'When extramarital sex threatens patriarchy': the iwushi-miri rite among Mgbowo women of southeastern Nigeria.

Abstract

This study argues that not every instance of extramarital sexual intercourse among the Igbo women of southeastern Nigeria is adulterous. Using the sex-related rite of iwushi-miri (pouring of water) among the Mgbowo women of southeastern Nigeria (Igboland) as an example, the study explores the different means that the women have used in negotiating extramarital relationships, and sexual behaviours in the traditional, colonial and Christian patriarchal environments. The study brings together both ethnographic and feminist cultural resistance research to appraise the distinctions between punishable and culturally permitted extramarital sexual practices, and to highlight the role that extramarital sexual culture played in resisting the patriarchal domination of female sexuality in the age of empire. It also explores the challenges and the responses of Mgbowo women in negotiating extramarital relationships in a modern-day patriarchal setting. It sets out to explore how women's sex power, agency and influence have been silenced in the colonial archives and mainstream scholarship. Through semi-structured interviews, the analysis of material culture, and participant observation, this study provides insight into traditional sexual culture(s), marital intercourse, and sex-related rituals among Mgbowo women.