, colère, et folie (Paris: Gallimard, 1968). 6. “Le soleil l’a brûlée “ refers to a biblical verse in The Song of Songs or The Song of Solomon: “Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath darkened me” (1: 6–7). It is also the title of a novel by Calixte Beyala, C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée (Paris: Stock, 1987). 7. Since both the writer and the narrator are named Mayotte, to avoid confusion I will refer to the writer as Capécia and to the narrator as Mayotte. 8. Throughout this chapter I will be using a translation of Frantz Fanon’s Peau noire, masques blancs by Charles Lam Markmann, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1965). 9. This color complex and its “logic” are described in Simone and André SchwarzBart’s Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes (Paris: Seuil, 1967) through this proverb: “Le Blanc méprise l’Octavon, qui méprise le Quarteron, qui méprise le Mulâtre, qui méprise le Câpre, qui méprise le Zambo, qui méprise le Nègre, qui méprise sa Négresse, qui méprise le Z’indien, qui méprise sa Z’indienne, qui méprise son chien (127). [The white despised the Octoroon, who despised the Quarteroon, who despised the Mulatto, who despised the Câpre, who despised the Zambo, who despised

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the Negro, who despised his Négresse, who despised the Indian, who despised his Squaw, who despised her dog.” 10. Edouard Glissant, Le quatrième siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1964) describes Louise as a “privileged” slave. However, it can be argued that Louise uses her “privileges” to help Longoué, another slave, escape from the plantation. 11. France Alibar and Pierrette Lembeye-Boy, Le couteau seul . . . Sé Kouto sèl . . .: La condition feminine aux Antilles (Paris: Editions Caribéennes, 1981), 52. 12. Dany Laferrière, Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer (Québec: VLB Editeur, 1985) explores some of these myths and stereotypes concerning black male sexuality. Fanon in Peau noire, masques blancs goes into a detailed analysis of the hypersexual black male. The film Vers le sud (Heading South) 2005 by Laurent Cantet, based on three short stories from the collection of novellas, La chair du maître by Dany Laferrière (Paris: Serpent à Plumes, 2000), set in Haiti in the 1970s, depicts the myth of the black male who is able to satisfy all the sexual fantasies of the white woman.

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Women, Marriage, and National Identity

If one were to believe some political theorists, a nation above all is a dynasty, representing an earlier conquest . . . affected by a dynasty, by its wars, its marriages, and its treaties. . . The majority of modern nations were made by a family of feudal origin, which had contracted a marriage with the soil and which was in some sense a nucleus of centralization. —Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation?” La structure familiale et la structure nationale entretiennent des rapports étroits. . . . Dans tous les pays dits civilisés ou civilisateurs, la famille est un morceau de nation. . . . Il n’y a pas de disproportion entre la vie familiale et la vie nationale. [There are close connections between the structure of the family and the structure of the nation. . . . In every country characterized as civilized or civilizing, the family is a miniature of the nation. . . . There is no disproportion between the life of the family and the life of the nation.] —Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs La nation appartient à tous, pas seulement aux hommes. [The nation belongs to everyone, not only to men.] —Anne-Laure Folly, Femmes aux yeux ouverts

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For some individuals, the act of marriage implies the creation of a family that may or may not include children. Marriage is what creates the family which, in turn, is metaphorically seen as the foundation of the nation. Marriage, as the novels and films in this chapter demonstrate, plays an important role in the construction of national identity in the regions analyzed. For some women, this national identity may be problematic, because their roles in the building of the nation are restricted by their marginality in terms of limited access to education and lack of economic independence. In order for women to come out of the margins, they must assert themselves in society as national, historical subjects. In this chapter, when nation building is discussed, we must refer to the original meaning of the term, that is, as connected to the efforts of newly independent nations like Senegal and Cameroon to reshape and reconstruct their countries after independence from France. In the 1960s, nation building meant, first and foremost, creating economic, social, and political stability. In Making Subject(s): Literature and the Emergence of National Identity, Allen Carey-Webb discusses the intimate relationship that exists between the construction of literature and national identities, as well as literary institutions (7). Literature is used in educational systems to represent national culture and form national subjects. In this way, it becomes the expression of national identity. Like Carey-Webb, Doris Sommer explores how literature in Latin America provides a space to examine issues regarding race relations and economic policy, among other matters. She argues that politics are inseparable from fiction in the history of nation-building.1 Literature, in other words, can be used—consciously or unconsciously—to illustrate the creation of a nation, thus becoming a primary mode for stabilizing national identity because it is a reflection of cultural identity. In his introduction to Nation and Narration, Homi Bhabha highlights the complexity of the modern, postcolonial nation and proposes the “construction of nationness as a form of social and textual affiliation” (292). An important question about nation arises: If one imagines oneself as being part of the nation, does that mean one is actually a part of that nation? In other words, is a woman whose husband or mate plays an important role in the nation considered a part of that nation through her alliance to him? For women, it is not enough to be part of the nation through their alliances with their husbands, since this does not necessarily mean equal participation. Marriage functions as an institution that secures the nation. I acknowledge that not all women are married, want to be married, or plan to marry, and marriage in no way implies contribution to the nation; the heterosexual

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paradigm of marriage and children itself is a selective model of what the nation means. To fully understand the structuring of the nation, we must take into account the moving forces behind the gendering of the nation. The idea of gender is used to control the body, thus sexuality and reproduction. In Domestic Allegories of Political Desire, Claudia Tate notes: Gender . . . is a significant social construction because it plays such an important role in determining how a population experiences and also represents dominant cultural values and institutions. Marriage is a good site to interrogate gender because as a civil institution, a religious sacrament, and an intimate personal relationship, it is the intersection of complex gendered social exchanges. (71)

These exchanges are interrelated with and regulated by institutions to find a balance between traditional and modern values. With globalization and increased economic migration, the nation undergoes a constant process of rebuilding and reshaping. On the one hand, marriage as it relates to the building of the nation encourages its stability; on the other hand, it destabilizes the nation because it creates new categories of ethnicity through métissage. This chapter demonstrates how fiction novels represent the roles of women in marriage. Also discussed is the correlation between the way she is treated in the home and how she is represented at the national level by social constructs. Fictional texts are important in this analysis because they serve to reify and reinforce marriage structures that nations can use as models. This will be seen through literary texts and films from Africa and the Caribbean. For Africa, Femmes aux yeux ouverts by Anne-Laure Folly; Trois prétendants, un mari by Guillaume Oyôno Mbia; Xala by Sembène Ousmane; and Tableau ferraille by Moussa Sène Absa serve as interesting models in which to promote my hypotheses. From the Caribbean, Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle by Simone Schwarz-Bart and Tribunal femmes bafouées by Tony Delsham, offer fruitful examples in which to explore this idea. Women have characteristically been praised as the guardians of national culture and have been told that this is a great privilege for them. However, when it comes to making significant changes, they are too often excluded from the nation-building process. Women are not fully part of the nation because the formation of the nation is artificial,2 and their contribution to history has been systematically downplayed or erased. In terms of the single nation-state, Francophone nations such as Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Mali, Niger, and Gabon, among others, are very young, most less than fifty years old. While

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in the last few years some important governmental roles have been created for women,3 there is still much work to be done. Since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women has focused on the importance of women in taking part in decision-making in all aspects of their countries, from education to politics to religion. Out of 191 governments internationally, there are only eleven women heads of state, just over 5 percent. In her opening address to the fiftieth session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, UN Deputy Secretary General Louise Fréchette4 stressed that ten years after Beijing there is still a lot of work to be done in the promotion of women, including in the United Nations itself. Likewise, in celebration of International Women’s Day on March 9, 2006, the African Center for Gender and Development held a symposium on Women and Decision Making, and the Ethiopian minister for women’s affairs5 emphasized to the audience that only the policy of equal rights for women and men will affect economic productivity, promote health, and reduce infant mortality rates, among other issues. The main recommendations to emerge from the symposium include creating agencies that will enable women to become financially independent; insuring that all women, with or without formal education, have the same human rights as everyone else; and finding ways in which African women will have power beyond the authority they have at the family and community levels. In other words, women need to participate in decision-making processes at the local and national levels. Union leader Marie Josée Lokongo Bosiko, first vice-president of the National Union of Congolese Workers since December 2004 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, states that “husbands, traditions, religions and sects” are the primary obstacles keeping Congolese women from participating in positions of power.6 In a similar way, a two-day conference in Accra, Ghana, in November 2005, entitled “Enhancing Women’s Political Participation in West Africa” organized by International IDEA, Abantu for Democracy and Center for Governance and Democracy, concluded that cultural boundaries was the largest hindrance preventing women from participating in politics in West Africa. However, much remains to be done to achieve equity across Africa. Too many women are still not part of the African nations’ political processes because they do not have economic and political power. Despite having actively fought in the nationalist movements that led to independence, they were conspicuously absent from key positions of authority and governance in the new countries and did not, for the most part, have

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any political power to speak of. For a long time, women were spoken for and about by men, which means that they did not have the opportunity to represent themselves in the government and their roles in the construction of the nation were downplayed.7 Many women are only part of the nation through their marital status, thus through their husbands. In his documentary To Be a Woman in Burkina Faso (1992), Maurice Kaboré captures the harsh life of Burkina women, particularly in the agricultural region. For many women, there is a practical side to polygyny because it provides an extra hand with all the tasks they are expected to do—being a wife and mother, working in the field, cooking and keeping the house. Josephine Ouédraogo, a government official in charge of Family Development and the Improvement of Women’s Lives in Burkina Faso, stresses how women are marginalized when the government is discussing issues of growth and development. For her, development will take place only when every woman has access to education, learns a trade, and has a salary, whether she works in the field, in or outside the home in an urban setting. Haiti also should be cited, where women contribute up to 70 percent of the gross national product to the national economy by sustaining the socalled “informal” sector. Martinican and Guadeloupean women have a different economic situation than Haitian women because the two islands are administratively French. However, historically they share some commonalities with Haiti regarding women’s rights and participation as citizens. In Martinique and Guadeloupe, when slaves were emancipated in 1848, women were given the legal status of minors. Although they were free from slavery, they were now under the tutelage of men. Also, in Haiti, the 1805 Constitution (drafted a year after Haitian independence) gave the status of citizens to the “sons, fathers and husbands,” excluding women. Even the Haitian national anthem perpetuates this sexism in some of the verses: “Pour le pays et pour nos pères. . . . Formons des fils, formons des fils. . . . Libres, forts et prospères.” [For our country and for our forefathers. . . . Let us train our sons, let us train our sons. . . . To be free, strong and prosperous.] Even though the women are for the most part the ones who will be taking care of those “sons,” they are not considered important; daughters are forgotten. From 1804 until 1950, women could not vote in Haiti. Only in 1957 were women allowed to be candidates in selected (lower) elections. The 1987 constitution (Article 17) stipulates that all Haitians, eighteen years old, regardless of sex or marital status, may exercise political and civil rights. The notion of male superiority is prevalent in political affairs (currently there are only four women in the Haitian Parliament). Stereotypes and gender roles stem from social constructs starting at the family level where male children

