A Drummer's Testament

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Chapter III-23:  Sex and Rivalry in a House

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Sexual patterns in the household; jealousy among wives; the use of medicine against each other; how a husband should live with wives who quarrel



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Supplementary material



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Contents outline and links by paragraph

Introduction

Sex outside marriage

Sex inside the household

Scheduling sex in the polygamous household

Jealousy

Rivalry

Examples of rivalry and jealousy

Women who are happy

Conclusion



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Proverbs and Sayings

Sex can make a man love a woman and a woman love a man.

Somebody having only one wife is still sleeping inside his mother's room.

All women are not one.

A woman's work does not work only in Dagbon.

A jealous woman has no medicine.

A jealous woman is like someone who lies down with closed eyes but is not sleeping:  if you want to wake the fellow, it's difficult.

If a soothsayer is a nantarga and you need someone to look for you, you will have to go and bring him:  you will close your nose and let him sit down and look for you.

We call someone with only one wife a bachelor because he doesn't know what is inside marriage.

Jealousy is the heart of a woman.

The talk of someone who is not a person, don't accept it and don't refuse it.

A jealous woman does not want herself, and we say again that she wants to kill herself.

If you beat a dog, it means you are waiting for its owner.

Jealousy is our custom here.

We don't worry a woman to do any work that she is not supposed to do, and it has become like a custom because it is standing.

Women don't fear shame.

Shyness or shame is what makes a human being.

A human being is shyness.

A woman does not like her fellow women.

No one can know all the talks about women.

A woman is like knowledge:  no one can finish learning knowledge; everyone will only learn to his extent.

Knowledge doesn't finish, and you will search for knowledge and be learning, and you will never finish.

To know a woman, you will only know to your extent.

You will only know your wife to your extent.

Men don't have long talks like a woman.

You can know a man, but you cannot know a woman.

A woman is like a watch:  as you have her and you trust her, don't have trust in her too much.

A woman will not agree that her sense is a bad sense.

If a woman is a stranger and she comes to a town, before it's daybreak, when she roams once, she knows all the talks of the town and all that is in the town.

A jealous woman is always causing trouble, and she does not know had-I-known.

A woman should not know the secrets of her friend.


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