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The Practice and Significance of “Female Father” among the 

Igbo Traditional Society of Nigeria: The Ngwa Community in 

View 

 

Ugonna N. Ofoha 

Abia State University Uturu 

chinyereugonna@gmail.com 

ugonna.ofoha@abiastateuniversity.edu.ng 

                            

Abstract 

The culture of patriarchy and ‘male child' dominance underpins a 

number of parents’ gender preferences for male children. The 

qualitative methodological approach involving ethnographic 

observations and oral interviews of informants were adopted and 

data were interpretatively analyzed. This study reveals that in Ngwa 

land, the practice of female-father socially and culturally gives 

women the legal rights to have their own children especially male 

ones through various means. It also reveals an advanced knowledge 

on the diversities of Igbo cultural practices. In spite of the 

disadvantages that follow this practice such as encouraging 

promiscuity, and even with the impact of western education and 

Christianity, Ngwa people and indeed the entire Igbo community 

continue to resist any attempt to abolish this tradition. Given the 

paucity of literature in this area of Igbo culture, this study will avail 

readers and scholars better insight to the reasons, advantages and 

disadvantages of this practice.  

Keywords – culture, patriarchy, inheritance, male child, female 

child 

 

 

 

mailto:chinyereugonna@gmail.com
mailto:ugonna.ofoha@abiastateuniversity.edu.ng


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Introduction 

Individuals, groups, societies or even organizations are recognized 

by their cultural practices. Culture is a way of life, especially, the 

general custom and beliefs of a particular group of people at a 

particular time. Ngwa people as a group of Igbo speaking clan have 

a number of cultural practices. Notable among these cultural 

practices is that of ‘Female Father’.  

The geographical location of the Ngwa people is captured in the 

following from Ngwa Community UK (April 1965:187, 

www.jstor.org/stable/1158231): 

The area covering the old Aba division Ngwa, is situated in 

the tropical rain forest of southern Igbo plain in the present 

Abia State of Nigeria. It has a population of over one million 

people and an area of little over nine hundred square miles. 

The area is bounded on the north by the present Umuahia 

zone, on the west by Owerri and Mbaise, on the east by Ikot-

Ekpene and Abak and on the south by Ukwa.The important 

waterways are the Imo River to the south and west, the Aba 

or Aza River that rises at Abayi, and flows south through 

Aba Township into the Imo River at a point near Okpontu. 

Around Nsulu to the northeast, there are two minor rivers, 

the Otamiri and the Ohi. At no point does the land rise above 

an elevation of 50ft. The people are largely farmers, 

producing yams, cassava, cocoyam, maize and other tropical 

farm products. Major rural industries include garri and palm 

produce in addition to Akwete cloth weaving in which most 

women from Ihie area were engaged. The old divisional 

headquarters was Aba, a very important commercial and 

industrial center. Center of major population concentration 

includes Aba, Mgboko, Osisioma, Umuoba, Owerinta, 

Nbawsi (Nvosi) and Okpu-Alangwa. 



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 Ngwa Igbo as a patriarchal society and similar to all Igbo tribes, 

believe in passing the family inheritance along the male line 

excluding the female. This socio-cultural belief leads to gender bias 

and prejudice. Such prejudice towards one gender over the other has 

taken a deep toll in the history of Ngwa land. In Ngwa land, every 

male child is expected to have a male child who will perpetuate his 

name even long after he has joined his ancestors. This is reflected in 

the choice of such names as Ahamefule (may my name never be 

lost), Azubuike (legacy is strength). Also in Ngwa land, the wealth 

of a man goes to his male children, never to the female children. As 

captured by Nmah (2011: 138), “…there is what is called ancestral 

land. The father gives it to his son. The son gives it to his own son. 

It is never paid for with money. Any son that does not inherit an 

ancestral land is seen as having been disowned.” The absence of a 

male child in the family raises a problem of inheritance of the wealth 

of a man who is not survived by any male issue. In such scenario the 

man cannot pass on his property and it will revert to his brothers or 

other male relatives upon his death.  

