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The Woman Who Married a Woman in Igboland

February/March 2025Nigeriavol9-no1
Woman

Illustration by Charles Owen / THE REPUBLIC.

THE MINISTRY OF GENDER X SEXUALITY

The Woman Who Married a Woman in Igboland

In a culture that reveres procreation, and where boys are considered more valuable than girls, what happens when a woman marries another woman to fulfil her societal obligation of childbearing?
Woman

Illustration by Charles Owen / THE REPUBLIC.

THE MINISTRY OF GENDER X SEXUALITY

The Woman Who Married a Woman in Igboland

In a culture that reveres procreation, and where boys are considered more valuable than girls, what happens when a woman marries another woman to fulfil her societal obligation of childbearing?

It was a late evening in July 2018 when I received the strange news from my mother. 

 She began the phone call with the usual ‘hello’. But beyond that initial greeting, the conversation carried none of the warmth or ease one might expect in a call between mother and son. 

Mummy: ‘Hello’
Me: ‘Mummy’
Mummy: ‘Angela alụọla nwanyị’ (Angela has married a wife). 

After an uncomfortably long pause—one deliberately created by my mother to help me digest the news—my mother euphemistically added: ‘She just came back with the new wife.’ Her attempt to lighten the mood failed, though, as that pause—the silence around speaking of the subject—extended into months, and then again into years. 

Woman-woman marriage in southeast Nigeria is an age-long tradition, and involves a woman marrying another woman and fulfilling all the marriage rites of a conventional union between a man and woman. It presumably predates colonial times, though its earliest documentation was by British colonial officer, Amaury Talbot, between 1914 and 1915. However, its practice is not unique to the Igbo people of the South East alone, and also occurs among the Kalabari people in the Niger Delta region. The practice is also found among several groups in Ghana, including the Akan, Fante, Lobi, Baga and Nankani. 

Although Angela married my uncle, Eleazar Azubuike, who is now in his 80s, nearly 30 years ago, they do not have their own children despite trying. Believing she had passed the biological age of childbearing, marrying a woman offered Angela the best culturally accepted alternative to having her own offspring. 

I remember seeing Oluchi, Angela’s wife, who is from Abatete in Anambra State, weeks later when I visited my parents in my hometown of Umuala Nsulu, in Abia State. She was in her early 20s, always cheerful and ready to greet people with a wide smile. Yet, as you can imagine, her presence in the family often came with a touchable mist of unease, a strangeness, a lingering tension that was, at all costs, avoided during family meetings and ceremonial gatherings. 

As someone whose understanding of Igbo woman-woman marriage was limited before the union, I was curious. Despite our closeness, though, I lacked the courage to approach Angela directly with my questions.  

Why did she take this route of marrying a wife? What do the cultural intricacies of this practice look like? Who would be responsible for fathering her children? More importantly—is this culture a symptom of the deeply rooted patriarchal system in Igboland that debases women, or does it empower them by giving them the privilege of performing and fulfilling practices historically reserved for men in Igbo society? 

THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PATRIARCHY IN IGBOLAND

Southeast Nigeria—a region of over 36 million people occupying a landmass of about 42,000 km²—is predominantly Igbo in population. The people of this region are known for their high levels of entrepreneurialism, with social business traditions from Igba Boi to Igba Ọsọ Ahịa having created many successful businesspeople. Yet, the group is generally considered distinctly patriarchal, with traditions that value their sons over their daughters. 

Igbo society is not alone in this regard. The concept of a patriarchal framework, which still remains the determining factor of many modern institutions, even in the Global North, is as old as the evolution of the Agricultural Age, approximately 10–12 thousand years ago. 

The theory that agriculture contributed to patriarchy suggests that as farming became essential for survival, male children were preferred for their perceived physical strength, while women were confined to domestic roles. 

However, this theory of agriculture being the trigger for societal transitions to patriarchy has been challenged by researchers like Angela Saini, author of The Patriarchs. ‘The problem [with agriculture and its role in forming a patriarchal society] is that women have always done agricultural work,’ she wrote in a May 2023 article on BBC. 

In fact, up until the present day, the agricultural sector has been significantly driven by women’s input, with women accounting for over 37 per cent of the workforce in rural agriculture globally, according to data from the United Nations. 

