How is friendship different than love?

Friendship has splendors that love knows not. It grows stronger when crossed, whereas obstacles kill love. Friendship resists time, which wearies and severs couples. It has heights unknown to love. Chapter 16, Ramatoulaye

Over the course of the novel, it becomes clear that romantic relationships fail both Ramatoulaye and Aissatou. But in the midst of all of their pain, the two friends remain loyal to one another when their husbands are no longer with them. Of all of the relationships in the novel, this friendship is the one that lasts the longest, having started while they were at school and lasting through the loss of two husbands and the birth of sixteen children. The core of the novel is the friendship between these two women. While the novel centers around their failed marriages, the novel is about the love and friendship between these two women, and its ability to outlast even the harshest circumstances.