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are privileged, have more access to education, and many men see women as their servants. There has been only one female Haitian president, Ertha-Pascal Trouillot (March 10, 1990–February 7, 1991). Haiti’s major institutions (judicial, legal, economic, political) are all ruled by and for men. The lack of access to education for Haitian women prevents them from fully taking part in the affairs of the state.8 Women make up 52 percent of the population; 61.6 percent live in rural areas. They have limited literacy rates, and there is no social security system in place for them. The number of women who have been raped and who have experienced some sort of violence against them during the past twenty years due to the constant political turmoil in the country, remains unknown. The state neither protects their rights nor provides them with the tools to be independent. In discussing Haitian women’s relationship to the nation, I adhere to what Irène D’Almeida calls “practical African feminism” (18), that is, allowing women to have agency (social, political, educational, economic, psychological, emotional, financial) so that they can become autonomous. Only when they are truly autonomous at all these levels can they start fighting against exploitation and oppression. Only then will they be able to truly choose whether they want to be in a partnership with men through marriage or plaçage or not be in a sexual relationship with men at all. If a woman is not independent, then she is only a part of the nation in that she is part of a system of production that regulates her sexuality and body for social and political ends. In this context, marriage becomes a form of exchange and transaction. Implicated in these exchanges, women become, by association, a part of the nation. Some African and Caribbean men often refer to women as the mothers of their children; the traditional image of the woman as mother Africa is thus used to maintain her representation as a national mother figure. Many words acknowledge the importance of women’s roles socially. For example, when words such as “mother figure,” “motherland,” “mother country,” and “mother tongue” are constantly used by men and women, there is a tendency to consider the woman simply as being functional as a mother and not politically, thus, having no political status within the nation. The African and Caribbean nation is largely controlled by men, as texts such as Xala and Tribunal femmes bafouées demonstrate. Unfortunately, men such as El Hadji in Xala are often incapable of ruling the nation equitably. In both Africa and the Caribbean, women are often the backbone of the informal economy. While they assume the immense responsibility of maintaining the marketplace, they scarcely participate in deciding upon the economic fate of the nation.

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In Femmes aux yeux ouverts (1994), Anne Laure-Folly depicts women’s willingness to participate actively in the building of the nation. This documentary film presents women from all spheres of life who are mobilizing at the grassroots level to empower themselves socially and politically. We see women contributing to their communities through their activism in issues related to health care, education, and political involvement, among other things. The film illustrates how the social structure of the communities calls upon women to participate without affording them the decision-making power of men. Of course, not all men hold this power equally, but men in general are more able to exercise their power than women. The film establishes this by referring to a poem written by a woman from Burkina Faso that reflects the expectation that women turn a blind eye to their exploitation: “Une femme comme il faut doit tenir toute instruction de son mari. Une femme comme il faut ne doit pas savoir lire. Une femme comme il faut ne doit pas avoir les yeux ouverts.” [A respectable woman should learn from her husband. She should (not learn to) read. She should not have her eyes open.] When a woman is in the shadow of her husband, she is not given an opportunity to help herself, her community, and her nation. Because she is taught to see only through her husband’s eyes, her perspective is considered secondary or dismissed. As a result, the nation loses valuable contributions. The film reveals that women do not play adequate political, social, and economic roles in Francophone countries like Burkina Faso, Benin, Senegal, Mali, and Togo. According to the film, women statistically represent a majority of the population. They participate in some aspects of their community (mostly socially). They work in the fields and in the home as wives, mothers, and educators but more often than not they are absent from the political realm. Their bodies are controlled by what is viewed as the norm in society; for many that norm is excision. As discussed in chapter 2, excision is one of the ways in which some communities choose to control women’s bodies and sexuality, believing that one of the main functions of women’s bodies is to reproduce for the nation. Although excision in some parts of Francophone Africa was practiced before the advent of national consciousness, it has taken on an important role in the development of a woman’s personal and national identity. Anne-Laure Folly acknowledges that for many women in the areas of Francophone Africa she focused on, like in other parts of the world, marriage is a transaction encouraged for social, political, and economic reasons. Sometimes, young girls from the age of fourteen are promised in marriage to older men, sometimes before they are even born. If the girls reject these customs, they are ac-

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cused of betrayal and are considered outcasts or even enemies of the community and the nation. Sometimes, a woman’s refusal to marry the chosen husband means a forced migration to another village or country. A wife is considered a minor and must remain under the tutelage of a male; first, the father or brother, then the husband. In some instance, if a husband dies, his brother automatically inherits the wife and her assets. If she refuses to marry him, she may have to beg to feed her family. The social structure does not provide ways for the widow and her children to survive. As a result, many of these children become beggars and delinquents, thus joining a vicious cycle of destitution. The nation is unable to produce citizens who can contribute economically because these children are not given an opportunity. They have no economic power. Because economic power is linked to political and social power, a woman lacking economic power cannot contribute to the nation and thus has no political or social power. The economic power at work in marriage in Africa is one of the main themes of the play Trois prétendants, un mari, written in the late 1950s but first published in 1964 by Cameroonian Guillaume Oyônô Mbia. Cameroon, located in mid-central Africa, obtained its independence from France in 1960. The genre of this work is important. Theater, often considered the mirror of human experience, is more accessible than the novel for most people in Africa. The play was a huge success when it was performed.9 Mbia broke with traditional historical drama that honors and glorifies the African past by making fun of a traditional custom like the dowry or bride-price. While the notion of bride-price is not inherent to African culture alone, the playwright uses it as a motif to bring to light other important issues in post-independence Cameroon. In Trois prétendants, un mari, the men in the village of Mvoutessi come together as required by tradition to decide an important issue: the marriage of Juliette. The meeting to decide upon Juliette’s husband is a public gathering because the village will decide who is the best suitor for her. But Juliette disrupts the established social order by speaking up on her own behalf and refusing to marry the chosen suitor. This five-act play raises the issue of choice and identity, both in its specific milieu, Juliette wanting to choose her own boyfriend who is from a different area than she, and the specific historical moment, Cameroon’s recent independence and the shifts in values that are taking place. As a woman, Juliette traditionally should not have an opinion regarding her future husband. She is to be given in marriage to the highest bidder, regardless of her wishes. Her obligation is toward her family, her community, and her nation. For Juliette’s family, what is best for the community should be what is best for Juliette Thus, she helps generate the

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existence of the nation through subjugating her individual self to the will of the community. Juliette’s body is a commodity that is available to the highest bidder. The dowry that was a traditional symbol has now become a symbol of capitalism and is the basis of the exchange. It is an agricultural, subsistence economy that is being transformed through nascent nationalism into a capitalist mode of production. Juliette’s three suitors are trying to use their economic power to buy her love. Juliette’s refusal is a way of reclaiming her body and her self, thus disrupting the established social order and indirectly the community and the nation. She wants to be free to decide with whom she will share her body: “Je suis donc à vendre? Pourquoi faut-il que vous essayiez de me donner au plus offrant? Est-ce qu’on ne peut pas me consulter pour un marriage qui me concerne? (28). [Am I for sale? Why must you try to give me to the highest bidder? Can’t they confer with me regarding a marriage that concerns me?] To this, Abessolo, Juliette’s grandfather, replies: “Depuis quand estce que les femmes parlent à Mvoutessi? . . . Ça ne te suffit pas que ta famille ait pris une décision si sage en ta faveur? (29). [Since when do women in Mvoutessi speak? Isn’t it good enough for you that your family has made such a wise decision on your behalf?] For Juliette, marriage is a personal affair, and she must be involved in all the steps. For her grandfather and the other members of the family, marriage is a family affair, and the family knows what is best. Juliette’s rebellion against the patriarchal structure is a refusal to be part of the exchange process. There is paternal obligation for her to marry the man her family chooses. Marriage is not associated with romantic love, it is a family affair and an economic exchange that benefits society as a whole. Juliette as a person and the goods for which she will be exchanged—that is the goods that the dowry money will buy—have the same value. This marriage prescription is maintained by Juliette’s father. However, she subverts the exchange process and uses her wits to eventually trick her family and marry the suitor she loves. From the time they meet Juliette’s first suitor, each member of the family is already thinking about how they will materially benefit from her marriage. The family views the government worker as the best choice for Juliette because he is the one who will bring them the most money, power, and prestige. Every family member is already thinking how s/he will advance in one way or another from this arrangement. Juliette realizes this fact and states: “Vous compt[ez] . . . sur moi pour vous enrichir? Est-ce que je suis une boutique, ou bien un fonds quelconque? . . . Tu veux donc que j’accepte de me laisser vendre comme une chèvre? Mais je suis un être humain! J’ai de la

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valeur” (29, 33). [Are you] counting on me to get rich? Am I a grocery store or some kind of warehouse? So you want me to consent to being sold like a goat? But I am a human being! I have value.] In response to this, Matalina, Juliette’s cousin, stresses how Juliette already has two suitors who want to pay a dowry for her because she is indeed valuable. When Juliette attempts to protest against her impending marriage, her family labels her a selfish person who does not love them. They accuse her of not thinking of her brother who will need to marry later on and will have to use Juliette’s dowry to pay for his own bride. In their view, they made a big sacrifice in sending Juliette to school so she could be more marketable and increase her worth in the marriage transaction. However, school has given Juliette a different way of thinking, and she believes that marriage must be based on a love shared by two individuals. This play can be read as a social critique against the exchange of women. Juliette’s refusal to go to market and be a commodity directly affects the nation. In the context of emergent nationalism and capitalism, this play is an analysis of the social role of women and particularly their exchange value as well as the commercial value of marriage. In the context of emergent nationalism, women are forced to think of the state and perpetuate patriarchy while they remain at the margin. Thus, nationalism is not always helpful for women because it is construed mainly in terms of masculine power. As Evelyn Accad illustrates in Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East (1990), nationalism and feminism do not merge well. The play is also an illustration of the conflicts between generations, struggle for national and personal independence. Like Cameroon, Senegal obtained its independence in 1960; since that time it has maintained very close ties to France. Similar to Trois prétendants, un mari, Ousmane Sembène’s Xala was written in the midst of emergent nationalism, in 1973, about a decade after independence. The film version was first screened in 1975. In Xala, “Les Hommes d’Affaires” [The Businessmen] as they call themselves, of the Senegalese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, meet to celebrate the momentous event of a Senegalese man appointed to the presidency of the Chamber for the first time in history. For ten years, they struggled to take charge of the country’s economy. Meanwhile each person had been thinking only of his own self-interest and how this news would benefit his bank account and his status. The celebration ends with an invitation to El Hadji’s wedding celebration. For El Hadji, the wedding is the best way to solidify his monetary victory: Acquiring a third wife symbolically represents his economic privilege, and young virgins are the most valuable women. Her family will make sure that he pays a very high price for her youth and vir-