Whatever turned human society towards patriarchy, and at whatever point it did, it no doubt became the bedrock of communities, tribes, and nations—and, for centuries, was the foundation upon which institutions were built. Hence, social and income disparity was created as a result of this world order. During the British Industrial Revolution, for instance—a period of rapid innovation and economic transformation, which occurred between 1760 and 1840—income disparities between male and female workers varied between one-third and two-thirds. 

While significant progress has been made in areas of gender equality and in dismantling the patriarchal system that held back the development of the girl child, some societies, like the Igbo society, are still considered largely patriarchal.   

The superiority culture places on men over women in Igbo society can be found in proverbial sayings like ‘nwanyị anaghị awa ọjị’, a cultural norm that forbids a woman from breaking kola nuts during gatherings. In fact, this culture forbids a woman from even being ‘shown’ the kola nut, a rite in which the kola nut is displayed to every man present in a gathering before the eldest man goes on to break it. But gender discrimination in Igbo societies goes deeper than simply disapproving of women performing functions like iwa ọjị in gatherings where men are present.  

Traditionally, although Igbo women have always farmed, whether in their father’s house or that of their husband, it is assumed that they do not know the land boundaries. Their opinions, in cases of land disputes, regardless of how many years they have cultivated the said land or how old they are, are rarely sought after. This culture is justified with the simple saying, ‘nwanyị anaghị ama oke ala’ (a woman does not where the boundary of a land is), often reinforced with another, ‘nwanyị anaghị eje n’oke ala’ (a woman does not go to determine land boundaries). In fact, as a culturally accepted rule, a woman does not partake in land discussions.   

This is perhaps reinforced by the long-held belief that women are not allowed to own land in Igboland. But it is not only in land ownership that this discrimination exists. During the sharing of the possessions of a deceased father, women are not allowed to partake in the inheritance. Hence, no clearer way is the patriarchal nature of Igbo society manifested than through the emphasis placed on the primacy of male children. Not only is family lineage traced through men, but inheritance is also only shared among male children, even to this day, except in Igbo communities like Abiriba and Ohafia, which are considered matriarchal.   

Moreover, a married woman without a male child—even if she contributes in no small measure to building her husband’s wealth—risks losing everything to her husband’s relatives when he passes away. Egodi Uchendu, a professor of history and international studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka wrote in her research paper Woman-Woman Marriage in Igboland: ‘The overriding goal for woman-woman marriage in Igboland is for women to have children through other women for inheritance purposes.’ 

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Illustration by Charles Owen / THE REPUBLIC.

ANGELA’S STORY

In mid-September 2024, I sat down with Angela in her sitting room to discuss woman-woman marriage for the second time since she married a wife. The window louvres were pulled up, and the curtains parted to allow some light. The sun was setting gently, and the yellowish rays streamed in with small, suspended particles dazzling in the direction of the rays. 

Chidinma, her beautiful five-year-old daughter (Oluchi’s biological daughter), jumped around her, fiddling with Angela’s hair until she calmly requested that Chidinma exit the sitting room. It was after Chidinma reluctantly left that a tense mist filled the room. 

‘Nna, kedu?’ (How are you?) Angela greeted me with her usual fondness. After we were finished with the pleasantries, I asked her as calmly as I could: ‘Why did you marry a wife?’  

‘I married a wife into my husband’s home because I do not have my own child. It is important that a woman marries another if she does not have her own offspring,’ she told me. 

 Angela was born in 1968, amid the turmoil of the Nigerian Civil War, in Nvosi, Isiala Ngwa. The Ngwa clan, the largest in Abia State, is one of the few communities in Igboland where the tradition of woman-to-woman marriage is practised. ‘It’s important that a family has an heir to continue the family lineage. And in a situation where a wife is not able to bear children, she is allowed by custom to marry a wife who can bear children in the family’s name,’ Angela said. 

I noticed keenly her use of the phrase ‘ọ dị mkpa’ (it’s important) throughout our conversation whenever she talked of the connection between children and the continuity of family lineage. The significance of having children in traditional Igbo society cannot be overstated. In Igbo culture, children are regarded as gifts from the gods—a divine blessing bestowed upon the living by the ancestors. It is deemed a responsibility to procreate, and this expectation is demanded, and sometimes enforced, by collective societal efforts. The importance that Igbo society places on parents to procreate has been widely researched and documented by scholars like Professor Uchendu.  

