The novel follows the Ibadan, Alao family of Baba Segi, his four wives and seven children, during the period that his fourth wife, a university graduate, is within the household. In South Africa and Nigeria, polygamy is a common practiceand the novel, written by an author familiar with this system of multiple wives,  deals with the cultural pressures on the infertile and impotent within a polygamous society, as well as with the universal themes of rape, domestic abuse marital property rights, girls’ education, jealousy and power relations in a family.