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ginity. The new president of the Chamber of Commerce eloquently shares his joy with his colleagues in his speech: Notre gouvernement, en me désignant à ce poste de haute responsabilité, fait un acte de courage, il manifeste en cette période de détérioration des termes de l’échange un désir d’indépendance économique. C’est un fait historique que nous vivons. Nous devons être reconnaissants à notre gouvernement et à l’homme qui est à sa tête. (9) In appointing me to this post of great responsibility our government has acted with courage and shown its determination to achieve economic independence in these difficult times. This is indeed an historic occasion. We owe a debt of gratitude to our government and the man at its head. (2)

This economic independence is reserved for only a few privileged men in Senegalese upper-class society. The literal marriage among the personal, social, and political realms offers an opportunity for El Hadji’s wives to become a part of the celebration of Senegal’s economic independence. The celebration of El Hadji’s third marriage is a glorious affair. He spends an excessive amount of money to show off his new status and new bride. Unfortunately for him, on the night of the wedding he is unable to “perform.” He has the xala—he is impotent. El Hadji has been cursed, and he obsessively spends all his time and money seeing one marabout (traditional healer) after another in an attempt to remove his xala. As a result, he ignores his business responsibilities and ultimately loses everything. He is unanimously voted out of the Chamber of Commerce by his colleagues and so-called friends. The bank refuses to give him a loan, and creditors come to his business to seize everything. He finds himself reduced to the life of a beggar in the streets, alone and bankrupt. Clearly Sembène is presenting an acerbic critique of the use of religion— in this case, Islam—to maintain the social and political status quo in Senegal and in African societies. Xala is above all a story of corruption and inability of the upper-class to govern the nation. It is also a criticism of excessive materialism and the power of superstition. Even a supposedly “modern” African man like El Hadji remains trapped in the grip of the marabouts and charlatans who use their “powers” to gain material prosperity and to keep people from progressing. While there are respectable traditional Senegalese healers, in this text and film, Sembène criticizes the marabouts who are simply corrupt charlatan versions of traditional healers. Xala also demonstrates the complex situation of those who live between two cultures and the enduring impact of the colonial heritage: “Formation

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bourgeoise européenne, éducation féodale africaine. Il savait, comme ses pairs, se servir adroitement de ses deux pôles. La fusion n’était pas complète” (12). [El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye was what one might call a synthesis of two cultures: Business had drawn him into the European middle class after a feudal African education. Like his peers, he made skillful use of his dual background, for their fusion was not complete] (3–4). However, he has not fully assimilated the two cultures, and that in part leads to his downfall. He rejects Senegalese culture and traditions, including the use of his native language, Wolof. The chaos in his family life becomes interwoven with his personal, social, and political life. El Hadji’s sexual impotence and consequent “fall” can be read as Senegal’s inability to govern itself and to perform as a nation. Not being able to adequately balance his marriages and family life leads to El Hadji’s failure to contribute to the nation’s economy. Nation-building ultimately becomes a virile affair, and the sexual non-performance becomes an allegory for the performance of the nation or lack thereof. The complexity of existing between two cultures and the attempt to use widely divergent methods and cultural values to govern the nation is what Moussa Sène Absa problematizes in Tableau Ferraille—literally, “scrap heap.” This 1996 film recounts the story of a young politician’s rise to power and his subsequent downfall. The film opens in a littered seaside town near Dakar. The viewer sees a man and woman putting their belongings on a horse cart and riding off in silence as a crowd watches. Soon after, someone comes and invites the crowd to take part in the celebration of a new road sponsored by a local businessman known as Président. The cart stops near a cemetery, and the story is told in a series of flashbacks. In the film, the country is symbolically linked to the image of the mother. This is done with an opening song referring to politicians in particular who often forget their country and the promises that they have made, which is similar to a child who has forgotten the mother who carried him for nine months once he becomes powerful. This film depicts the neo-colonialist bourgeoisie and their exploitation of Africa as well as the constant vacillation between tradition and modernity. Daam, a naïve young man filled with ambition and great ideas, returns from studying in France. He aspires to be a politician in his hometown of Tableau Ferraille. While campaigning throughout the country, he meets Gagnerisi, falls in love with her, and asks her to marry him—or more precisely tells her father that he wants to marry her. When Daam meets Gagnerisi, he asks her “I want to marry you, what is your name?” She answers: “I’m the daughter of Njeeme and Rama. I live in the village.” Again, Daam asks: “Yes, but what is your name?” “Gagnerisi,” she replies. Daam says: “Gagnerisi, I want to marry you;” Gagnerisi then tells

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him, “Go tell my father.” For Gagnerisi, her father is the one who will decide whether or not she can marry Daam; the notion of choice does not enter into her mind. In asking Gagnerisi herself to marry him, Daam is displaying (consciously or unconsciously) his Europeanness and perhaps respect for Gagnerisi as an individual. As he continues his campaign, Daam is dressed in European apparel, displaying his European ideas and education that are often in direct opposition to Tableau Ferraille, which appears to remain very African. As a future politician, Gagnerisi’s family does not hesitate, and she goes from one man to another without ever thinking twice about it. Eventually Daam wins the elections and Tableau Ferraille is filled with hope for a better future. Daam’s political experiences are not clear, but he is sincere and appears to have a good heart. In his desire to help his hometown, he becomes involved with a crook named Président, helping him open a fish business in hopes that he will provide jobs to others in the community. It is this same Président who will shame Daam and force him to literally run for his life. At first, all seems to be going well for Daam as he tries to help people; he truly wants positive change for his community. He appears to be in love with Gagnerisi, who is unable to have children and is patiently waiting for a miracle to happen. Since it is a common belief that a man has no respect without a child, Daam is under the pressure of his “friends,” including Président, to take a second wife who can produce heirs for him. Without much protest from his first wife, he takes a second for his personal interest. This second wife, Kiné, is a selfish, calculating woman ready to get ahead by any means; she will lead to his fall. The first wife, Gagnerisi, is a traditional woman who metaphorically epitomizes Africa and its customs. She does not participate in her husband’s political and social life. She does whatever he asks of her, without questioning his authority. She supports him in his campaigns, and indeed she only exists politically and socially through him. The second wife, Kiné, incarnates European influence with her Western ideas. She does not want to stay home; she is very much involved and actively participates in her husband’s political life. She does not adhere to the traditional role of the woman as wife and mother. In fact, Gagnerisi is the one who takes care of Kiné’s children most of the time. Kiné has her own agenda and parleys with Daam’s enemies. The two wives do not get along. Their discordant relationship incarnates a telling metaphor for the tendentious rapport between Africa and Europe. The Westernized wife constantly struggles to have her own way no matter what, while the African wife usually tries to be patient and do everything to please her husband. Toward the end, Daam eventually falls from his political position. His Western wife betrays him with some of his ostensible friends

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who want to do things “the African way,” meaning setting up illegal deals and stealing money to serve their purposes. For some politicians, like Daam’s friend, Président, when they want to exploit Africa, they suddenly scream for traditionalism. The film ends with Gagnerisi leaving to go into exile elsewhere because she is unable to cope with the situation. Daam is just another fallen politician who flees in order to save his skin. His grand ideals and dreams are gone. Both wives leave him. But Gagnerisi leaving him is not so much in a selfish manner; it is really a way for her to find herself and her own destiny, whereas Kiné left him to enrich herself after exploiting and betraying him. Until now, Gagnerisi focused only on what was best for Daam and for the two as a married couple; she seems to be finally doing what is best for her as an individual. But this is not really clear, since the filmmaker leaves the ending open. The film fully conveys the message that greedy people like Président only want to exploit others in order to destroy Africa. While they use the community when it suits their purpose, they in turn destroy that same community for their own self-interests. The exploitation is not only at the level of the former colonizer but from the neo-colonizers as well. Like Xala, Tableau Ferraille can be an interpretation of Africa as still unprepared to properly govern itself. The film exposes the challenges of the dynamics that exist between tradition; and modernity and how they clash. The message from both filmmakers is that a nation should be built on a combination of new and old traditions; people should be open to new ways of doing things, but not necessarily forget their roots. Daam’s failure to adequately serve his government is related to his inability to maintain his family, since his second wife helps create it. In Black African Cinema, Frank Ukadike illustrates this clash interestingly. The family structure in the African tradition often forces the individual to put the community’s needs before his own. However, the same does not hold true at the national level because many individuals seem to be concerned first and foremost with their own profit. Both films are moral and ethical critiques of the individual who takes advantage of capitalism to enrich himself or herself. Similar to Sembène Ousmane, Moussa Sène Absa critiques polygyny. Daam’s problems begin with the addition of his second wife. Just as El Hadji took a third wife to show his new economic power, Daam felt he had to take a second wife to demonstrate his masculine fortitude to procreate. Although Gagnerisi is the infertile one, she is more of a mother to Daam’s children than their real mother, Kiné, which leads us to question the notion of motherhood and what it means. Motherhood does not equate giving birth, and should not be considered as a woman’s main value. A family does not consist