Around midnight, one Friday in early December 2024, I emailed Uchendu, seeking an interview for this story. She replied a few hours later, and although she informed me that she was attending the African Studies Association (ASA) conference in the United States and wouldn’t be available, I found immense value in the YouTube link she shared: a 2023 documentary titled, ‘Where Women Marry Wives’.  

Aside from the documentary, Uchendu has written extensively about the Igbo practice of woman-woman marriage, exploring and providing insights on some of the critical questions surrounding it. She wrote in ‘Woman-Woman Marriage’ published in March 2019: 

The essence of marriage in Igboland in the pre-colonial and early colonial periods was not necessarily to unite two lovers—though this could be possible—but primarily to establish a legal basis for procreation, which, given its importance, the Igbo regarded as an obligation to the ancestors. This was based on the understanding that those born owe the debt of begetting others. 

It was this obligation to the ancestors that Angela was on a mission to fulfil. But there’s more. 

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WHY WOMAN-TO-WOMAN MARRIAGE?

In Angela’s world—and the worlds of many Igbo women like Angela—the inability to fulfil the societal expectation of bearing children comes with layers of discrimination and stigma. Her childlessness became a source of constant torment—a scar she bore silently for years as the weight of cultural expectations pressed heavily on her shoulders. 

Angela fought back tears as she recounted the years of victimization and prejudice she had endured throughout her marriage with Eleazar. The mockery was sometimes subtle, woven into casual daily conversations among her peers. At other times, it was cruel and direct, aimed like arrows at her deepest insecurities. Disparaging words like ‘Nwanyi Agaah’—barren woman—became labels she couldn’t escape. 

Living in the heart of a large extended family compound, Angela’s pain was amplified by the proximity of those who wielded their words as weapons. Family gatherings and everyday interactions became arenas of subtle, and sometimes overt, humiliation. ‘It’s not my fault that I was not able to give birth to my own child,’ Angela said, her voice cracking under the weight of her emotions. 

But the most cutting insult—the one that stayed with her like a wound that refused to heal—was the accusation that she had ‘defecated’ all the children she ever carried. The taunt implied that every pregnancy she might have had ended in the toilet—a graphic and humiliating metaphor that reduced her to something less than human in the eyes of those who uttered it. Angela said: 

There’s nothing I’ve not been told. What kind of insult have I not received? They said I was only eating and defecating my babies. Although my husband did not agree, I went ahead and married a wife with my own money because I saw the need. In many cases, children are more important to women in the family than they are to men. So, I used my own money to take a wife, and through her, I now have a child to carry on my name. If I die today, I have a successor who will continue the family lineage. 

But for Angela, simply having a child was not enough—it had to be a male child. Despite already adopting a daughter in September 2009, she still felt the need for a son, one who would ensure her husband’s lineage did not end with her.   

She referred to it as ‘evuru akpoche uzor’, a situation where the continuity of a family lineage is halted because of the absence of a male child. For example, she said: ‘A woman who has only given birth to female children may marry a wife to bear male children that will keep the family name. Even one who has only one son can decide to marry a wife so that the family can expand, especially if they have extensive property.’ 

Inheritance was a major factor. Since traditionally, wives cannot inherit the properties of their husbands, and neither are their daughters considered, a wife can only partake in the sharing of inheritance if she has a son. Hence, married women, to ensure there is something for them when their husband passes, indulge in this practice, enabling them to bring in a new wife—one that can bear male children—and automatically making them eligible to inherit their husband’s property through their sons. 

Aside from the continuity of family lineage and the distribution of inheritance, there are other reasons why women marry women in Igboland. In another distant village of Amakama, in Umuahia, the capital of Abia State, I spoke with a man whose deceased mother married a wife during her old age. 

‘My mother married normally [a male husband] but later married a wife that would look after her in her old age,’ the man, who pleaded anonymity, told me. This was possible, according to him, because his mother had made her own wealth. 

