I’m trying to say that women are orphans. They have a father but don’t have a mother. They have a god but don’t have a goddess. They’re alone in the world surrounded by fire. Ah, if only we had a goddess in heaven!

The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy is a fictional book that could (and should) be studied instead of being read for pleasure. It is a story of love and heartbreak, but at the same time it is an essay on feminism and femininity, on the role of women in society, on tradition and on colonialism.

Rami has been married to Tony, the chief of police, for twenty years. She is tired of her husband’s absence and knows he has a mistress, so she is determined to meet her and put her in her place. After asking around she finally finds Ju, and when she meets her, she finds out that she is not just a simple mistress, but Tony’s second family. They have kids and a home together. And that’s not it, Rami soon realizes Tony has not one but four other families. Angry, she plots her revenge, and decides to present these women in society as Tony’s wives. Therefore, her family becomes a polygamous family and she becomes the first wife. Polygamy is not legal in Mozambique but it is a culturally accepted practice, however, only the first wife -or legal wife- has legal rights and the other wives are “protected” by tradition. Now Rami’s enemies are her allies, a new camaraderie emerges but there’s still a lot of friction and jealousy between them. Together they’ll find a way to survive in an extremely traditional society.

Rami is constantly fighting with society’s -or even her own- concept of womanhood. Everything she knows shatters when her life doesn’t turn out how she expected -being the perfect wife for the perfect husband- and she has to reshape her way of understanding the world and her place as mother, wife and woman. To show the main character’s fight, Chiziane writes beautiful passages of what it means to be a woman in this man-dominated world with contrasting views from different characters. These passages make the book a slow and delightful read, but somehow, at moments, I felt the plot moved too fast. Jumping from one scene to the other; I felt there were some missing  connections between certain moments in the story.

Besides getting a completely different perspective of womanhood -but at the same time finding we have so many things in common-, what I loved about this book is how multilayered this perspective was.  For example, through the voices of the other wives, Chiziane shows the deeply different views between the diverse ethnic groups of the country. Also, the whole book focuses on the fight between tradition and imposed institutions, like how Catholicism, introduced by the Portuguese during colonial times, overlaps with millenary traditions like polygamy, and how this affects the role of women in the family.

Finally, I also found remarkable how despite the cultural “chaos”, Chiziane doesn’t let us forget that humans need to love and be loved. The characters are deeply humane and it is easy to relate to their sufferings and longings.

About Paulina Chiziane

Paulina Chiziane was born in a small town close to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, in 1955. In 1990 she published her first novel, Balada do Amor ao Vento, and she became the first woman in Mozambique to publish a book. The first wife: A tale of polygamy won the José Craveirinha Prize, the most important literary price in Mozambique.

Other books written by Mozambican women:

We only recommend books we’ve read

Which book do you recommend? Please let us know in the comment section!

Mozambican initiatives and projects that support and empower girls and women

Forum Mulher

Forum Muhler work to boosting economic and socio-cultural transformations from a feminist perspective, strengthen the actions and political influence of its members and Mozambican civil society and to collaborate with the movements national and international social networks. Through three areas of action (information, advocacy and formation) they engage in various thematic areas, such as: women’s political participation and movement building, women’s economic autonomy, sexual and reproductive rights and gender-based violence. One recent activity was the launch of the Platform Women, Elections and Governance, a mechanism that aims to boost the inclusion and participation of women in the different stages of the electoral process, taking into account the degree of involvement and challenges faced by them in these events