Our Wife Has Gone Mad: Of sexualities, gender politics

A review of Bode Ojoniyi’s play, ‘Our Wife Has Gone Mad by Atoyebi Oluwafemi Akinlawon

IN ‘Our Wife Has Gone Mad,’ Bode Ojoniyi lends his voice to the progressive and equally cumulative discourse around sexualities and gender politics in and beyond Nigerian dramatic literature. And, by its reception since its first publication in 2020, the play has undoubtedly as well entered into the trajectory of gender/sexuality provocative corpus of world drama. Of course, the eclecticism of the play was first announced when it won the Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists, SONTA-Olu-Obafemi playwriting competition award in 2017. This could also be due to the evocative and dynamic stance it maintains against the existing tropes in its trajectory like Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again by Ola Rotimi and Our Wives Have Gone Mad Again by Traice Chima Utoh-Ezeaghu, thus making it a true “intertext”, rightly, a “…site of an intersection of numberless other texts … existing only through its relations to other texts” as simply put by Kristeva (cited in Orr, 2011).

The critical issues in the play seem to start from its title, which, as briefly noted above, shares semblance with those identified two existing texts. Its title is perhaps a shock to the apprehension of the temper of minds and knowledge of such culture that sees a ‘wife’ as belonging to a man against what is suggestive in ‘our wife’ in it. ‘Our wife’ already appears to rupture such cultural sensibility which only accommodates the consciousness of a polygamy, making it clear that the wife here is possibly a legal partner of two or more men – as would be found in a polyandry which is largely alien to Nigerian culture and legal framework. As it is therefore, the reality projected in the play is more of a ‘culture shock’ and, plausibly, a ‘future shock’ as well, especially, to the socio-cultural sensibility of the author himself where it is openly legally impossible for any woman to practice polyandry. Whoever attempts it is likely to be stigmatized and humiliated. In fact, ‘our wife has gone mad’, a statement by one of the three husbands which becomes the contentious clause by which play is titled, is reflective of the beginning of the stigmatization of Daniela.

From the author’s note to the play, Ola Rotimi’s ‘Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again,’ evidently deals with some critical issues around polygamy. However, Tracie Chima Utoh-Ezeajugh’s ‘Our Wives Have Gone Mad Again,’ as a clear intertext write back to Rotimi’s play, according to Ojoniyi, fails to address the issues around polygamy raised in play.

It is for this obvious intertextual omission that he responds to both plays with ‘Our Wife Has Gone Mad,’ most especially, to Rotimi’s play. In the play, he presents a Daniela, a woman who marries three men together just as Lojoka Brown marries three women in ‘Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again.’ By so doing, Ojoniyi presents a play where polyandry is projected as, not only a plausible counter action by women in their unspoken rejection of polygamy, but as a needed subversive action that women may need to consider when they are subjected to polygamy unceremoniously as Alhaji does against Daniela. Therefore, as an intertext, ‘Our Wife Has Gone Mad’ can be seen as a form of counter writeback to the issues of sexualities and gender politics in ‘Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again’ by Lejoka Brown.

Brown arbitrarily wields his patriarchal hegemonic sensibility by marrying three wives mainly for his manly fancy and selfish political ambition. He, however, plans to divorce one of them, Sikira, after the purpose for which he has married her, to win the support and secure the vote of the women during the election in which he is contesting, is accomplished. Likewise, he plans to release Iya Rashida, his first and inherited wife, from her marital responsibilities to him as dictated by tradition.

This he plans in order to remain with Elizabeth, his White educated wife. In essence, Ola Rotimi through the play succeeds in portraying women; especially, African women, as victims of uncritical patriarchal order, as the lowly of the gender order in a society that seems to place premium on the rule of men. It is against this projection therefore that Ojoniyi raises a counter narrativity with Our Wife Has Gone Mad. His play thus deconstructs the cultural stereotype of docility placed on most African women as victims in and of polygamy, by portraying them as having the agency to rebel against polygamy as a tool of patriarchy.

The play goes as far as presenting women as having the potential to rewrite the history of the culture of polygamy by threatening polyandry. The play opens to a serious dilemma in a hospital where a woman, Daniela, is admitted sequel to her involvement in a fatal motor accident. Consequent on her admission, three men, Alhaji Sule, Elder Dominion Akpan and Chin-Chung, come around at different times as her husbands to check on her well-being. During this time, she lays unconsciously on the admission bed. Apparently, the claim by the three men becomes a burden to the hospital management, the nurses and matron haywire in particular, for they could not comprehend how a woman would be married to three men at a time.

It is obvious that the truth of her marital status remains a secret to each of the three men, for each of them sees her life as being precious to his survival. The way the men lament over her accident and state attests to their love and concerns for her when they visit and see her lying helplessly on the hospital bed. It is in the course of these visits, of the three men and the claim by each that he is the husband, that the nurses become aware of her polyandry status, a knowledge that frightens and confounds them. Managing the reality of the three men as they come to see her thus becomes a crisis for the nurses, the matron and the management of the hospital. Of course, they could not confront the men to clarify anything. Thus, while waiting for her to regain consciousness, they express their disbelief of the claims while equally admiring and applauding her as a valiant woman in the case the claims are true. She is perhaps seen as an archetype of a feminist per excellence, the one who dares to take a pound of flesh from the arrogant masculinists who often pride themselves as owning women just as private properties are owned.

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The plot of the play reaches a shrieking curious climax when Daniela regains consciousness to add to the surprise of the Nurses and the matron by asking if her husbands have each come around to see her while she was unconscious. Of course, the reason for her perfect precision guess of the actions of the husbands could not be understood by the nurses, but it however confirms their curiosity as to what is true about the puzzle. Apparently, they are apprehensive of what could be the fallout of the men coming to the knowledge of each other as the husbands of one woman. The resolution of the heightened conflicts of the play is achieved as Danniela insists on bringing the three men to meet each other. In her discussion with Matron Haywire, the truth begins to unfold. However, her explanations put Matron Haywire in fear of how wild she is in her decisions, particularly with her demand to bring the three men into the room in order to openly introduce them to each other finally. It is this decision that makes the play a spectacular text. It is indeed a must read by every play lover and critic.

•Akinlawon works as a researcher for Centre for Performing Arts and Film Studies in Education, Osogbo, Osun State.