‘In most cases, women who married fellow women were either barren or had passed childbearing age without begetting a male child,’ writes Uchendu. ‘Others were wealthy and influential women who married fellow women as a means of celebrating their wealth and for economic gains.’ 

Uchendu noted that woman-woman marriage was popular in the second half of the 19th century and was used as a mark of wealth and for economic exploitation. 

The story of Ahebi Ugbabe, who ruled Enugu-Ezike in southeast Nigeria and is often described as the only female king during colonial Nigeria, exemplifies how wealth and influence enabled woman-to-woman marriages. Ugbabe not only married wives for herself but also for her male servants. 

According to Professor Nwando Achebe, the award-winning historian and author of The Female King of Colonial Nigeria, a book about Ahebi Ugbabe, this act of marrying wives, transformed King Ugbabe into a female husband and elevated her standing in society. 

‘The marriages could be interpreted as the female king performing a type of economic and social class and status that was akin to the status that men who were married to more than one wife attained,’ Achebe wrote. 

But Angela told me that male promiscuity could also be an additional reason why some women marry another woman on behalf of their husbands. She said: 

There are women whose husbands have a much higher sexual urge than they do and constantly feel the need to be with a woman. If a wife notices this and does not want her husband to be ‘sleeping around’ and possibly contracting a disease that he could bring into the family, she may decide to marry a wife and give her to the husband. 

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HOW A WOMAN MARRIES A WOMAN IN IGBOLAND

Since traditionally and historically, marriage in Igboland has been more of a societal arrangement than about the two individuals involved, the practice involves the active participation of both families throughout the various processes and their absolute consent and agreement. 

This is no different in woman-woman marriages. In fact, all rites and rituals observed during a traditional woman-man marriage are observed in woman-woman marriages. 

Agbamakwụkwọ (a traditional wedding) is an elaborate and often expensive ceremony in Igboland. It involves several stages, including: ikụ aka n’ ụzọ, the formal introduction, where the families of the prospective couple meet for the first time;  ijụ ajụjụ, a background investigation, during which each family thoroughly examines the other’s lineage to uncover any history of mental illness, theft, or other undesirable traits; and ịkwụ ụgwọ isi nwanyi, the payment of the bride price. Onyinyechi, who accompanied Angela when she married a wife—and also claimed to have attended several such weddings—told me: 

The rites are the same for both men and women. You’ll be given a list, just like in a normal marriage, and you’re expected to fulfil everything on the list. I was given a list for both men and women in the community. The items on the list include rice, wrappers, drinks, ingredients, and snuff. After you have fulfilled all items on the list, the wife will be given, and you’ll hold the woman, together with your husband [or a male representative] and the village head of your community, and the marriage will be blessed. 

Illustration by Charles Owen / THE REPUBLIC.

CHALLENGES OF WOMAN-WOMAN MARRIAGE

Angela’s husband, a retired customary court judge, fiercely objected to her taking a wife, perhaps due to his position as an elder in an orthodox church. Yet he told me that there was little he could have done to stop the union. 

‘Even if a man refuses to support his wife to marry a woman, she can still go ahead if she has the backing of her in-laws,’ he told me after my discussion with his wife ended. Now in his 80s, Eleazar is well-versed in the customs and offered additional insights that would have certainly eluded me. 

‘A woman cannot marry a wife without presenting a male relation to whom the wife would be handed over,’ he explained, gesturing for me to exit the sitting room into the front yard, where we could have a deeper conversation away from Angela’s ears. 

‘Is it the woman that will impregnate the wife?’ he asked rhetorically. 

Coming out towards the front yard, the sky had already darkened, and our path was partially illuminated by the moon struggling to rear its head from the clouds. 

‘But since you disagreed with the union, who will be responsible for fathering the offspring with the wife?’ I asked this as carefully as I could because I had heard from credible sources that he was not excommunicated from the church when his wife married Oluchi—only on the basis that he vowed not to be intimate with her. 

‘The tradition allows her to choose male cohorts for the wife. This can be within the family or even outside the village,’ he said calmly. 

