His Only Wife

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It is quite common for certain cultures to have this tension between women since the men are presented as this golden prize.

I didn’t like how she ignored Muna’s position as the person her husband had been involved with first. I seriously pick this book up simply because she was narrating it, and what a treat I got for doing so. This produces undue pressure for the Ganyo children (Eli, Fred, Richard, and Yaya) as well as financial and emotional abuse for those they deem beneath them.Initially I thought His Only Wife might be reminiscent of Lola Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, but that notion is quickly disavowed with Afi's arrival in Accra. Medie also depicts the sexist attitudes of those in Afi and the Ganyos' circle (a friend of husband says this: “man wasn’t made to be with one woman. When she does meet Eli she immediately (albeit rather inexplicably for the reader) falls in love with him – but this has the effect of making her unwilling to go along with the pretense of being second choice.

From there on, the story takes on a Rebecca like tone because her husband, Eli, is seeing another woman.I think the scene Peace Adzo Medie does provide is well-crafted, but just too late in a relatively short novel to make up for the many questions we have about this other relationship. This is my first book that is based in Ghana and I loved recognising the locations and cuisines mentioned in the book. Her father is dead, her mother struggles to support her, her large extended family neglects her, and she is not gifted enough at schoolwork to get into a university. She must be the only wife, no matter what happens to the woman who was there first and her sick child.

His Only Wife is a breezy beach read about a poor Ghanian woman who marries a wealthy, handsome man. An intriguing and thought-provoking sentence opens the novel His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie and demands an undivided reader’s attention. Aki and Eli are virtual strangers with an arranged marriage because Eli’s mother and siblings want to pry him away from his Liberian girlfriend Muna and their young daughter Ivy. Instead, Afi and Elikem’s marriage is a transactional arrangement implemented by their parents in a bid to free Elikem from the "𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡 𝙗𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙜𝙚" of another woman. As it is, this is a good story about contemporary polygamous relationships and arranged marriages with modern couples in West Africa and one young woman’s courageous journey to discovering her boundaries with love and relationships.Throughout the novel there are mouthwatering descriptions of yam stews, bustling markets and beautiful homes and apartments in Accra, but best of all it's all underpinned by a warm coming-of-age-tale mixed in with a subtle takedown of the patriarchy.