Masculinity Care & Paternity in Shonelyn’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives

Abstract

Most feminist studies have portrayed masculinity as totally toxic without possibly being any different. African-born poet Lola Shoneyin makes her fiction debut with The Secret Lives of Babi Segi’s Wives, a perceptive, entertaining, and eye-opening novel of polygamy in modern-day Nigeria. Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives explores the conflicts, family politics, and personalities inside a polygamous marriage. The focus of this paper is to analyze the depiction of masculinity, care, and paternity in Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives. Through applying masculinity theory, this study observes that Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives creatively presents a new dimension of masculinity and paternity in modern African literature. This paper further notes that the construction of masculinity in The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives is relational and achieved within the structure of feminist personality within the novel’s world. This study submits that various aspects of positive masculinity are linked to care and mildness within the world of the modern African story under interrogation.