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BAI KUKE, CAMEROON – Frida Nembe, 61, was an enthusiastic eloquent and you will wise lady in the Bai Kuke, a village of the Balong tribe when you look at the southwestern Cameroon. In the past, she turned into a beneficial “women husband.”
She says you to definitely their just youngster with her later spouse died, and she is no longer able to get pregnant. Very she became a spouse herself, a lady spouse.
“While i got partnered on my later spouse, I offered birth to at least one youngster which passed away a few years later,” Nembe says. “It is ergo that i hitched my partner thus one she’s going to sustain a child who’ll inherit my personal property when i die.”
Nembe claims she performed the traditional rites one to a guy do perform to help you wed a woman to help you get married their particular partner, who was out-of an alternative Balong town.
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“We visited their unique town, found their particular someone and you can repaid her done dowry,” she claims. “I quickly produced her back at my house to call home beside me and you may sustain youngsters inside my identity.”
She states you to definitely Balong lifestyle lets feminine to help you marry to other ladies in instances when women are bare otherwise haven’t any people. Even women that need a lot more college students however they are struggling to conceive all of them may wed most other feminine.
Nembe states your feminine adhere to traditional gender spots. The brand new childbearing lady will get the latest partner regarding the marriage, since the almost every other woman acts as a woman partner.
“My wife are designed to stay static in the house, generate children for my situation, help me in cleaning and farmwork,” she states. “This woman is designed to serve me particularly a spouse would be to serve their husband, and i usually subsequently dump their unique for example a husband would be to dump their partner. I am supposed to capture obligations from their demands.”
Each other wives and their female husbands have the independence at this point men beyond your relationship. But Nembe claims one a respectful wife shall be choosy in the new dudes which she schedules also most probably throughout the them with their unique female spouse, who’ll become the “father” of any youngsters one originate from their unique wife’s extramarital relationships.
“Female partnered similar to this feel the independence to determine people guy that they appreciate and get expecting,” she states. “But, these types of feminine will not need to give the fresh guys they bed thereupon he’s accountable for brand new pregnancy, in case they become pregnant, as the youngster will become the infant from their own [female] husband.”
She claims any man whom states become dad off a baby have to contend with so it heritage. People grab the surnames of its feminine fathers.
“In the event that for any reason a man turns up to say that including a child are their,” she claims, “they have to spend right back the entire dowry of your lady concerned.”
“My wife came to domestic and you will explained she’s going to perhaps not manage to stay with myself,” she states. “She informed she wants to return to their own some body. I let her wade, however, I don’t think the woman is still my wife since the she has stopped being in my house, and this https://brightwomen.net/heta-ryska-kvinnor/ woman is delivering children at random inside her village.”
Nembe states one to she will not thought those individuals youngsters since hers because the their own former partner provided delivery on them beyond their domestic having unfamiliar guys. She says she regrets marrying their.
“I will provides examined very well prior to getting partnered to that girl,” Nembe states from inside the a minimal tone. “I should has gotten partnered to a lady that will value myself at each and every considering time. I feel dissapointed about falling into incorrect hands.”