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BAI KUKE, CAMEROON – Frida Nembe, 61, is an enthusiastic eloquent and smart woman for the Bai Kuke, a community of Balong group within the southwest Cameroon. Several years ago, she turned a beneficial “female partner.”
She claims one to their particular merely child along with her later husband passed away, and you may she is actually not able to find expecting. Thus she turned into a spouse herself, a woman partner.
“Once i had married back at my late spouse, I provided birth to just one child whom passed away a few years after,” Nembe says. “It is hence that we hitched my spouse thus you to definitely she will bear an infant who can inherit my personal assets when i perish.”
Nembe says she performed all conventional rites one a person would do to help you get married a lady so you can wed their particular wife, who was simply off a different Balong community.
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“I decided to go to their village, found their own somebody and you may paid their particular over dowry,” she claims. “However introduced their unique on my home to live on beside me and incur college students in my own title.”
She claims you to definitely Balong tradition lets women to wed to many other women in instances when ladies are bare or don’t have any youngsters. Even women that want most college students but are unable to conceive them can get wed most other female.
Nembe says the female comply with old-fashioned gender spots. The newest childbearing woman will get the new spouse regarding the matrimony, given that other woman acts as a female partner.
“My wife are meant to stay-in my house, generate people personally, help me inside housework and farmwork,” she says. “The woman is designed to serve me personally such as for instance a partner is to suffice their partner, and i also often subsequently beat their unique like a partner should beat his partner. I am designed to bring responsibility out-of their own means.”
Both wives as well as their feminine husbands feel the independence up to now dudes outside of the relationships. However, Nembe states one to a sincere wife can be choosy on the latest men which she dates together with most probably regarding the all of them with their own women partner, that will get to be the “father” of every students one to result from her wife’s extramarital relations.
“Feminine partnered similar to this feel the freedom to determine people man which they appreciate and also have expecting,” she claims. “However,, these female need-not share with this new dudes it bed with this he or she is responsible for the pregnancy, in case they get pregnant, just like the child becomes the infant regarding her [female] husband.”
She says any guy which claims to function as the father of a baby have to contend with this traditions. College students make the surnames of its women fathers.
“In the event the for any reason men appears to say that like a child try their,” she states, “they have to pay straight back the whole dowry of your lady worried.”
“My wife found domestic and told me she’ll perhaps not manage to stick to me personally,” she claims. “She informed she really wants to go back to their vackra costa rican kvinnor particular anyone. We let her wade, but I don’t believe she is nonetheless my partner due to the fact she no longer is in my home, and you may she actually is getting pupils randomly in her community.”
Nembe states you to definitely she will not believe those individuals students due to the fact hers since their previous spouse offered delivery in it outside of her household with not familiar guys. She claims she regrets marrying their.
“I should has investigated really well before getting married to that particular girl,” Nembe says for the a reduced tone. “I will keeps obtained married to a woman that will value myself at each considering time. I regret shedding with the completely wrong hand.”