Amongst the Ngwa Igbo, a way out of this quandary, is the 

custom that allows woman to woman marriage. Urama (2019:1) 

declares “that “male daughters,” “female husbands,” and same-sex 

marriage among women in Igbo culture are cultural devised 

practices to solve the problems of impotency, barrenness, and male 

child succession or inheritance syndrome”. In the past, woman-

woman marriage was a mark of wealth and for economic 

exploitation and was popular in parts of Igboland in the second half 

of the 19th century as captured by Ekejiuba (1967) and Amadiume 

(1987).  However, in most cases, women who married fellow 

women were either barren or had passed the childbearing age or 

have given up trying to have at least a male child of their own. 

Marriage in Igboland (Ngwa Igbo in focus), is regarded as futile and 



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a woman unfulfilled if there is no male child. This belief, however, 

places a woman in a state where she has to accept cultural practices 

that will make her get a male child she can call her own. 

Jean (1998) has outlined three circumstances under which 

women take wives as 1.) Barren women take wives to gain rights 

over children produced 2.) Rich women accumulate wives to gain 

prestige and wealth in the same way men do through polygyny and 

3.) Societies where women possess the right to have a daughter-in 

law, a woman without a son may take a wife to give her a non-

existent son. In such cases, woman to woman marriage acts as 

prerequisite for “female-father”. ‘Female father’ is a practice 

whereby a daughter, wife or widow ‘marries’ a woman (and pays 

the bride wealth) through several channels depending on the 

circumstances, the woman so married has the opportunity to become 

pregnant through the husband of her female husband, If he is still 

alive or through a selected male relative for the purposes having 

children to perpetuate the family lineage and rights to inheritance of 

the woman who married her.  

The woman who pays the dowry, although a female, acts as 

a father to any child born by the wife she marries. The researcher 

observes that this culture is prevalent in all of Igbo land. The same 

culture has been observed amongst various Igbo groups like the Igbo 

in Okwelle clan of Ideato in Imo state, Mbaise Igbo also in Imo 

State, and the Ngwa Igbo in Abia State. The present study therefore 

examines this practice in Ngwa Igbo traditional society of Nigeria 

Where the husband of the Female-Father (that is the woman who 

goes to pay the dowry of another woman) is still alive and the she is 

either barren or have passed the age of childbearing without having 

a male-child, the wife ‘marries’ a woman, hands over the woman 

she married to her husband for another opportunity at attempting to 



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produce a male child. In this situation, the woman so married is not 

considered the wife of the man, but the wife of the woman who 

‘married’ her even though she may meet the man with the consent 

of her female husband for procreation. She refers to her ‘female 

husband’ as her husband and may refer to the man as her father or 

uncle or any suitable nomenclature (oral interview, Eze Nwamara 

(2019). Children born by her are forbidden from addressing her as 

mother. The wife of the Female Father may be addressed as aunt, 

sister or any suitable nomenclature by those children biologically 

born by her under this arrangement and while in the marriage, her 

female husband is addressed by the children as their mother. 

 However, as Ezinne Ugonna, a native of   Osusu in 

Isialangwa North LGA   who granted us an interview pointed out 

that in families where there is peace and rapport amongst members 

of the family, circumstances may change. The female husband may 

relinquish her control of the woman she married and allow her free 

interaction with her husband and even address her as nwunye di m 

or my husband’s wife. Children born by her may address her as 

mother and rightfully so. Her joy is more complete in the fact that 

her husband has male children of his own who will perpetuate the 

family name.  She can also decide to treat her as her wife this implies 

that the woman she married have no rights to her husband, she will 

be solely her wife (wife to the female father) and not her co-wife.  

