ABSTRACT
In Somalia neither marriage nor divorce had to be particularly difficult to accomplish. Many wives opposed their husbands taking second wives. Taking a second wife in and of itself led to a great number of divorces or, at best, the perpetual potential for divorce. This potential was often actualized in masayr. Having multiple wives in the same urban area made self-sufficiency far more difficult to achieve. Without the guarantee of an independent source of livelihood, women and children were much more dependent on men. Situations that in other societies might spur separation due to divorce and not just death were often also disregarded and reworked into new relationships. Despite divorce, these partial relationships often remained quite close, customarily determined by the husband/father and how he chose to assert his claims on the children born to his lineage.
