%0 Journal Article %T <i>Marcande</i> Ceremony: A Space for Subversion and Reclaiming a Voice %A Niandou Aissata %A Ouarodima Maina %J Advances in Literary Study %P 143-152 %@ 2327-4050 %D 2024 %I Scientific Research Publishing %R 10.4236/als.2024.122010 %X This article analyses a specific arena where women (the friends and relatives of a senior wife) perform songs and dances to &#8220;celebrate&#8221; the arrival of a new wife in a context where polygamy is culturally and legally allowed. The article analyses four songs to bring out their subversive nature. It also demonstrates how the songs represent a means of reclaiming a voice in a patriarchal context. The songs are divided into two types: the more didactic and less obscene type and the second type, which is more provocative and obscene. In both categories, the woman subverts cultural norms and claims a voice that the culture denies her. In the process of analyzing the current paper, we tentatively use Elaine Showalter&#8217;s feminist theory of gynocritics to analyze few songs from this specific place of creativity, in order to see how women subvert patriarchal norms and how they claim a voice to express how they feel on this particular occasion. %K < %K i> %K Marcande< %K /i> %K Ceremony %K Sexuality %K Senior Wife %K Late Comers or Junior Wives %K Patriarchy %K Cultural Subversion %U http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=132931