This follows another Igbo tradition of ‘male daughters’. In the case of male daughters, fathers, for various reasons—including begetting a son to continue the family lineage—perform cultural rites to prevent their daughters from marrying. Children born through this cultural arrangement belong to the father of the male daughters. If they are male, they are entitled to partake in the inheritance. This practice exists because a man cannot lay claim to a child if he has not fulfilled the marriage rites of the child’s mother. Hence, in the case of male daughters, who are not permitted to marry after their father has fulfilled some traditional rites, and also in the case of a wife, who is already married to the female husband, their male cohort cannot lay claim to any offspring they father with these sets of women. 

But this cultural allowance is one that has sparked significant opposition to the practice of woman-woman marriage. 

‘Female husbands in Igbo land served more of the interest of patriarchy than contended against it,’ was how Dr Kenneth Chukwuemeka Nwoko of the Department of History and International Relations at Redeemer’s University in Ogun State, put it in his March 2012 research paper, ‘Female Husbands in Igbo Land: Southeast Nigeria’. 

Moreover, through the polygamous lens of typical Igbo society—one that treats marriages not as equal partnerships but as opportunities for men to flex their economic status by ‘acquiring’ more wives—the adoption of woman-woman marriage by women is not a step toward equality but rather reaffirms the subjugation of women by pitting them against one another based on the superiority of one’s financial or influential attainment. 

Throughout my conversation with both Angela and her husband, they rarely mentioned Oluchi, and they avoided any direct questions about her. I relied on the accounts of villagers to gain a sense of what transpired regarding the abrupt end of the union between Angela and Oluchi. 

One early morning in mid-2020, Oluchi suddenly disappeared with all her belongings. After several hours of searching, she was found to have taken refuge in the house of the village head, pleading to be taken back to her people. 

‘Nwanyị ilu nwanyị bụ omenala ochie. Ọ bụghị ihe dị mfe n’oge a,’ (Woman-woman marriage is a very old tradition. It is not one that is easy to practice today), Ezinwanyi, a villager whose house is adjacent to that of the village head and who was present throughout the commotion, told me. 

According to Ezinwanyi, an arrangement was made, and Oluchi was escorted back to her family.

In a society where 98 percent of the population is Christian—a religion that abhors all forms of marriage outside the traditional union between a man and a woman—one can begin to imagine how difficult it was for Oluchi, as young as she was, to fit in. Beyond religious opposition, Nigeria’s legal framework also criminalizes same-sex relationships. While woman-woman marriage in Igbo culture is not thought of as a homosexual relationship—Angela’s husband told me it was ‘aru’ (taboo) for a woman to sleep with another—the broader legal and social climate in Nigeria (whereby homosexual relations are criminalized), ultimately, legitimizes discrimination against any arrangement that deviates from the conventional heteronormative understanding of marriage. 

Another question that should be critically examined pertains the circumstances surrounding Oluchi’s life that made her agree to the union. I learned she was young, with no formal education and, unsurprisingly, from a very poor background. 

And what of the daughter that Oluchi left behind—one who, as customs dictate, she has no claim to? 

Wouldn’t Chidinma, when she gets older, ask: who’s my mother? She calls Angela ‘Mummy’, but for how long will she remain unaware of the circumstances surrounding her birth? What of her biological father? For now, Eleazar is the only father she knows, but it won’t be surprising when she eventually pops the question: who’s my real father? If Chidinma’s biological mother was not entirely accepted—due to contemporary realities such as Christianity—will Chidinma be accepted? Will she not face discrimination and prejudice from her peers? 

In the documentary Uchendu shared with me, Priscilla Obianyido, a wife to a deceased female husband, confessed that she wouldn’t marry a female husband again if the situation were presented. Reacting in the documentary, Uchendu reflected said: 

It’s a life of servitude. Why would we subject our fellow women to this? Today, we are talking about equality, trying to wrest some power from the male members of our society. Now, why are we creating inequalities? That’s the way I look at it. I personally don’t see its place in our modern world. If in the past it solved problems, we have [now] outgrown that stage. 

While Angela believes the tradition should continue, arguing that, ‘since there are women who cannot give birth, it is better for them to marry a wife who can,’ her perspective does not account for the emotional complexities and evolving societal perspectives on marriage and family. With modern alternatives like in vitro fertilization and adoption, the practice continues to exist at the intersection of tradition and changing social norms, raising questions about its relevance in today’s world⎈

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