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only of a woman, man, and child or children. Each person is valuable and can contribute to the nation. Whereas steps for nation building and women’s participation and contribution in Francophone African countries like Cameroon and Senegal are obvious, it is not as evident in Martinique and Guadeloupe. The exchange structure of marriage and its relation to the nation began during colonization and continues today. Although one can argue that Martinique and Guadeloupe are not “nations” in the literal sense of the term, since they are French Overseas Departments, I consider them as partial nations in examining the relation between marriage and national identity, since the same power structures are set in place as in Francophone African regions. Slavery officially ended in 1848, and in 1946 Martinique and Guadeloupe became départements.10 Glissant refers to the decree that officially ended slavery as “la soi-disante libération,” [the so-called liberation].11 The law of March 11, 1946, applied on January 1, 1948, after a series of decrees and laws, recognized Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guyana, and the island of Réunion located in the Indian Ocean as overseas departments. Although Martinique and Guadeloupe are influenced by France, they have a culture that is very different from France. Moreover, another language, Créole, different from the official language of French, is widely spoken. These islands have a multicultural and a multilingual identity that arose out of slavery and plantation society and economy. In Martinique especially, the békés (plantation owners) controlled everything during the plantation era and still command the economic structure for the most part.12 Some of the residents of Martinique and Guadeloupe consider themselves first and foremost Martinicans and Guadeloupeans. However, for others, the idea of France as the motherland is deeply rooted in their national, social, and cultural consciousness. Some may feel a combination of French, European, African, and Martinican or Guadeloupean. France, “la mère patrie” [the “motherland”] still does not always welcome them fully into its soil, and sometimes they are merely step-children with ambiguous mixed identity/ies. These questions of identity arise often in the works of writers such as Maryse Condé, Gisèle Pineau, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Julius Amédé Laou, Edouard Glissant, and Daniel Boukman, to name a few. There are also independence movements in both Martinique and Guadeloupe that have considered the idea of seceding from France for decades.13 These are quintessential “imagined communities.” To understand current male-female relations specifically in terms of marriage, as we will see in the texts analyzed from the Caribbean, the plantation is the focal point. In the French Caribbean, during the period of colonization, women maintained the family by taking care of the children. This is

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still often the case today. Slavery completely disrupted the family network and did not allow a space or a means for a normal family structure. Men and women reacted differently to this disruption. Some black men, unable to provide for their children, felt ashamed and incompetent; they revolted by alienating themselves from their families.14 Some black women, on the other hand, persevered while suffering in silence. But others, like maroons such as Zabeth and Nanny (Jamaica) rebelled. In Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle, Simone Schwarz-Bart pays homage to courageous women through the Lougandor lineage. The story of the Lougandor women is an allegory for Guadeloupe’s history. These women survive the slavery era while managing to keep their heads high. Most importantly, they guarantee the transmission of Guadeloupe’s history to future generations. Through three generations of women who do not allow misery to take their strength away from them, Schwarz-Bart depicts the struggle of Guadeloupean women in the early twentieth century. Télumée presents the genealogy of her ancestors, through which Guadeloupe’s history as a partial nation is inscribed.15 Through their marriages, the Lougandor women continue to insure their lineage while representing that of Guadeloupe. The author traces this struggle through the great-grandmother Minerve, to the grandmother Toussine (Reine Sans Nom), to the mother Victoire, and to the protagonist-narrator, Télumée Miracle. These women live with the motto that they were all “[de] vraie[s] négresses à deux coeurs, [qui] avai[ent] décidé que la vie ne [leur] ferait pas passer par quatre chemins” (66) [real Negress(es) with two hearts, (who) had made up (their) mind(s) that life was not going to lead (them) up the garden path] (41).16 To have two hearts means being able to handle adversity. It is not a coincidence that the first woman in the Lougandor lineage is named Minerve, the guardian goddess of Rome. Minerva is the Roman name for Athena, goddess of wisdom, sprung from the head of Zeus. Similarly, Toussine was given the name Reine Sans Nom, literally Queen Without a Name, by the men in the village for her victorious survival after the death of her daughter, Méranée. “Toussine était . . . un morceau de monde, un pays tout entier, un panache de négresse, la barque, la voile et le vent, car elle ne s’était pas habituée au malheur. Alors le ventre de Toussine ballonna, éclata et l’enfant s’appela Victoire . . . (28). [Toussine was a (piece) of the world, a whole country, a plume of a Negress, the ship, sail, and wind, for she had not made a habit of sorrow. Then Toussine’s belly swelled and burst and the child was called Victory] (14). It is clear why Toussine names her daughter Victoire: For her, this child was a victory that symbolized her

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capacity to survive in the face of adversity. During Victoire’s baptismal ceremony, the men note: Du temps de ta soierie et de tes bijoux, nous t’appelions Reine Toussine. Nous ne nous étions pas trompés de beaucoup, car tu es une vraie reine. Mais aujourd’hui, avec ta Victoire, tu peux te vanter, tu nous a plongés dans l’embarras. Nous avons cherché un nom de reine qui te convienne mais en vain, car la vérité, il n’y a pas de nom pour toi. Aussi désormais, quant à nous, nous t’appellerons: Reine Sans Nom. (28) [In the days of your silks and jewels we called you Queen Toussine. We were not far wrong, for you are truly a queen. But now, with your Victory, you may boast that you have put us in a quandary. We have tried and tried to think of a name for you, but in vain, for there isn’t one that will do. And so from now on we shall call you “Queen Without a Name”!] (14–15)

Similarly, Victoire struggles to survive and raise her daughters, Régina and Télumée. Like many Caribbean women, she endures the vicious cycle of staying with a man she thinks will help her but who eventually abandons her. When she was pregnant for the third time, Victoire tells her eldest daughter, Régina: “Après toi, Régina, j’ai accepté l’homme Angebert sur mon plancher, mais c’était seulement du pain que je cherchais; et tu le vois, j’ai recolté viande sur viande, Télumée d’abord, puis celui-ci, et le pain n’est pas toujours sur ma table” (33–34). [After you, Regina, I agreed to have Angebert in my house, but it was only because I needed bread. And as you see, I’ve reaped body for body, first Telumée and now this one, and still there’s no bread on my table] (18). As Victoire continues to survive, she meets Haut-Colbi, “grand amateur de chair féminine” (46) [a great connoisseur of feminine flesh] (26). When they decide to live together, Télumée is sent to Fond-Zombi to live with her grandmother, Reine Sans Nom. It is during this time that Télumée learns all the wisdom of life and survival through her grandmother. She tells Télumée proverbs, stories, and riddles that will prove beneficial in her quest for survival. Télumée learns to be “un vrai tambour à deux faces, [et quand] la vie frappe, cogne, [de] conserve[r] toujours intacte la face du dessous” (62) [a real drum with two sides (and when) life bangs and thumps (to) keep the underside always intact] (39). Télumée endures the humiliation of working with a béké who wants her body and soul, the abuse of her lover, and the betrayal of the people she helps, among other things. Yet, she remains strong and thus earns her name Télumée Miracle. For, after all she goes through, it is a

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miracle that she has survived. Like Guadeloupe, Télumée survives all the vicissitudes that assailed her. Guadeloupe survived slavery and colonization as well as the plantation era. As the novel concludes, Télumée notes: “J’ai transporté ma case à l’orient et je l’ai transportée à l’occident, les vents d’est, du nord, les tempêtes m’ont assaillie et les averses m’ont délavée, mais je reste une femme sur mes deux pieds, et je sais que le nègre n’est pas une statue de sel que dissolvent les pluies” (248). [I have moved my cabin to the east and to the west; east winds and north winds have buffeted and soaked me; but I am still a woman standing on my own two legs, and I know a Negro is not a statue to be dissolved by the rain] (172). She believes that “la vie est une mer sans escale, sans phare aucun . . . et les hommes sont des navires sans destinations” (247–248) [life is a sea without a port and without a lighthouse, and men are ships without a destination] (172). Télumée has an inner determination that allows her to remain focused and positive in whatever situations she has to deal with. She makes decisions that allow her to progress. Her positive outlook on life is evident through the proverbs and words of wisdom that she often repeats to herself. These proverbs are her way of inscribing herself and the Lougandor women in Guadeloupe’s history and collective consciousness. Télumée is described by Schwarz-Bart as “un pays” [a country]: she incarnates Guadeloupe and the hope for Guadeloupe to become a nation in its own right: Le pays dépend bien souvent du coeur de l’homme: il est minuscule si le coeur est petit, et immense si le coeur est grand. Je n’ai jamais souffert de l’exiguïté de mon pays, sans pour autant prétendrer que j’ai un grand coeur. Si on m’en donnait le pouvoir, c’est ici meme, en Guadeloupe, que je choisirais de renaître, souffrir et mourir. (11) [A man’s country may be cramped or vast, according to the size of his heart. I’ve never found my country too small, though that isn’t to say my heart is great. And if I could choose, it’s here in Guadeloupe that I’d be born again, suffer, and die.] (2)

Schwarz-Bart deliberately associates these women with Guadeloupe in order to showcase their involvement in history and allow them the place that they deserve but have not often enjoyed. The universe of Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle is one in which the men are just passing through: They impregnate women and, in most cases, leave immediately. It is the women who are the backbone of the community. They are the ones who are victorious. They struggle to survive in spite of colonization, the plantation era, depart-

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mentalization, and humiliation. The men revolt, but it is useless because it does not lead to any practical, enduring change of the status quo. For example, by refusing to work, Elie, Télumée’s common-law husband, rebels against the whites who have all the economic power, but this only aggravates his own situation. He finds himself on the streets with no job and no money. Télumée, on the other hand, struggles to survive in spite of everything. At the béké’s house where she works as a maid, the master of the house, Mr. Desaragne, tries to rape her. Even though we are no longer in the colonial period, many békés still consider the people working for them as personal property. Thus, Mr. Desaragne seems to think that Télumée’s body is his property. As previously mentioned, the common myth regarding black women’s sexual appetite, established during the colonial period to justify masters raping their slaves, still continues to operate and to justify this kind of behavior. Mrs. Desaragne does not view them as complete human beings like the whites are. For her: “Le nègre est le nègre et depuis que la musique du fouet a quitté leurs oreilles, ils se prennent pour des civilisés . . .” (109). [A Negro [is] a Negro, but since the music of the whip is no longer in their ears, they take themselves for civilized] (71). Yet, Télumée stays there for a short period of time because she must survive in spite of all the adversity she faces. But Mrs. Desaragne is making these statements to confirm her own prejudice. However, Telumée sees Elie as a victim of the system and does not reproach him. It is clear that the novel is about the female legacy of slavery and the construction of Guadeloupe as a nation through a matriarchal society. The female characters are the guardians of history: They protect, transmit, and indeed make history. Although they live in a society where marriage is considered the highlight of a woman’s life, only Toussine has actually been legally married. The rest of the Lougandor line resists the status quo. They contest the belief that marriage is a virtue and a merit. It would not make a difference if Victoire’s children’s fathers were married to her or not—they would simply leave. It is as if their unconventional status and wisdom regarding marriage and other issues further strengthen them. Knowing that the men are not dependable, the women simply rely on themselves. That which they possess that the men lack is a determination to survive. Because the men consider their value as human beings primarily through their work, they lose that value when they lose their jobs. For example, Minerve is described as having “une foi inébranlable en la vie. Devant l’adversité, elle aimait dire que rien ni personne n’userait l’âme que Dieu avait choisie pour elle, et disposée en son corps” (13) [an unshakable faith in life. When things went wrong she would say that nothing or no one, would ever wear out the soul God had chosen out for her and put in her body] (3). By contrast, when faced with

