Adizua and Efuru meet at a festival. They fall in love and decide to marry even though Adizua cannot afford the dowry. They plan for Efuru to sneak out of her father’s house on the next market day. Nwashike, Efuru’s father, suspects that his daughter is seeing someone and asks her cousin, who saw Efuru out late at night, to investigate.

On market day, Efuru takes her things to Adizua’s mother’s house, and they pronounce themselves married. Adizua’s mother, Ossai, is happy because Efuru is a good woman, but Efuru’s father is upset when he hears the news. He sends a group of young men from their family to see Efuru and convince her to come home. When they arrive, she greets them warmly and assures them that her husband will pay the dowry. They see that she is happy and has no intention of returning, so they leave. Nwashike sends another group of men to Efuru with the same result.

Efuru undergoes female circumcision, which the women call “having her bath” (Chapter 1, Location 137). It is terribly painful, and Efuru screams so much that the neighbors think something terrible has happened. Ossai’s sister,

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