His Only Wife

Afi Tekple’s arranged marriage to Eli Ganyo places her character at the Intersection of Tradition and Personal Desire. Afi agrees to marry Eli, a man she does not know, because she wants to please her mother and repay Aunty Ganyo for her kindness to her family. Following tradition makes her feel as if she is “balancing [the] two families like a basin of water, which was full to the brim, on [her] head” (4). Afi has dreams, hopes, and goals of her own, but at the beginning of the novel, her responsibilities to Aunty and Olivia trump her personal desires. The arranged marriage therefore limits Afi’s autonomy over her future. At the same time, following these cultural and familial duties reaffirms Afi’s role as a young Ghanaian woman. Therefore, Afi tries to quell her own dreams to satisfy tradition throughout the first weeks and months of her marriage despite her discomfort and dissatisfaction. Though she tries throughout the novel to find a way to balance conforming to tradition with fulfilling her personal and professional needs, Afi eventually concludes that she must reject tradition to seize happiness.

Throughout Afi’s marriage to Eli, she becomes increasingly emboldened. The more trapped and alienated she feels by her family and relationship, the more she chases her desires. Her recollected conversation with Mawusi in Chapter 2 foreshadows these attempts. She tells her cousin that she is not just going to sit in a house in Accra waiting for her husband; she wants “to attend a fashion school” to learn “to design and sew” specialty clothing for the wealthy class (25). Afi takes the first step toward pursuing these personal desires by articulating them to her cousin. This conversation shows that though Afi has accepted a traditional role as a wife in an arranged marriage, she is using it as an opportunity to pursue personal goals that were out of reach for her in Ho. However, the more energy she devotes to her own wants and needs, the more she compromises her traditional wifely role. Her family wants her to devote herself to caring for Eli and maintaining his household. Afi has no interest in sitting at King’s Court and waiting for her husband to give her the attention and affection she deserves. Thus, from the start, Afi stands up for herself to her husband, mother, mother-in-law, and even her friends.

Though Eli, too, breaks with tradition by supporting his wife’s professional goals—even encouraging her to attend school and open her boutique—when her personal needs conflict with the privileges that tradition affords him as a man, he leverages tradition to prioritize his personal desires over hers, pushing to have both Muna and Afi as his wives. When he fails to be willing to sacrifice any desire of his to support hers, Afi breaks with tradition and divorces Eli. Although her friends and family fear that subverting tradition will alienate Afi from the Accra and Ho societies, Afi’s boldness and courage ultimately allow her to realize what she wants for herself and her son. She thus learns how to resist entrapping traditions while maintaining relationships with her family and fighting for autonomy over her life and body.