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adversity, the men drink, fight, and take out the anger they feel for the colonizers on their wives. As a result, the cycle continues and the community is filled with some angry men who are unable to care for their families; it is the women who are the providers economically, mentally, and emotionally. In trying to provide for their children, these women sometimes unconsciously help perpetuate the vicious cycle that prevents some Caribbean men from dealing with their responsibilities. While it would be simplistic to say that the women represented in these texts are directly responsible for men’s behavior, they enable the cycle to continue by accepting their behavior. In Tribunal Femmes Bafouées, Tony Delsham accuses contemporary men and women of continuing the process of victimization, exchange, and transaction that began on the plantation. The novel is a contemporary love triangle that depicts the complex relationship among Raymond, Magalie, and Francine. Raymond, “homme cocu” [unfaithful man] spends his time collecting mistresses or fanm déwo. He is taken to court by the two women he “loves”: Francine, his wife of over thirty years, and his current serious mistress, Magalie, who is described as a zorèye17 newly arrived from Paris. He is taken to the court of the “femmes bafouées” [scorned women], thus the title of the book. Raymond sets out to defend himself and prove that the current status of male-female relations is a direct result of the legacy of plantation culture. Raymond, the accused, in turn accuses his society, which supports the behavior of the Caribbean man who exchanges and collects women but condemns a woman who dares take a lover. Unlike men, these Caribbean women are shunned by their social class, their church and their family. “Pour les femmes . . . un amant est la déchéance et l’infamie” [For women . . . a lover is a sign of moral decay and disgrace] (191). Women are also responsible for this situation because they are the ones who, from an early age, discriminate between their male and female children by allowing the male to do what he wants and supporting him in his image of a “collectionneur ou chasseur de femmes” [a hunter or collector of women] (192). Raymond Brandules accepts judgment on behalf of all Martinican men. He acknowledges his status as a “collectionneur:” “Je suis un chasseur de femmes, un collectionneur, je le revendique, c’est une manière d’héritage que je tiens de mon père et de son frère, bref de ma famille . . .” (192). [I am a womanizer, a collector, I admit it; it’s a form of inheritance from my father and his brother, in short, from my family.] However, he blames women for perpetuating their condition via the education they give to their daughters. It is an education whereby the male is considered superior to the female:

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[L’homme] fut et est encore victime de l’éducation reçue de la femme, sa mère. En effet, cette dernière l’éleva dans la certitude de son bon droit. N’est-ce pas elle qui fièrement criait à tue-tête dans les quartiers . . . : “Mawé poul zot, kok mwen déwo?” (Attachez donc vos poules, mon coq est en liberté.) N’est-ce pas elle qui, dans la case abandonnée par le père, c’est vrai, éduquait ses filles dans la soumission de l’homme en la plaçant d’emblée au service de son frère? N’estce pas elle qui instruisit le frère bien avant la sœur. (189) [The man was and is still a victim of the education he receives from the woman, his mother. In fact, she brought him up in the certainty that he has all the rights. Is she not the one who proudly shouts at the top of her lungs in the neighborhoods . . . : ‘Tie up your hens, my rooster is on the loose. Is she not the one, in the house abandoned by the father, who educates her daughter to be submissive to the man and who places her right away at her brother’s service? Is she not the one who educates the male child before the female?]

According to Raymond, he is a collector simply because his wife and the other women who are part of his collection accept it. He tells his wife as much: “Ma collection n’a pu s’enrichir qu’à l’ombre de tes complaisances et, finalement grâce à ta complicité, pas seulement de la tienne, aucune femme n’a jamais ignoré que j’étais marié, cela ne les retenait pas, elles sont aussi coupables que moi et leur place est à mes côtés sur le banc des accusés” (189–190). [My collection was only able to grow in the shadow of your tacit consent and not only yours. None of the women ever ignored the fact that I was married, yet that did not stop them. They are as guilty as I am and they belong here with me on the bench of the accused.] However, he does acknowledge that men have several advantages regarding their ability to collect women because society constantly judges the woman who betrays her mate. She is judged by everyone: the church, the neighbors, her family, and friends. She is even labeled “salope, manawas” [bitch, manawa18] (190–191). Meanwhile, the man is congratulated by that same society because having a mistress is a sign of financial well-being and machismo. Delsham links the complexity of male-female relationships to that of historical forces. He argues that the weight of history has put the man at a disadvantage. Delsham probes the current problems between men and women and tries to show how and why the plantation mentality survives into the present day. As one of the witnesses in the court, a history professor, notes: Sur l’habitation, il serait plus juste de dire qu’il existait des mâles et des femelles [non pas des hommes et des femmes]. . . . [Les] esclaves n’avaient

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aucune influence sur l’éducation [de leurs enfants.] Les enfants recevant de la part du maître une culture d’esclave. . . . Le plus souvent le géniteur ignorait le résultat de sa semence, il n’était que l’étalon que l’on promène d’une habitation à l’autre, d’une femme à l’autre. [. . .] La femme-esclave était, quoi qu’on en dise, un objet sexuel à la disposition du maître et des hommes de la famille de ce dernier, elle était la chose permettant l’assouvissement des pires fantasmes, mais également la chose de l’étalon du maître, la notion de fidélité envers son compagnon-esclave n’existait pas, la femme ne pouvait que lui garantir son coeur, jamais son corps. (179) [On the plantation, it would be more appropriate to say that there were males and females (not men and women). The slaves had no influence whatsoever on their children’s education, the children received only slave culture from the master. . . . Most times, the sperm donor did not know the outcome of his semen, he was only a stud that was taken from one plantation to another, from one woman to another. . . . The woman-slave, whatever is said, was a sexual object at the disposal of the master and his family; she was the object that fulfilled the master’s fantasies, but also the object of the master’s stallion. The notion of fidelity toward her slave-companion did not exist; the woman was only able to guarantee him her heart, never her body.]

For slaves, the notion of family structure did not exist on the plantation. Usually the women were the ones taking care of the children. Both men and women were objectified by their masters and went through the horrific experiences of slavery, yet as this quote demonstrates, men seem to continuously use this experience in order to justify and maintain the ideologies that benefit them. Because slaves were property, they were not considered citizens and were thus not part of the nation. Even after the abolition of slavery following the revolt of May 22, 1848, the slaves’ condition did not really improve. Decades later, the arrival of “allocations familiales,” a social program that gives financial support to women who are raising their children alone, further exacerbated the problem of male absenteeism. As a result, some men continue to act irresponsibly and this system further breaks down the idea of the couple. As a means of survival, the mother eventually devalues black men and teaches black women to beware of black males, creating a binary universe of victim and victimizer: “Le couple antillais est donc né d’une part, avec un homme qui, en dépit de son amour pour sa compagne, l’estime souillée, et d’autre part, avec une femme qui s’estime amputée d’une partie d’elle-même” (184). [The Antillean couple is thus born, on the one hand, from a man who, in spite of his love for his companion, considers her tarnished, and, on the other hand, with a woman who considers herself amputated.]

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The novel suggests that men and women must realize that history weighs equally on each of them—albeit in different ways—and that they must make an effort to break the cycle. Some Caribbean women believe that most men are “[géniteurs qui] pensent qu’à fourrer leur affaire dans [leurs] ventre[s]” (55) [sperm donors who only think about putting their thing in their wombs] and disappear once they find out a child is on the way. Most men, on the other hand, want to marry a “pure” woman because their attitude is that “La maman de [leurs] enfants officiels doit être une femme vierge” (54) [The mother of their official children must be a virgin] at least at first. But the virginity of the man or lack thereof is never an issue. When a Caribbean man realizes that “le respect [c’est ce dont] a le plus besoin la femme de ce pays” (132) [what the women in this country need the most is respect] there will be a space in which to negotiate gender issues and women’s identities. Both men and women in the Caribbean post-slavery context are victims of history, and both need to realize that after having been torn between Europe and Africa, among colonization, independence, and departmentalization, they must come together as new men and women to search, create, and define––as they consider fit––new identities—social, political, economic, familial, religious, and personal. Through these identities, new visions for a nation where men and women feel that they both have a place will be found. At the end of Une si longue lettre, the narrator, Ramatoulaye, makes the following observation regarding the correlation between the couple and the nation: C’est de l’harmonie du couple que nait la réussite familiale, comme l’accord de multiples instruments crée la symphonie agréable. Ce sont toutes les familles, riches ou pauvres, unies ou déchirées, conscientes ou irréfléchies qui constituent la Nation. La réussite d’une nation passe donc irrémédiablement par la famille. (130) [The success of the family is born of a couple’s harmony, as the harmony of multiple instruments creates a pleasant symphony. The nation is made up of all the families, rich or poor, united or separated, aware or unaware. The success of a nation therefore depends inevitably on the family.] (89)

This is one view of what the nation could mean. For some people, the fate of the nation is often linked to the fate of marriage. When that is the case, it is crucial to rethink the role of women in marriage in terms of gender equity. As a nation changes its direction to give women key roles in the social, economic and political realms, they will be able to participate more as full citizens. However, it is vital to consider the nation as “belonging to all [heterosexual and

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non-heterosexual, married and unmarried, divorced or widowed, men or women] not only to men” as Anne-Laure Folly notes in Femmes aux yeux ouverts. For women, identity in marriage is formed in many instances through notions of gender, religion, social, economic, and political views. Personal and national identities are intertwined, and women often become artificial “symbols” of the nation. Marriage can become another form of colonization because women do not have the same guaranteed rights as male citizens. The status quo reflects the era of colonization when the colonizer gave limited rights to the colonized. The texts and films analyzed in this chapter reveal the links between marital bonds and the construction of the nation in some regions in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean. It is clear that these authors promote the view that the nation will benefit from supporting only couples that are in mutually equitable relationships, whether through legal partnerships or other forms of marriage. But it is also of utmost importance that the nation and/or communities realize the importance of women as individuals (married or unmarried), and that they are making vital contributions to the future of these same communities and nations.

