Because of love, Maryam wore the veils and the hijab. She tried hard. Covering up was not her thing. Maryam knew that she had to respect her husband’s culture, but she wished his family had bothered to try to make her feel welcome. They always seemed to find ways to remind her that she was an outsider. So, she stopped trying.
One day after a perceived slight, Maryam removed her husband’s flock of Ladoum rams and his cows from their home to another piece of land he owned. Then she got landscapers to turn the grounds at home into manicured gardens with rare exotic flower beds. Her husband didn’t care. But his sisters shook their heads and said that his foreign wife didn’t understand that a man’s wealth was to be on display, with his expensive animals in the compound.
Foreign? Maryam shook her head. Just not being Hausa was foreign to them. Outside of her in-laws, her life was good. Maryam often splurged on interiors and entertaining her friends from Lagos. She flew in the highbrow. She had uniformed housekeepers and wanted her home to feel as comfortable as any deluxe resort. All her sheets and fluffy towels she got from Harrods whenever she was in London.
She loved the store so much that she got all the other household items from there down to the British made orange and bergamot soaps and lotions she put in all the guest rooms. She served her guests Darjeeling tea and shortbread on fancy China.
Maryam hadn’t gotten pregnant and the Sneering Ones murmured loudly about homes needing to be filled with loud boisterous children. The couple had been so focused on business these last few years. Maryam had been tapped to open and head up the American accounting giant’s regional office. She then got pregnant with a son. Two years later, a daughter arrived. Both times Maryam went to London to give birth. Now their family was complete. They spoke to their children in Hausa, Igbo and then English. That’s when the resentment started to become palpable. Her husband was getting more successful, and his sisters took to calling Maryam names behind her back. Sometimes it was ‘Abroad Wife’ because of the frequent trips to America. Other times it was ‘Degree Wife,’ because she had been so proud of her education. Maryam knew what pained them the most was her unwillingness to completely let go of her Igbo heritage and the fact that she and her husband also spoke to the kids in Igbo was grating to them. They mounted the pressure for her husband to take another wife. But she wasn’t worried. Her man didn’t have a roving eye. He was too busy making a fortune. At home, he was as tactile and as romantic as he was years ago when they were in the university. ‘It’s not their fault. It’s our culture. Blame me if you must.’ He loved his sisters, but he couldn’t control them. When they were alone, he would play some Michael Jackson and insist they dance. Maryam was pretty. She knew it. But she wasn’t a spring chicken anymore.
And then just like that, one day her husband delivered the horror of horrors. He said he was taking a second wife. She felt like her world had collapsed when he sat her down imminent. Everything slowed down. She heard the wind blowing and the tree leaves rustling. She heard the birds chirping loudly in her aviary. She heard the words. She knew what they meant, but she still couldn’t comprehend. It wasn’t April Fool’s Day. He wasn’t joking. Her husband was cool and calm but deadly serious. And then she screamed. ‘What the hell. I moved here for you. I even converted for you. I have given you children,’ She wailed arms flailing. ‘All on your schedule.’ Her husband remained calm and it infuriated her more.
‘It is just something I need to do. And it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. You know that. I just need to marry again.’ As if it would make things any better, he added: ‘it will be a very lowkey thing.’ He didn’t seem out of love with her. Instead, he doted on her with more intensity. They made love even more frequently. Their bodies yearning for each other like they had been at university. She went from being confused and angry to just accepting her fate.
None of her friends thought it was a big deal. Her in-laws welcomed the new bride with open arms and treated her like she was the ‘uwargida,’ the first and only wife. The woman was deferential to Maryam, referring to her simply as Hajiya. In Maryam’s eyes she was a bitch. There was no kinship. The second wife stopped working and immediately got pregnant.
Maryam had to admit that her husband’s second wife wasn’t a bad person, and she was easy on the eyes. Her ambition was only to snag a good husband. The woman had three children in quick succession. Then their husband announced that he was getting married again. This time to an aristocrat’s daughter from Kano. Maryam wasn’t surprised when that wife got pregnant immediately.
Maryam without warning flew to London for some time alone. She just wanted some quiet. And while walking around, she began looking at houses and on impulse she put in a bid and then bought a small three-bedroom house using funds from her husband’s foreign bank account. At forty- something her husband now had six children and it didn’t look like that would be it. But he was richer than they both could have ever imagined. And she wanted to cash out now.
Growing up with polygamy was toxic, but her man insisted it needn’t be. As they luxuriated in a bubble bath in her London townhouse, he told his love that her place in his life was secure.
‘You know you are the love of my life. And you always will be. My gap-toothed princess.’ Maryam was not totally convinced. ‘Of course, it’s not bad for you. You get to sleep with other women and revel in all the power patriarchy conveys on you!’
‘Ha!’ he howled. ‘You see why they call you Degree Wife? And then you get annoyed! ‘And they are not just other women, they are your sister wives.’ Maryam hissed.