 

Objectives of the Study 

The objectives of the study were to examine 

 

1. The practice of ‘Female Father’ in Ngwa-Igbo traditional society 

of Nigeria 

2. To ascertain the significances of ‘Female Father’ practice in 

Ngwa-Igbo. 



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Methodology 

The qualitative methodological approach involving ethnographic 

observations and oral interviews with 30 consultants was adopted. 

These consultants are born and bred in Ngwaland and have lived 

over 40 years in Ngwaland. They are comprised of farmers, elders, 

traditionally titled chiefs, village heads, educationists, traders, etc., 

aged 40-100 years. Data used in this study were collected from 
12Obingwa, Isiala Ngwa , and Osisioma Local Governments Areas 

of Abia State. The data collected were descriptively analyzed. 

 

Review of Literature 

Woman-woman marriage is a prerequisite for implementing the 

Female Father practice and is not to be misconstrued as lesbianism. 

Woman-woman marriage in Ngwa land did not involve sexual 

relationship between the couple as opposed to lesbianism. 

Lesbianism involves a relationship in which a woman is 

romantically or sexually attracted only to other women. 

Duruamaku-Dim (2019) asserts the lesbianism is simply the practice 

of a female having sex with a fellow as opposed to males.   

This is not the case with woman-woman marriage as 

practiced in Ngwa land. Several literature on woman-woman 

marriage. Egodi, Nwoko, Jean, Urama have touched this subject in 

diverse ways. While Urama (2019) “values and usefulness of same-

sex marriage” discusses the importance of same-sex marriage, 

Egodi (2006) “Woman-woman marriage in Igbo Land” expresses a 

general view of the practice of woman womam marriage in Igbo 

land. Amadiume (1987) “Male Daughters and Female Husbands”, 

discusses concept of male daughters and the roles they play as 

female husbands to foster the family lineage while Nwoko (2012) 



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“female-husband in the southeast of Nigeria” focuses on the concept 

of Female father in the South East. The present study extends all of 

these with a focus on Female-Fathers in Ngwa land. 

 

Female Father in Ngwa Land 

In Ngwa land, the family constitutes the basis for their sociological 

organogram, thus, the family is viewed as a sacred institution. 

Family sometimes could refer to the nuclear family of a whole linage 

‘onumara’ (that is extended family) and whenever an Ngwa person 

talks of family ‘Ezinaulo’, he is referring to both nuclear family and 

extended ‘Onumara’ which includes even dead ancestors. The 

nuclear family unit ‘Ezi’ is headed by the father ‘Nna’, but in a 

compound where there are several nuclear family units it is referred 

to as ‘Eziukwu’. ‘Eziukwu’ consists of households whose members 

have a mutual and palpable decent through a patrilineal ancestor 

‘Umunna’ while ‘Onumara’ is the largest extended family unit in 

Ngwa land (B.C Otuonye, informant 2019).  

 The central reason for marriage in Ngwa land is procreation. 

A marriage is said to be fruitless if for some reason they are not able 

to have children because children are believed to be a blessing from 

God ‘Chukwu’ to every family. The women are often held 

responsible in a case of childlessness, it is assumed that her 

childlessness is as a result of her reckless lifestyle before marriage 

or as an inherited curse from her family. For this reason, before 

marriage is contracted in Ngwa land, the families tend to make 

enquiries (ijụ ajụjụ) as he would look up to families whose history 

evidences good reproductivity. (B.C Otuonye 2019)  

The present study focuses on the practice of ‘female father’ and its 

significance in Ngwa, Nigeria. It is the search for a male child that 

has made women engage in practices that will assure them of a male 

child. One of such practices is the female father. 



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According to Egodi (2006:3), “The over-riding goal for woman-

woman marriage in Igboland was for women to have children 

through other women for inheritance purposes.” This is also the 

driving force for woman-woman marriage in Ngwa land. According 

to Nwoko (2012) 

In the Igbo world view, importance was attached to a male 

child more than a female or indeed any full grown woman. 