Notes 1. See Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 5–6. There is a large body of work on nationalism. For more information, see Pete Alter, Nationalism (London: Edward Arnold, 1989); Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis, “Women and the Nation-State,” Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 312–316; Homi Bhabha, Nation and Narration (New York: Routledge, 1990); Elleke Boehmer, “Motherlands, Mothers and Nationalist Sons: Representations of Nationalism and Women in African Literature,” From Commonwealth to Post-Colonial (Sydney: Dangaroo, 1992), 22–247; Stuart Hall, “Culture, Community, Nation” Cultural Studies 7.3 (1993): 349–363; and Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism (New York: Macmillan, 1944). 2. As Christopher Miller writes, Nationalists and Nomads: Essays on Francophone African Literature and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) “Nations are neither natural nor eternal . . . they result from a convergence of complex historical forces” (122). 3. For instance, there is the recent election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as the first African woman president in Liberia. 4. See information on the fiftieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, Feb. 27–March 10, 2006, at www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/50sess.htm (accessed 30 May 2007).

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5. For more information on African women, see African women on the internet at: www-sul.stanford.edu/africa/women.html (accessed 30 May 2007). 6. For information on the article, www.afrol.com/articles/18854 (accessed 30 May 2007). 7. Very few male writers acknowledge the role of women in the struggles for independence. Sembène Ousmane is one of the few canonical African Francophone male writers to give women an important role in his novels. Women often have the responsibilty of representing their husbands, thus the state. 8. See “Haiti’s Women: Economic and Political Involvement” AlterPresse, 20 April 2006 by Marie Carmel Paul-Austin at www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article4501 (accessed 30 May 2007). For more information on women’s contribution, see also Myriam Merlet, La participation politique des femmes en Haïti, Port-au-Prince, Editions Fanm Yo La, 2002) 9. For more information about the play, See Guillaume Oyono-Mbia: ‘Trois prétendants . . . un mari’s John Conteh Morgan in Theatre and Drama in Francophone Africa: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 10. The Martinican and Guadeloupean are French and theoretically have the same rights as the French living in France. However, it is not uncommon for white French to ask a Martinican or Guadeloupean to prove their Frenchness, as if to say that a black person cannot be French. This attitude demonstrates the ignorance of many French who do not know that Martinique and Guadeloupe are Département d’Outre-Mer and the racism vis-à-vis Martinican and Guadeloupean. There is a double talk regarding Guadeloupeans and Martinicans; they constantly suffer discrimination when it comes to housing and jobs in France. Writers such as Gisèle Pineau, L’exil selon Julia (Paris: Stock, 1996); and Françoise Ega, Lettres à une Noire (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1978), raise these issues in their novels. For further information regarding France and its colonies, see “The Reciprocal Making and Remaking of Identities in France and Its Colonies,” by Kathe Managa, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 13(2006): 585–596. 11. Édouard Glissant, Le discours antillais (Paris: Gallimard, 1997), 823. 12. See Guy Cabort Masson, Les puissances d’argent en Martinique: l’État français, la caste békée et les autres (Saint-Joseph, Martinique: Laboratoire de recherches de l’AMEP, 1984; 2e édition 1987). 13. In Guadeloupe, there are independent movements such as the Union Populaire pour la Libération de la Guadeloupe and l’Union Général pour les Travailleurs Guadeloupéens. The indépendantistes have a journal published in Creole Lendependans and a radio station, Radyo Tanbou, in Creole. In Martinique, there is the Mouvement Indépendantiste Martiniquais. 14. The absence of the biological father is a common theme in Caribbean literature. However, in Simone Schwarz-Bart’s Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle and in Euzham Palcy’s film Rue Case-Nègres, based on the novel by Joseph Zobel, there are substitute fathers. 15. Renée Larrier in Francophone Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean notes (55–68) the historical and symbolic nature of the names in Pluie et vent sur Télumée

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Miracle. For instance, Minerve, the founder of the clan, mythologically represents the Roman goddess of wisdom. Likewise, Xango, Toussine’s stepfather, is the name of a powerful Yoruba deity. 16. Throughout this chapter I will be using a translation of Pluie et vent sur Télumée miracle by Barbara Bray, translation titled The Bridge of Beyond (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1982). 17. There are different explanations to the term zorèye [ears]. Some people say that the zorèye are the white French from France who usually turn an ear when they hear a Creole word in Guadeloupe or Martinique because they are trying to understand. According to Glissant in Le discours antillais, “Zoreill ou zoreye ou zorey désigne ainsi les Blancs en Martinique. Peut-être parce qu’ils ont les oreilles rouges sous l’effet du soleil? L’appellation s’est généralisée au point de ne plus sous-entendre une connotation péjorative”(830). [Zoreill or zoreye or zorey designates the whites in Martinique. Maybe because they have red ears due to the sun? This term has become so common that it no longer has a derogatory meaning.] 18. A manawa is literally a prostitute. It refers to a woman who gives herself sexually to any man as soon as he asks her. It is sometimes used as an insult.

C O N C L U S I O N



Marriage: A Viable Option

Today, women’s attitudes to[ward] marriage are affected by the worldwide women’s movement, which has challenged the unequal relationship that existed within the traditional marriage. . . . With increasing access to higher education, women are gaining the economic independence that allows them to change the rules of marriage. They can rewrite the marriage contract, making the relationship a more egalitarian one. Marriage becomes a more attractive option for women when men and women can be equal partners. At the same time, women at all levels of Caribbean society continue to exercise the option not to marry, and so families headed by women remain part of our reality. —“We Kind of Family,” Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought, Merle Hodge Then Almitra spoke again and said, And What of Marriage, master? And he answered saying: Let there be spaces in your togetherness. . . . Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone. —Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

When women are economically, socially, and emotionally independent, marriage can realistically remain an option for them. If they choose to marry, it 167

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can be more fulfilling. As a result, marriage can become a space to grow as an individual as well as with a partner. If women are financially self-sufficient, they may be more able to define their roles in marriage. Several of the characters portrayed from the novels and films in this book question women’s roles and status in marriage through religious, economic, and social institutions. For some women, this provokes a re-evaluation of marriage and its impact on their lives. Marriage in its various forms is still viewed by many (women and men) in Africa and the Caribbean as a stable institution where each person has a clear role set in place by patriarchal structures that mostly benefit men and maintain women in inferior positions. Thus, marriage remains an economic arrangement. As the global economy changes and women play a greater role in the economic vitality of their communities, the political and social forces in power need to recognize their contributions and create a space for them to flourish. As a result of their place, or lack thereof, some women do consider marriage differently from men. These differences are noticeable in the ways in which male and female characters in the novels and films understand and define the marriage bond. However, as the texts I analyzed demonstrate, there is a constant shift in gender relations. I argued that gender politics and the importance of motherhood must be taken into account to comprehend the complexity of the marriage bond. Both these factors to a great extent determine women’s identity in marriage. Religion and family traditions are often manipulated to maintain women in subservient positions. Moreover, the complexity of métissage and its influences on marriage, certainly in Caribbean cultures, determine the status of women not only in the family structure but also in the greater society. Finally, this book has explored how marriage can be viewed as a site for questioning political and national identity. The chapters overlap and interconnect because issues of gender, religion, motherhood, economy, and national identity cannot be studied separately; each influences the other. The literary and filmic analyses have shown that marriage is an important theme because it provides a space through which these issues are questioned and elaborated. In both the Caribbean and Africa, some women writers tend to focus on women’s experiences and their ways of thinking. Many male writers are inclined to describe women in relation to men and society as objects, represented by masculine prerogative. However, Sembène Ousmane and Tony Delsham are exceptions to this rule. As Brenda Berrian notes: “[Sembène] is one of the first African writers to move his female characters from a secondary role, in which they complement their men, to a primary one in which they express their feelings, hurts, joys, and think and react to pressing situations”

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(196). Likewise, Tony Delsham from Martinique presents the female characters in his novel Tribunal femmes bafouées as thinking subjects capable of making decisions. These two male authors depict characters who do not merely exist in the shadows of men but have a voice and are struggling to find their space in societies that have for too long hindered their emancipation. For the characters in the texts presented, marriage is a sustained inquiry into the issues of personal, political, religious, and social identity. The various narrative styles of the works attest to this inquiry. Several of the authors employ narrative venues that allow the characters to openly state their feelings. That is the case of Myriam Warner-Vieyra’s Juletane and Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre in which the protagonists utilize the epistolary form as a quest for identity as it relates to marriage and culture. Likewise, Anne-Laure Folly’s Femmes aux yeux ouverts, France Alibar and Pierrette Lembeye-Boy’s Le couteau seul, and Awa Thiam’s La parole aux négresses are testimonials that depict women’s condition in Africa and the Caribbean. Both narrative genres assured that women engage their own voices to speak for themselves. Regardless of the format, the works examined depict the multi-faceted nature of gender politics in marriage that often efface women in political or national struggles. The texts and films challenge traditional notions of marriage. They propose new ways to rethink the marriage concept, in its various styles that allow men and women to be viewed as unique individuals who come together in mutual respect to form a common bond. In reading these texts, we cannot discuss marriage without exploring certain feminine discourses and gender issues, religion, métissage, identity, and nationhood. The authors of these works urge women to opt out of the margins to engage their voices in a variety of spheres: literary, personal, socio-political, and national. They invite women and men to re-examine the idea of marriage or partnership, to create a space where both partners can be fulfilled. The texts and films expose these challenges in our global age and suggest new avenues for understanding marital bonds as they relate to identity.



