Poligamy has not been tolerated in France since the passage of the 1993 Pasqua law which prohibits legal foreign workers from sending for their families. For an entire generation of Africans, particularly from Western Africa, poligamy is so deeply rooted in their way of life that they continue the practice in France as « back home » even at risk of violating the law. The women themselves say , « It’s like that at home », but behind all that…. Poligamy is « an ancestral custom « and a sign of wealth dating from a time when it was necessary to increase the productivity of the life-sustaining activites of agriculture and fishing. The custom has had the practical effect of increasing the number of hands therby developing the local economy. After having started my work in France and running into the difficulties inherent in phtotgraphing an illlegal activitiy, I decided to actually go to Mali to better understand the reality and the consequences of poligamy from the ground. Each portrait caries its own personal story, joyful or painful. In France and iin Mali, I met ploygamous families in order to explore the diffeent factes of their reality : forced separation of wives and families, economic difficulties, rejection of children, HIV transmission, children who are lost in parental conficts. Beyond these problems, I also witnessed families living happily within this cultural tradition. Women are at the center of these different issues. This cultural tradition is the source of a great deal of suffering in many cases. The family conflicts are fanned by the rivalries between wives which in turn have an impact on the childhood experiences of the children who often end up used as pawns in the battles.
His father chose his wives. Personally, Ladji Djimba didn't really want to live polygamously, but according to tradition he cannot go against his father's will. He comes from the Fulbhe ethnicity.
JOF0071301x Frédérique Jouval
"You have no choice, it's your parents who decide," this is what Foulematou was told when presented with an older man who already had a wife. She was barely 15 when she met her husband's first wife, who to this day has never accepted her. For the past twenty years she has never spoken with the first wife, and feels very alone.
JOF0071313x Frédérique Jouval
African polygamy.
JOF0071587x Frédérique Jouval
Moussa Konaté and his three wives.
JOF0071408x Frédérique Jouval
African polygamy.
JOF0071588x Frédérique Jouval
Sirima is surrounded by his sixteen children, the eldest of whom holds his first child in his arms. The youngest of Sirima's children is 9 months old. His three wives are standing in the back row.
JOF0071350x Frédérique Jouval
Sirima has three wives. The first marriage was arranged by his parents. The second wife is his cousin, aged 14 when her uncle gave her away, in order to strengthen family bonds. Fanta his third wife is the love match. She had been married to a man who had left both herself and her co-wife alone to look after his parents, and who never came back. When Fanta returned to her original village she met Sirima.
JOF0071353x Frédérique Jouval
Aminata was 14 when her father gave her to Sirima, to become his second wife. Her arrival in the household was not without pain for the first wife who, accused of jealousy, had to face the reprimands of her in-laws as well as her husband's anger.
JOF0071351x Frédérique Jouval
In the courtyard of the women's prison in Bolé, Bamako, Sally Ballo is incarcerated for infanticide. Badly treated by her father's first wife, she fled her village to try to earn a living in the city. Without contraception, she quickly became pregnant. With her partner gone, she killed her child when it was born.
JOF0071407x Frédérique Jouval
Makan is married to two women and has seven children. He discovered his seropositivity after tests for an unrelated illness. For almost a year, fearing his wives' reaction, he kept it quiet. Both his wives and one of their daughters (aged 6) have contracted the virus. Makan and his second wife are on daily treatments.
JOF0071314x Frédérique Jouval
Djénéba fell in love with her future husband at the age of 14. He wasn't yet married at the time. He remains the only man she's known. She was eight months pregnant with her third child when she learned that she had contracted HIV. Makan, her husband, had not admitted his seropositivity to his two wives. Luckily the third child of Djénéba isn't infected. But Tata is, the other wife's daughter, aged six. She receives treatment daily. Djénéba doesn't know yet whether her last child, who is 10 months old, is infected or not. Her faith in God helps her to get through this ordeal.
JOF0071342x Frédérique Jouval
Ambiance chambre
JOF0071409 Frédérique Jouval
Abbas, 13, was found in the street two years ago during the night rounds of an association which looks after street kids. His mother, the second wife, was not her husband's favourite. His step-mother, his father's first wife, provoked discord between her own children and those of Abbas' mother. Abbas had a fight one day with one of his half-brothers. The step-mother intervened and tried to hit him with a wooden pestle. Failing this method, she took to Abbas with a kitchen knife, wounding his shoulder. His mother, destitute, asked him to leave and try to earn money. Abbas, feeling responsible, left to beg in the streets of Bamako.
JOF0071318x Frédérique Jouval
Infected with HIV, Hawa discovered her seropositivity during her fourth pregnancy. Her husband had been called to the hospital to be tested, but was never willing to share the results. His second child, a two-year-old who was born to his second wife, suffers constantly from abnormal illnesses. Sometimes the husband even writes out medical scripts without consulting a doctor.
JOF0071355x Frédérique Jouval
Fanta lived monogamously with her husband for five years until the day that his father chose a second wife for his son, who had no choice in the matter. The husband was seduced by the youth of his new wife, and no longer paid attention to Fanta. The co-wife didn't try to take advantage of this situation, so the two wives were able to live together tolerably well. The husband, now deceased, left them impoverished.
JOF0071316x Frédérique Jouval
Fatou, a widow, was the second wife of her husband who died four years ago from serious lung problems, but the hospital never gave them a specific cause. After an AIDS information and detection campaign, she decided to get tested. She discovered that she was sero-positive and understood that her husband had been also. The youngest of her five daughters is also seropositive. Fatou is an active member of the association for the fight against AIDS, with whom she helps to creates AIDS education programs in the Kayes region. She doesn't know what's become of her co-wife, who moved out before the death of their husband.