The obsession for a male child in every Igbo family, and in 

Africa generally stood as restriction to the efforts and further 

contributions of women. This cultural preference for the 

male child and restrictions against the female had hindered 

the development of women and denied them self-

actualization. It is within this obsession for the male child 

that the ‘pregnancy’ or the concept of the female husband in 

Igbo land was conceived. 

 

In the traditional Igbo society and in line with the patriarchal 

traditions, a man’s genealogy and lineage were preserved in the 

personalities of his sons. According to this practice when a man was 

unable to have a male child, he appointed one of his daughters, in 

most cases the first daughter to stay back in the family and procreate.  

Igwe (2009) writes about himself in the following: 

I hail from Mbaise in Imo State in Southern Nigeria. 

Traditionally, in my community, marriage is taken to be a 

union between a man and a woman as the case may be. But 

there are circumstances where a marriage between a woman 

and a woman is permissible. In a situation where a woman 

has no son or no child, if the husband dies, it is culturally 

allowed for her to marry a wife. And in this case, she 

becomes the husband. Like in every case of marriage, this 



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woman goes out, inquires and gets a wife of her choice. She 

pays her dowry and fulfills other traditional rites as it is done 

when a man is marrying a woman. After that, the woman 

brings her "wife" home and they start living together as 

"husband" and "wife." Nobody frowns at it. To have 

children, both the "woman-husband" and "woman-wife" will 

agree to allow a man from the same village or neighboring 

town to sleep with the wife. The children born by the wife 

bear the family name of the woman-husband, not that of the 

man responsible for the pregnancy. I want to add here that 

the men who sleep with such wives in most cases are married 

men. And normally it is regarded as immoral, in fact it is a 

taboo for a married man to sleep with or "father" children 

from another woman. But in this case an act normally taken 

to be immoral is allowed. 

 

Amadiume (1987) has inferred that a man who did not have a son 

could pass land and trees to his daughters if the daughters were 

recognized by the society. To her, this translation from femalehood 

to malehood of the female child and the rights of "sons" could only 

be accomplished and recognized through rituals. 

Nwoko (2012) adds that the practice of female father or female 

husband confers on female children the same rights without rituals. 

The daughter so conferred with such rights goes for what Nwoko 

refers to as ikonwanna, a male sex mate with whom to procreate. 

Alternatively, the daughter with such conferred rights chooses for 

herself a younger female who she takes in as wife by performing the 

traditional rites and paying the necessary bride price. In Ngwa land, 

this process occurs with a male member of the daughter’s family 

leading the marriage process. The male member speaks to the 



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intending inlaws on behalf of the daughter who intends to pick a 

wife. 

 

A wealthy woman may take a wife as captured, in Ngwa Igbo. This 

occurs if she is barren or if her husband died without a male child to 

continue the family lineage. Nwoko (year 2012) mentions the case 

in Mbaise Igbo where the female children of a family collectively 

paid the pride price of a younger woman after the demise of their 

father in the name of their eldest sister so that the new bride could 

procreate and raise male children to preserve the family lineage.  

Regardless of the method, the reason for woman-woman marriage 

is for procreation, the young bride taken as wife is expected by her 

female husband to identify a well behaved young man from the 

kindred, but in most cases blood relation of the female husband as 

her bedmate. Nwoko (2012) notes that 

This was of serious implications; firstly, it was believed that 

by so doing, the blood tie of that particular family was 

preserved; secondly, the family was sure that the young bride 

would not pollute the family by raising children fathered by 

miscreants, thieves or even persons with strange ailments. It 

was also to prevent the introduction of unwholesome and 

undesirable traits into the family 

If the woman-woman union is blessed with a child, the daughter who 

has been conferred with the rights of malehood, automatically 

became the female father. She becomes the sociological father of 

any resulting offspring. The children belonged to the lineage of her 

father, not to their biological father. “Consequently, she played the 

role of the father, provider, protector and indeed all the functions 

and responsibilities enshrined in the patriarchal concept which 

included physical protection of the family and its territory, the male 

economic sphere, the spiritual sphere, the social sphere, etc”. The 



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same holds true where the woman who picks the wife is a barren 

wife or a widow who is unable to produce male children for her 

husband. 

