“The ‘S’ Word”–First wife divorces husband for denying her sex

Ok, so my title is a bit tabloidish…. but I was so struck by this powerful personal account published by an anonymous woman in Khadija Abdu Iya’s column in this Sunday’s Leadership, that I wanted to post it here on this blog. The Leadership website is currently down, so I decided to post a photograph of the article. If the print is too small, try clicking on the photo and you should be able to zoom into an image. [UPDATE 26 October 2010. Seeing a renewed interest in all the clicks on this post, I re-uploaded a photo that is more readable. Clicking on the image here will take you to a large photo of the article that is easily readable on screen.)

An educated “career” woman with four children describes her early romance and marriage, and how she felt betrayed when, after her husband married two other wives, he began to deny her sex saying he felt she was like “his sister.” She is now considering divorcing him. The pain in this woman’s voice is piercing and powerful.