From a lecture about pre-colonial political power in Africa:

"A woman could also bring complaints about her husband to the mikiri. If most of the women agreed that the husband was at fault, they would collectively support her. They might send spokeswomen to tell the husband to apologize and to give her a present, and, if he was recalcitrant they might "sit on" him. They might also act to protect a right of wives. Harris describes a case of women's solidarity to maintain sexual freedom:

The men ... were very angry because their wives were openly having relations with their lovers. The men ... met and passed a law to the effect that every woman . . . should renounce her lover and present a goat to her husband as a token of repentance ... The women held. . . secret meetings and, a few mornings later, they went to a neighboring (village), leaving all but suckling children behind them ... [The men] endured it for a day and a half and then they went to the women and begged their return ... [T]he men gave [the women] one goat and apologized informally and formally.

Thus through mikiri women acted to force a resolution of their individual and collective grievances."

You go, Igbo women!