Among the people of Ngwa, the female husband in theory 

enjoys equal status with her male kit and kin. Among her female 

mates, the Umuada, she is regarded as a man and Okenwanyi or 

(nwaanyi politics) in recent times. She is treated like a man. Her 

opinion is sought after and taken with high regards. The practice in 

Ngwa is similar to what Nwoko (2012:5) has outlined about other 

Igbo areas, in any ceremony, she enjoyed equal privilege with her 

male counterparts and in some Igbo communities like Uguta, she 

could break kola nut, but only among her female folks. She also 

combined both secular and spiritual functions and obligations. She 

participated in secret rituals and sometimes associated with the male 

elders in communal rituals. 

Similar to the oral interview by Nwoko (2012), the female 

father’s limitations show up from the emotional and biological 

realities. While her wife went out in search of a bedmate, it was also 

expected that she had a male companion, usually known as 

dinwanna, who satisfied her erotic desires and supported her when 

the biological realities became inevitable. As is elsewhere in 

Igboland, in Ngwa, it was not expected of the female father at this 

time to get pregnant or seen openly with any man since as Nwoko 

(2012) concludes, “she had crossed the maternal Rubicon.” Any 

offspring directly from her is considered illegitimate and an outcast 

and treated as such. Unlike the children from her wife, her direct 

offspring will not enjoy or share from any communal inheritance. 

We discovered that in the three core areas of Ngwa land, female 

father is a general practice. A situation where a barren woman or a 

woman without a male child goes out to marry a younger woman to 

have children with her husband on her Behalf.  This is because of 



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the high value the Ngwa people and Igbo land in general place on 

children, especially on the male child. The people believe that male 

children are very indispensable for the continuation of the ancestral 

line and inheritance. Mere (1973) concludes that the  reality  of  

family  extinction  cannot  be  ducked  where  children  are  not  

forthcoming.  

  It is seen as an abomination when a family has no male child 

to carry on the ancestral line. This is expressed in names like Nweze 

(child king), Nwabueze (child is king), Nwakaego (child is bigger 

than money). The family is the most fundamental and the primary 

social institution which must be sustained through the male child. 

On this note, every family seeks a way to have children especially 

male children and because adoption was not rampant like it is today, 

the female father relationship became the only option for most 

families. Female father can also be seen as woman to woman 

marriage. In our interaction, we discovered that the marriage is 

contracted like in a normal marriage between a man and a woman 

but in this case, the woman in need of a child goes in search of a 

suitable girl to marry, and she can also talk to her friends to help in 

the search and wooing the girl, this is because most of the times, it 

is difficult for a girl to accept a marriage proposal from a fellow 

woman, for this reason, the searchlight is beamed on girls with a 

social disability, whose chance of getting their own husband is slim. 

 These social disability include a girl who got pregnant out of 

wedlock (ime ọkwa), or already had a child – in this case, the girl 

will be married along with the child. A girl whose family finds it 

very difficult to fend for themselves, can also be a suitor like in the 

case of Allen Madukoma, a native of Isiala Ngwa whose wife was 

not able to conceive, she married Victoria, a girl from Umuojima 

whose father died long ago leaving his family to fend for 



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themselves. Victoria was quick to consent to the marriage as that 

will ensure she gets a better life.  

We interviewed many cases of such marriages in our research, we 

got many similar cases but for this article we will only look at 

different situation that lead to such marriages. 

