“Two husbands are better than one”

“Two husbands are better than one;

So also vice-versa,” this sixty-something year old woman informed me in Ile Ife.

In indigenous Yoruba systems, I still grew up to witness polygamy–when a man had several women, and when a woman engaged several men.

Anthropologists have not paid full attention to the system in which a woman had several lovers.

It is the “Adélémosú” system in the northern parts of Yoruba land, and the “Olùkù mi” system in the south. In Ilorin area, it is the “Eńtìjú mi.”

Adélémosú is the system in which a woman leaves her husband’s home and returns to her father’s place–and feels free to court other men and have children by them.

There is hardly any study, to the best of my understanding, of that system, in which a woman sets up in her father’s abode, and several men visit her and she has children by them.

If you know how to properly frame your questions, you will get illuminating answers.

Those were the jolly old days, before the arrival of the Oyinbos.