International records / OpenAlex research

Irigwe and Rukuba Marriage: A Comparison

An interesting feature of a number of tribes of the Jos Plateau of Nigeria is that the network of marital rights and duties is vested in several husbands of one woman and thus is more diversified than in most other known African societies.Many of these tribes, including the Irigwe and the Rukuba, achieve this diversification through the institution of secondary marriage which is defined as follows by M. G. Smith: "[secondary marriage is] ... the union of a wife with a man other than her previous husband, which does not follow or give rise to divorce, and is legitimized by betrothal payments ma…