Using court records of cases where husbands murdered their wives, this paper examines the practice of ‘woman damage’ and ‘paying the right bone’ in early 20th century Sierra Leone. ‘Woman damage’ was the means by which powerful men, with many wives would ‘fine’ young, single men for having extra-marital relationships with their younger co-wives. These young men, who were unable to marry due to lack of land or shortage of available partners, would ‘pay the right bone’ — that is a fine, traditionally of beef and rice, but usually paid in labour. Through this relationship between marriage and forced, unpaid labour, powerful men and chiefs could exert control over a number of men through polygamy.
In these cases recovered from the Sierra Leone National Archive, something went very wrong in this system and men ended up murdering their wives over these relationships. The accused men in these different cases justified their actions as the result of jealousy, or perceived slights on the part of their wives. Using these cases, this paper attempts to examine both the forced labour system intertwined with polygamy as well as aspects of the emotional life which underpinned these marriages. What role did emotion play in this particular forced labour regime? What does ‘woman damage’ add to our understanding of the relationship between polygamy and slavery?