JOF0071404x Frédérique Jouval
Her parents arranged her marriage and she was forced to accept. Neïmouna refused, she felt she was too young. Her parents tied her up and beat her.
JOF0071411x Frédérique Jouval
The second wife never wanted her children to communicate with those of the first wife. The father, under pressure from his second wife, gave minimum attention to the four children from his first marriage. At the slightest hint of an altercation between half-brothers and sisters, the father would automatically leap to the defense of the second wives' children, without trying to understand the situation. Ever since Bassili's father had a heated disccussion with the eldest son of his second wife, he has stopped financing Bassili's education. Currently Bassili is left to his own devices. Penniless, he is living at a friend's house and tries to make a living from small business ventures.
JOF0071344x Frédérique Jouval
Fanta, married at 17, watched her husband distance himself from her with the arrival of a second wife. Since he ignored her totally, she began to earn a living selling things in the market. When he fell ill, the husband asked for Fanta's forgiveness. Without income, he relied on her to pay the medical bills. Fanta generously supported him until his death, and now takes care of his other wife and their 14 children. Their meager income is insufficient to buy enough rice for everyone.
JOF0071287x Frédérique Jouval
Interior in Bamako, Mali.
JOF0071583x Frédérique Jouval
Aïssetou grew up in Burkina Faso at the home of one of her uncle's, where she was happy. At 16, her family organised an arranged marriage for her in Mali. When summoned to join her husband she fled. Recaptured by her uncles, her husband raped her in front of them. Today, her co-wife accuses her of murdering a daughter of hers who was left in Aïssetou's care. She is awaiting trail and risks a 20-year prison sentence. She proclaims her innocence, and claims that the accusation was made out of pure jealousy.
JOF0071354x Frédérique Jouval
Diarra was 20 in 1968 when he went to France to find work. In 1974, he returned to Mali and married his first wife. He left again for France, leaving her alone with the children and under his parents' responsibility. A decade later he suggested to his first wife that he remarry so that she would have some help in the home. His third wife was the wife of a deceased friend. He currently lives in a residence in Montreuil. For 8 years he worked 16 hours a day, which allowed him to finance the construction of a new solid-wall home. Every year he returns to Mali to spend three or four months with his family.
JOF0071288x Frédérique Jouval
African polygamy.
JOF0071589x Frédérique Jouval
Séga lived for 12 years with a man with whom she had five children before he died. She had refused to marry him because an African woman can no longer work once married. She was studying nursing at the time. At 29 she met her second husband who already had a wife. Strong-minded, she fought a lot with him. Finally she filed for divorce after one year of communal life. Several years later, her second husband proposed to her again. She accepted, but since in the meantime he had married again, she became the third wife.
JOF0071317x Frédérique Jouval
Interior in Mali.
JOF0071585x Frédérique Jouval
Coumba was 15 when her parents arranged a marriage which led her to Abidjan (Ivory Coast) to join her husband and look for work. They had two children and her husband beat her nearly every night. Some friends helped her to save money so that she could go back to her family. She remarried to an older man who noticed her when he was visiting her village. She reluctantly followed him to his home in Bamako and there discovered to her horror that she was his sixth wife. The first wife is a torturer who hits her and incites the four others to do the same. Coumba is at her wit's end.
JOF0071343x Frédérique Jouval
His father chose his wives. Personally, Ladji Djimba didn't really want to live polygamously, but according to tradition he cannot go against his father's will. He comes from the Fulbhe ethnicity, who have a reputation for being very clear-sighted in their relationships. Conflicts are rare between the co-wives of this ethnic group.
JOF0071578x Frédérique Jouval
Interior in Mali.
JOF0071406x Frédérique Jouval
African woman.
JOF0071286x Frédérique Jouval
Aminata is a second wife. Originally from Mauratania, she now lives in France with her seven children. In order to renew her papers after the Pasqua Law was passed, she had to file for a divorce, which she obtained in 2000. She stills lives with her husband and his first wife, who has never accepted her. She is distraught because she cannot find a place to live. The children from the first marriage beat her. Her own are too scared to intervene.
JOF0071401x Frédérique Jouval
Coumba, 60, is the widow of her first husband. After the usual one-year period of mourning, she accepted to become the second wife of a man from her village who had left to settle in the city. To earn some money she cultivates her corn field. It is common to propose to a young widow so that she's not left alone and penniless. Occasionally her husband comes back to the village to spend several days with her.
JOF0071582x Frédérique Jouval
Sixty-year-old Coumba is the widow of her first husband. After the usual one-year period of mourning, she accepted to become the second wife of a man from her village who had left to settle in the city. To earn some money she cultivates her corn field. It is common to propose to a young widow so that she's not left alone and penniless. Occasionally her husband comes back to the village to spend several days with her.
JOF0071591x Frédérique Jouval
Fatoumata is a second wife who has moved out of the familial home. Some precincts (Mantes-la-jolie, les Mureaux…) help families in a polygamous situation to obtain housing for the second wife and her children. Often she is then obliged to get a divorce. Naturally, according to tradition, the husband continues to share his time equally with each of his wives.
JOF0071804x Frédérique Jouval
Fatoumata had been living in France for 15 years when her husband decided to bring a second wife back from his country. She feels "betrayed in her heart". Not only has she lost her place in the home, but the three bedroom apartment is too small to house two women, the husband and 10 children. She refuses to live this way, and decided to get out. She left with her five children, leaving everything behind and filed for divorce. Because of this she is rejected by her community. Little by little she is picking up the pieces.
JOF0071805x Frédérique Jouval
Aminata is a second wife. Orignally from Mauritania, she now lives in France with her seven children.
JOF0071849x Frédérique Jouval