After twenty years of marriage, Rami discovers that her husband has been living a doubleor rather, a quintuplelife. Tony, a senior police officer in Maputo, has apparently been supporting four other families for many years. Rami remains calm in the face of her husbands duplicity and plots to make an honest man out of him.
After Tony is forced to marry the four other womenas well as an additional loveraccording to polygamist custom, the rival lovers join together to declare their voices and demand their rights. In this brilliantly funny and feverishly scathing critique, a major work from Mozambiques first published female novelist, Paulina Chiziane explores her countrys traditional culture, its values and hypocrisy, and the subjection of women the world over.