Royalty, Marriage, and Divorce in an African Society

In most traditional African societies, wives in the royal house indicate wealth and prestige and encode the ideas of masculinity and achievement. Marrying into the royal family also creates a pathway to power, helps build and transfer wealth, and ensures access to luxuries. Thus, it is assumed that women and their families benefit from these relationships. However, the experiences of royal wives were much more circumscribed. With the advent of British rule and the political and economic changes of the early twentieth century, the patriarchal system that dominated and subjugated royal wives was challenged and taken to trial in courts. Using surviving native court records from 1905-1957, this paper discusses how royal wives used colonial instruments, particularly the newly established native courts, to seek divorce and improve their marital conditions and choices across Yorubaland in southwest Nigeria. Financial and sexual-related issues dominated the reasons royal wives sought divorce in courts. While the women’s arguments were tenable in the court of rule, they were aberrations and negated the traditional patriarchy and marriage norms. The paper interrogates the women’s strategies and successes at transforming the Yoruba marital landscape which was viewed as rigid. It historicizes the agency of women in the early twentieth century as agents of social change.