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Tate, Claudia. Domestic Allegories of Political Desire. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Tenney, Merril C. The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1967. Teno, Jean-Marie. Le mariage d’Alex. 35mm. Cameroun/France: Les Films du Raphia, 2002. Thackaway, Melissa. Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives in Sub-Saharan Francophone African Film. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. Thiam, Awa. La parole aux négresses. Paris: Editions Denoël/Gonthier, 1978. Translation by Dorothy S. Blair under the title Speak out, Black Sisters, Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa. London: Pluto Press, 1986. Tong, Rosemary. Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction. Boulder, Colo.: Wesview, 1989. Toumson, Roger. Mythologie du métissage. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998. ———. La transgression des couleurs: Littérature et langage des Antilles. Paris: Éditions Caribbéennes, 1989. Traoré, Abibatou. Sidagamie. Paris: Présence africaine. 1998. Ukadike, Frank. Black African Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. ———. Questioning African Cinema: Questioning African Filmmakers. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. UNICEF. Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Statistical Exploration 2005. UNICEF: November 2005. Vergès, Françoise. Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Métissage. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999. Volet, Jean-Marie. La parole aux Africaines ou l’idée de pouvoir chez les romancières d’expression française de l’Afrique Sub-Saharienne. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1993. Walcott, Derek. Poems, 1965–1980. London: Jonathan Cape, 1992. Walker, Keith L. Countermodernism and the Francophone Literary Game Culture of Slipknot. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999. Warner-Vieyra, Myriam. Femmes échouées. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1987. ———. Juletane. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1982. Translation by Betty Wilson under the title Juletane. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1987. Webb, Barbara. Myth and History in Caribbean Fiction: Alejo Carpentier, Wilson Harris, and Edouard Glissant. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. Wing, Adrien Katherine, ed. Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader. New York: University Press, 2000.



Index

Absa, Moussa Sène, 143; Tableau Ferraille, 152–154 Accad, Evelyn, Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East, 150 acculturation, 4 African/Africa, xii, xiii, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 16, 20, 21–22, 24, 48, 31–32, 34–36, 38, 41, 44, 47, 50, 53, 57, 62, 66–67, 76, 83, 91–92, 95, 127, 131, 144, 146, 148, 155, 168–69. See also Francophone African African feminism, 19 Africana womanism xviii, 9, 17, 20, 21, 36 Aidoo, Ama Ata, 17–19 AIDS. See HIV/AIDS Ajayi-Soyinka, Omofolabo, 21 Alibar, France and Lembeye-Boy, Pierrette, Le couteau seul: La condition féminine aux Antilles, 9, 14, 22, 26–28, 48, 65, 76, 85–86, 90–91, 127–28 D’Almeida, Irène, xviii, 8, 23, 92; Francophone Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence, 16, 61, 146

Antillean. See Caribbean Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 10, 88 Arndt, Susan, 8; The Dynamics of African Feminism: Defining and Classifying African Feminist Literature, 19 Assamoua, Michèle, Le défi, 134–36 Bâ, Mariama, Une si longue lettre, 4, 10, 67–76, 92, 96, 102, 107, 111, 163; Un chant écarlate, 10, 132–34 Bailey, Barbara, 17 Barriteau, Eudine, 8, 17 Barrow Christine, 8 Beauvue-Fougeyrollas, Claudie, Femmes antillaises, 6, 54–56 béké, 83–84, 124, 155, 157, 159 Bhabha, Homi, 142 Bible, 5–6, 15–16, 66–67. See also Christianity; Corinthians, 6; Genesis, 6; Mark, 114 biological, 8, 13 Black feminism, 17, 20 body, 2, 5, 9, 13, 31, 34–35, 43, 46, 59, 61, 99, 117, 121, 124, 146, 149, 162

183

184



Index

Breen, Michael P., “A Timeless Institution: Marriage in the West from the Renaissance to the Present,” xi bride price, xii, 117, 148–50. See also economy Burkina Faso, 145, 147–48. See also Francophone Africa Burton, Richard, Famille, idéologie et pouvoir à la Martinique: 1789–1992, 6, 82, 128–29 Bush, Barbara, Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 6 Busia, Abena, 18 Cameroon, 148–150. See also Francophone Africa Capécia, Mayotte, Je suis Martiniquaise, 10, 121–25, 127 Caribbean, xiii, 7–9, 16–17, 19–22, 24, 27–28, 31, 47, 50, 53–57, 62, 66, 76, 78, 81–83, 85, 91–92, 116, 122, 124, 127, 130, 132, 146, 160, 163, 167–69. See also Francophone Caribbean Charbit, Yves, Famille et nuptialité dans la Caraïbe, 5, 27 Chauvet, Marie-Vieux, Amour, colère et folie, 116–21 childbearing. See Children children, 4, 6, 22, 34, 41, 56, 58, 66, 69, 71, 75, 82, 84, 86, 89, 91, 98–108, 119–20, 124, 133–35, 146, 160, 162 Christianity, 1, 4–7, 9, 16, 38, 66–67; and polygyny, 66, 76–79, 81, 86–88, 92, 96, 107 church. See Christianity class, xi, xiv, 2, 3, 5, 18–20, 49, 67, 90, 102, 109, 117, 119–22, 125–27, 129–30, 132, 134, 137 clitoridectomy, 32–33. See also female circumcision Code Noir, 79, 81

Collins, Patricia Hill, 17 colonialism, 2–4, 7, 14, 20–23, 78, 87, 114–15, 121–22, 127–29, 152, 155, 158, 163–64 colonization. See colonialism colonizer. See colonialism color, 83, 116–118, 120–122, 125–127, 129–130, 132. See also race community, 3, 9–11, 13, 16, 41–42, 57, 61, 69, 86, 98, 114–115, 120, 127, 131, 136–37, 138, 144, 147–48, 153–54, 158, 160, 164, 168 concubinage. See Plaçage/plasaj Condé, Maryse, 8, 18, 21, 23, 155; La parole des femmes, 18–19; Moi, Tituba, sorcière noire de Salem, 113 Confiant, Raphaël, Commandeur du sucre, 82–84 Cooper, Barbara MacGowan, Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in a Hausa Society in Niger, 1900–1989, 7 Côte d’Ivoire, 42–46, 130–36. See also Francophone Africa Cottias, Myriam, 80 couple, xi, 10, 111, 115, 129–30, 133–36, 162–64 cultural identity. See culture cultural polygyny, 76, 92. See also polygyny culture, xi, xii, xiv, 5, 7–10, 13, 19, 28, 45, 61–62, 72, 86, 90, 102, 110, 113–14, 130–33, 136–38, 143, 148, 151, 155, 162 custom, See tradition Dahomey, xii Dangaremba, Tsitsi, 20–21 Danticat, Edwidge, Breath, Eyes, Memory, 31, 47–48; Krik! Krak! 136–37 Davies, Carole Boyce, 92 Davis, Angela, 17

Index

Delsham, Tony, 80; Tribunal femmes bafouées, 143, 160–63 divorce, 26, 88, 107 Dogon, 14–15 double patriarchy, 21. See also patriarchy dowry. See bride-price Drabo, Adam, Taafe fanga (Skirt Power), 14–15 Duparc, Henri, Bal poussière, 110 Ecaré, Désiré, Visages de femme, 42–46 economy, xi–xii, 1–4, 9, 17, 19, 22, 24–26, 99–101, 103, 106, 109, 111, 126, 128, 132, 142, 146–52, 159–60, 162–64, 167–68 education, 3, 18, 27, 49, 53, 57, 71, 73, 89, 91, 108, 113, 142, 144, 146, 152–53 Emecheta, Buchi, 8, 18–19, 92 ethnic/ethnicity, xiv, 3, 7, 14, 18–19, 37, 58, 87, 115 Europe/European 6–7, 22, 121, 125, 152–53, 163 Eurocentric, 18, 21, 115, 143 excision. See female circumcision family, xii–xiii, 1, 3, 4–7, 10–11, 16, 20, 27, 46, 65, 70, 74, 76–78, 80–81, 85, 96, 100, 114, 118, 127, 130–32, 136, 141–42, 144, 148–50, 152, 154–56, 161, 163 Fanon, Frantz, Peau noire, masques blancs, 10, 121–27, 141 female circumcision, 3, 18, 31–42, 47, 51n2, 51n4, 104 Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). See female circumcision Feminism, xiii, 3, 8, 14, 17–20 Feminist, 3, 13, 17–22, 53 feminist theory, 17, 19–22 “Femme noire,” 14



185

Folly, Anne-Laure, Femmes aux yeux ouverts, 41–42, 143 Francophone Africa, xii, xiii, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 16, 20, 21–22, 24, 48, 31–32, 34–36, 38, 41, 44, 47, 50, 53, 57, 62, 66–67, 76, 83, 91–92, 95, 127, 131, 144, 146, 148, 155, 168–69. See also Africa Francophone Caribbean, xii–xiii, 2–4, 6–10, 16, 18, 20–22, 26–28, 31, 47–50, 53–57, 78–92,115–32, 136–37, 145–46, 155–63. See also Caribbean Francophone women’s writing, 3 French Caribbean. See Francophone Caribbean French Overseas Departments, 4, 80, 155. See also Martinique, Guadeloupe Freyre, Gilberto, Maîtres et esclaves, 81 Gabon, 58–62. See also Francophone Africa Gautier, Arlette, 79, 82 gender, xiii–xiv, 2, 5, 7, 8, 13–15, 17, 20–22, 25, 27–28, 47–48, 50, 58, 62, 72, 74, 127, 131, 143–44, 163–64, 168–69 gender politics. See gender Glissant, Edouard, 2; Le discours antillais 4, 11n3, 80, 85 “Global Multiplicative Identities,” 3, 22 Guadeloupe, 2, 4, 26–28, 54–57, 76–77, 90–91, 130–32, 145, 155–60. See also Caribbean Haiti/Haitian, 2, 4, 6, 9, 47–50, 77–78, 87–90, 115–21, 136–37, 145–46. See also Francophone Caribbean history/historical, xii, 5, 17, 20, 115, 124, 128, 143, 148, 150, 156, 158–59, 161, 163 HIV/AIDS, 10, 32, 41, 95–96, 105–06, 110

186



Index

hooks, bell, 17 Hudson-Weems, Clenora, 8, 19; African Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves, 20; African Womanist Literary Theory, 20 hybridization/hybridity, 4, 7, 114. See also métissage