 

Selected Circumstances of Female Father in Ngwa Land 
Here we will look at information gathered from natives in different 

areas in Ngwa land. From Ananaba’s family of Ugwunabo in Ngwa, 

their daughter Nwanyidiya got married to Mazi Eze. The union 

produced nine daughters and no male child. She and her husband 

had already acquired lands and wealth over the years. After her 

husband passed on, she knew that neither she nor her daughters 

could inherit those properties, as tradition demands that right to 

inheritance rests on the male child. To ensure that their wealth will 

not be rubbished by their extended family and outsiders, she decided 

to marry a woman to have children for her. She went back to her 

hometown and married one of her sister Ugochi, who in turn had 

male children. Today, though Nwanyidiya and Eze are both dead, 

Ugochi still lives in the compound with her children and control the 

entire wealth of Mazi Eze. 

Ogechi is a wife to a woman, Daa Helen. Daa Helen married 

Ogechi just to have male children to carry on the family’s ancestral 

line. Ogechi told us that she wasn’t good in academics at all even 

though her family was well to do and tried everything possible to 

make sure she got basic education, all to no avail. She was the last 

daughter of her family but not the last child because her mother had 

twin boys after her. She admitted to have spent so many years in 

primary one that her parents were advised to withdraw her from 

school. She resorted to joining her parents in farm work,  an 

endeavor she engaged in for many years. When her mates and 



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friends started getting married and leaving to their new homes, she 

felt like she had been left behind. Then, her family got a marriage 

proposal from Daa Helen of Ituukpa. Daa Helen had been married 

for 15 years without a child. She contacted her friends from nearby 

villages who told her about Ogechi. When Ogechi’s family accepted 

Daa Helen’s marriage proposal, Ogechi’s bride wealth was paid as 

per tradition. She is very happy and excited to share with us that she 

already has 2 sons and will have more.   

We discovered that this a general practice and totally 

acceptable in Ngwa land. It helps to alleviate the pains of 

childlessness in families. It gives the wife of the female father room 

to be in her matrimonial home as she may not be able to find a good 

man of her own hence the saying ‘E mee nwanyi ka emere ibe ya, 

obi adi ya mma. (If a woman is treated like her mates, she feels 

happy).  In Ngwa and Igbo Land in general, at a point in a girl’s life, 

the society demands she has to leave her father’s house to her 

husband’s house. If she cannot find a man to marry her, she is 

subjected to all manner of indirect and even direct ridicule by her 

family and society at large. Therefore, if a girl is not married for any 

reason at that stage, she doesn’t feel happy. This makes her accept 

any proposal of marriage whether from a male or from a female. 

Despite all the advantages female father offers, we still find 

some disadvantage to it. One major incidence that gave rise to 

female father in Ngwa is that women do not have rights to 

inheritance. In 2004, a long legal battle that challenged the age long 

tradition of the Igbo custom that disinherits women from their 

father’s inheritance began in Umuahia after the death of a certain 

Ukeje. After a decade, the legal battle was concluded by the apex 

court, the Supreme Court in Nigeria. The ruling would change the 

Igbo world. Women of Igbo decent now have right to inherit their 

father’s property. However, despite this milestone ruling by the apex 



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court, little was expected to change in the Igbo culture. The 

overwhelming resistance that met this ruling was widespread across 

the Igbo community. Igwe Simeon Osisi Itodo, the traditional ruler 

of Aji Autonomous Community in Igbo-Eze North Local 

Government Area of Enugu State, told Vanguard that the Supreme 

Court ruling will not change the custom of Ndigbo, and any effort 

to enforce it will bring chaos.”   
Igwe Christopher Nnamani (2012) of Likke Iheaka, in Igbo-

Eze South Local Government Area of Enugu State, who added his 

voice to the development, said the Igbo custom that denies females’ 

right to their fathers’ property has been unfair, and needs to be 

changed. But he acknowledged that it would be difficult to introduce 

something new in place of the old custom.” Despite the Supreme 

Court ruling in 2015, the Igbo community still continues to resist 

any attempt to modify the standing tradition of disentitlement of 

women from their father’s inheritance and the average Igbo woman 

does not anticipate inheriting any estate of her parents, based on the 

age-long customs that make male children statutorily entitled to 

such.  

Therefore, many families still continue to seek ways to have 

their own male children who will inherit their property and 

perpetuate the family lineage. The researcher observes that this 

practice is only now more prevalent amongst the uneducated female 

in the society. Modern day technology has provided alternative 

methods for women who seek to have their own children.  

Though we gathered that amidst the joy and fulfillment the 

arrangement of female-father brings to the parties involved, it also 

has some disadvantages. There are cases where the wife refuses the 

man that was chosen for her thereby neglecting the instructions of 

her female-husband who has no choice but to tolerate her wife’s 

excesses because she needs an heir. There are cases where the wife 



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is maltreated by the daughters of the family because she is an 

illiterate or  mentally unsound. The mere fact that the wife so 

married does not usually make a choice  of a male mate for herself 

encourages promiscuity especially when the male mate handed to 

her does not fulfill her desires.  The wife so married may begin to 

feel like a lord and savior  with an over-bloated ego especially if she 

successfully gives birth to male children that her female-husband 

could not. She may even begin to have overbearing influence even 

over her female-husband.  

Sometimes, the bond between her and the husband of her 

female-husband (or di nwe ulo) may become stronger than the bond 

between that of the father of the house (di nwe ụlọ)  and her female 

husband spurring jealousy in her female-husband with dire 

consequences if the family is not a peaceful one.  There may be 

consequential stigma and ridicule of the children borne out of these 

kind of union. Where care is not taken, strange genes may be 

introduced into a family that may lead to strange traits, sicknesses, 

etc. Close relatives and even the larger community where these 

children are born, may make them objects of ridicule at a later time 

in life aided with the knowledge of the origin of such children. This 

scenario usually affects the self-esteem of such children.  

In the modern world, where lesbianism is taking hold, 

woman-woman marriage may encourage lesbianism leading to 

cases where women may marry for pleasure rather than for 

procreation. Worse cases also include situations where the wife 

married by the female husband is also unable to conceive male 

children. In such cases, the quest for male child continues. Cases of 

a futile search for a male child have been narrated by some of the 

respondents. Such a family is regarded as a lost compound, ama 

nchiri echi.In conclusion, we suggest that ndị Ngwa and Igbo land 

in general heed to the court ruling which gives the girl child right of 



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inheritance as this will bring to an end the obsession for a male child 

which gives rise to different forms of marriages. 

 

References 

Amadiume, I. (1987): Male Daughters and Female Husbands. New 

Jersey: Zed Press. 

Cadigan, R. J. (1998) Woman-to-Woman Marriage: Practices and 

Benefits in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Comparative 

Family Studies. Vol. 29. No. 1. 

Duruamaku-Dim J. U. (2019) Self-concept and Lesbianism 

Tendencies of Girls in senior Secondary Schools in Cross 

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Appendix: Personal Communication 

Name                            Age            Village            Date of interview 

Chief B.C Otuonye      80  Obichukwu 1-Isialangwa    17/3/2021 

Allen Madukoma,        61  Osusu 1-Isialangwa             20/3/2021 

Victoria,                      40 Umuojima-Isialangwa           20/3/2021 

Chief Ananaba            85 Obegu- Osisioma                   8/3/2022  

Daa Helen                   60 Ituukpa-Obingwa                   8/3/2022   

Ogechi                         40 Umuitiri-Osisioma                 8/3/2022       

Daa  Roseline              69  Obeaja-Osisioma                  8/3/2022    

Dee Ikechi                   70  Ovungwu-Isialangwa            8/3/2022    

Deede Agu                  70   Osusu- Isialangwa                8/3/2022     

Eli Nwamkpa              87   Umuobikwa-Obingwa          13/4/2022 

 

 

 

 

 