Lorde, Audre, 17 Louis XIV, 78–79 love, xi–xii, 5, 18, 26, 61, 74, 84, 84, 89, 93n10, 97–99, 102, 104, 110–11, 118, 126, 136, 149–50, 160, 162, 167 lwa (spirit), 10, 87–90. See also Vodou

identity/identities, xii, 7, 10, 16, 21, 50, 60, 62, 66, 114, 116, 120–21, 125–27, 130, 137–38, 142, 147, 155, 163, 168–69 infibulation. See female circumcision insanity. See madness Islam/Islamic, 6, 9, 38; and Polygyny, 65–68, 71, 73, 76, 96, 107. See also Muslim

maani foori (fat ceremony), 3 madness, 10, 130–32 Magloire, Nadine, Le mal de vivre, 48–50, 52n11; Autopsie in vivo: Le sexe mythique, 48, 52n11 male hierarchy. See patriarchy Mali, 14–15, 24–26, 39–42, 147–48. See also Francophone Africa Malian Revolution, 15 manhood, xiii, 4, 43, 53–55, 101 Manigat, Mirlande, tre femme en Haïti hier et aujourd’hui: Le regard des Constitutions, des Lois et de la Société, 78 Marriage, among slaves, 78–81; arranged marriage, 5; civil marriage, 77, 137; common law, 5, 66. See also plaçage; definition of, 4, 5, 11n2, 66, 71, 74; as exchange and economic transaction, xi, 1, 5, 26, 109, 146–150; as ideal life, 27, 85; as institution, xi–xii, xiv, 4–5, 16, 31, 65–66, 114, 129, 142; legal definition of, xii; “marriage of convenience,” 20; myth of, 55; as performance, 9; polygynous marriage. See polygyny and cultural polygyny; as rituals, 1; same-sex marriage, xii, 62–63n6; spiritual marriage, 10, 88–90. See also Vodou; types of, 5 Martinique/Martinican, 2, 4, 6, 54–57, 80–85, 121–30, 155–56, 160–63. See also Francophone Caribbean masculinity. See manhood master, 4, 6, 20, 79, 81–82, 84, 124, 128–29, 159, 162

Juletane, xiii, 130–32, 169 Kaboré, Maurice, To Be a Woman in Burkina Faso, 145 Kipnis, Laura, Against Love: A Polemic, xi Kishwar, Madhu, “Why I Do Not Call Myself a Feminist,” 19 Koran, 6, 15–16, 36–37, 66, 132 Kuoy-Moukoury, Thérèse, Les couples dominos: Aimer dans la différence, 115 lactification, 116, 121. See also Frantz Fanon Larrier, Renée, xiii, 8, 23 law, xii,1, 4–5, 17, 35, 78, 155, 164 Leo-Rhynie, Elsa, 17 lesbian, 61, 62–63n6 Lesel, Livia, Le père oblitéré: Chronique Antillaise d’une illusion, 55, 85 light-skinned. See color, race, and métissage Lionnet, Françoise, 34; Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture, 114 López-Springfield, Consuelo, 17

Index

maternity. See motherhood Mawkward, Christine, Mayote Capécia ou l’aliénation selon Frantz Fanon, 124 ménage à trois, 25, 99 Mernissi, Fatima, Le harem politique: Le prophète et les femmes, 9 métis/métisse. 114–15, 120, 124, 135. See also métissage métissage, xiii, 7–8, 10, 20, 78, 113–16, 120, 123–24, 128, 130, 132–33, 137–38 138n2, 138n9, 143, 168–69. See also hybridity Middle Passage (The), 7 “migrants nus” (naked migrants), 2 milieu. See Class Miller, Christopher, Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa, 14 mission civilisatrice, 2 Mohammed, Patricia, 8, 13, 17, 19 Moitt, Bernard, Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848, 6, 81, 85, 94n20, 121 money, xi. See also economy monogamy, xi, 4, 97 Mother Africa, 24 motherhood, 3, 9, 18, 33, 38, 53–55, 57–58, 60, 62, 82, 154, 168 motherism, 17 mulatto, 83–84, 123–127 mûlatresse, 121, 125–127 Muslim, 6, 9, 38, 66. See also Islam; and polygyny, 65–68, 71, 73, 76, 93n7, 96, 107 mutilation, 18, 23, 31, 47–48. See also female circumcision nation, 10, 141–52, 163–64, 169. See also national culture nation-building, 142, 152 national culture, xi, xiii, 2, 5, 10–11, 19, 21, 143 national identity, 10, 18, 142



187

nationalism. See nation Négritude, 14, 24 neofeminism, 17 Nettleford, Rex, “The Caribbean: Crossroads of the Americas,” 7 Nfah-Abbenyi, Juliana Makuchi, 8 Niger, 7. See also Francophone Africa Nnaemeka, Obioma, 8, 23, 36; Female Circumcision and the Politics of Knowledge: African Women in Imperial Discourses, 35 Nyamwaya, David and David Parkin, Transformations of African Marriage, 7 Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara, 18, 57 Onwurah, Ngozi, Monday’s Girls, 3 Orlando, Valérie, xiii; Of Suffocated Hearts and Tortured Souls, 132 Oyewùmi, Oyèrònké, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourse, 8 Pan-Africanist, 8 partner/partnership, 9, 11, 16, 39, 61, 67, 85, 90, 111, 123, 127, 138, 146, 167, 169 patriarchy, xii, xiv, 6, 8, 13–14, 21, 26, 28, 34, 42, 46–47, 66, 74–75, 90, 118, 122, 127, 134, 145, 150 Patterson, Orlando, The Sociology of Slavery, 128–29 physical intimacy, 9 plaçage or plasaj, 4, 20, 77–78, 80, 92, 93–94n13, 146 plantation, 4, 7, 20, 78–84, 115, 121, 124, 128, 155, 158, 160–62 Plantation America, 7 politics, xii, 1, 7–9, 14, 17–19, 21, 142, 144, 153–54, 163–64, 169 polyandry, xii. See also polygyny polygamy, 67, 95–96, 103. See also polygyny

188



Index

polygyny, xii, 3–5, 10, 66–67, 74–77, 83, 86–87, 91–92, 96, 98–100, 106–08, 110–11 postcolonial, xii–xiii, 2–3, 77, 121, 124, 127–28. See also colonial Practical African Feminism, 146 pregnancy, 22, 26–28, 53–55, 61, 73, 81, 102, 104, 157 pregnant. See pregnancy procreation, 39, 42 property, xi, 1, 4–5, 20, 79, 81, 84, 129 race, xiv, 3, 5, 14, 17, 19–21, 114–115, 121, 124–29, 131–32, 137–38. See also color Rawiri, Angèle, Fureurs et cris de femmes, 9 religion, xii, 1, 5, 8–10, 14–15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 168. See Christianity and Islam religion and polygyny, 65–70, 72–73, 75–79, 81, 84–90, 92, 96–97, 101–02, 109, 111 religious beliefs and identity. See Religion Renan, Ernest, “What is a Nation?”, 141 Rowley, Michelle, 8, 17, 20 Sabbah, Fatna Aït, La femme dans l’inconscient musulman, 133 Sadji, Abdoulaye, Nini, mûlatresse du Sénégal, 10, 125–27 Schwarz-Bart, Simone, 23, 56–57, 138–39n9, 155; Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle, 7, 143, 156–160 self, 16; individual self, 3, 10, 72, 129; married self, 10 Sembène, Ousmane, 143; Moolade, 3, 36–38; Traumatisme de la femme face à la polygamie, 106; Xala, 106–09, 146, 150–52

Senegal, 4, 31–38, 67–76, 95–111, 125–27, 147–48, 150–55. See also Francophone Africa Senegalese. See Senegal Senghor, Léopold Sedar, 14, 24 sexual desire. See sexuality sexual fulfillment, 39, 48, 61 sexuality, 1, 9, 14, 20–21, 31–32, 34–35, 38–45, 47–50, 53, 55, 61, 116, 119–20, 128–29, 146, 152, 159 sexual intercourse, 9, 53 sexual impotency, 106, 109, 111, 151. See also Xala Sissoko, Oumar Cheick, Finzan, 31–36 slave. See slavery slavery, xiii, 4, 7, 10, 20, 23, 38, 78–83, 86, 90, 102, 111, 114, 121, 128–29, 155, 158–59, 162–63 social identity, 10 social status, 10, 76–77; and polygyny, 101–02, 106–09 social, xi–xii, 1, 4–5, 7–9, 16–20, 22, 33, 36–37, 57, 84, 109, 115, 117, 122–23, 128, 130, 136, 142–43, 146–48, 150, 152–53, 155, 162–63, 168–69 society, 13, 15–16, 34–35, 86, 99, 104, 116–17, 161, 169 status quo, 9, 15, 46, 82, 92, 91–92, 97, 106, 120, 168 Smith, Barbara, 17 Smith, Michael, West Indian Family Structure, 6 Tate, Claudia, Allegories of Political Desire, 143 Thiam, Awa, La parole aux négresses, 7, 13–14, 22–26, 35, 38–41 Tong, Rosemary, Feminist Thought, 18 Toumson, Roger, Le mythe du métissage, 115

Index

tradition, 5, 13, 15, 26, 28, 31–35, 37, 42, 48, 57, 62, 66–68, 70–73, 131–33, 136, 138, 148, 151–52, 154, 167–68 Traoré, Abibatou, 10; Sidagamie, 10, 76, 95–106, 111 Trouillot, Ertha Pascal, 146 Ukadike, Frank, Black African Cinema, 34, 44, 154 union, 5, 6, 9, 26, 70, 77–78. See also marriage and partnership UNAIDS/WHO, 95, 112n1 United Nations, Commission on Status of Women, 32 Vergès, Françoise, Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Métissage, 113 virginity, 31, 38, 47, 53–54, 102–03, 116, 150, 163 Vodou 10, 87–90, 94n22. See also lwa and Haiti



189

Walcott, Derek, 113 Walker, Alice, 20, 35–36; Womanism, 8–9, 17, 20–21; Warrior Mask, 35; Possessing the Secret Joy, 35–36 Warner-Vieyra, Myriam, Juletane, 10, 130–32 wedding, 9–10, 33, 68, 77, 85, 106, 108–09, 137, 150 West Africa. See Francophone Africa Western culture, 3, 8, 18 Western Feminism, 9, 17–19 Western feminist, 8, 23, 36 Wing, Katherine, Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader, 3, 22 womanhood, 38, 53, 58, 70 womanism, 8, 9, 17, 19, 21, 36. See also feminism womanist, 8, 13 women movements, 17 women’s rights, 35 Xala. See Sembène Ousmane



About the Author

Cécile Accilien is assistant professor of French and Francophone literatures and cultures at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. She is coeditor and contributor to two volumes, Revolutionary Freedoms: A History of Survival, Strength and Imagination in Haiti (Caribbean Studies Press, 2006) with Jessica Adams and Elmide Méléance and Just Below South: Intercultural Performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. South (University of Virginia Press, 2007) with Jessica Adams and Michael Bibler.

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