POLYGAMY PART 1

Is it really impossible for men to have one woman and not pursue another outside? Is extra marital affair not an impractical phenomenon? What desires do they, when they leave their wife they have suffered in building their entirety with, and profess that same act of love to another woman. And stupidly we believe. There are two forms of polygamy. Firstly, is the marriage of one man to more than one wife and the second is the marriage of one woman to more than one man. The first one is called polygyny while the later is polyandry. I was raised in a polygynous family. 

I wondered what the women were looking at, marrying my father. In this my own generation he wouldn’t even pass for an Aristo. His old pictures had nothing fascinating and he wasn’t a political office holder. All he did was to farm in a large cocoa plantation his father gave him as inheritance. He was a major supplier of cocoa for Cadbury in the late sixties and early seventies, and in return they packed bournvita and small amount of money for him. Instead of saving and building a good family; he kept on marrying. Education was a quarrel; thanks to free education, I would have been in one village decomposing. 

 My mum is the third wife out of four wives in a marriage I’m suspecting there would be a fifth even though my father is quarter to death. The level of insecurity in the family is higher than that of boko haram in the north. We all grew up without emotional and financial security. In a polygamous home there is nothing like a fatherly care. All you have is motherly care and step mother’s extreme hatred. It could pass sometimes that you feel the whole family is on a row to a better shore but just an opposition from one of the quarters’ spring out the devil within. Mysterious failures in school and sicknesses that even pastors can’t cure have all arisen in my house. Two of my siblings have died mysteriously and the second wife has a wound that wouldn’t heal even when she isn’t diabetic 

Care is a thing I never understood. Many a times I get introduced to my brothers and sisters. Some look like armed robbers while I can swear some are prostitute. Once you can come back and give my father ten yards of Ankara native wear, one bottle of gin and an envelope; you’re his favourite for the next one day. Just be rest assured your name and picture has been sent to the spirits of confusion by other wives. Polygamous homes create an in built hatred and fear. It causes insecurity and low self esteem. You’ll live to always protect what you have because you know another person might be introduced. You become stingy and the fear of tomorrow is instituted in our minds forever. 

It’s only Islam that gives room to a man to marry more than one woman and the religion states clearly you must love them equally. Christianity and even the Court frown at it, but as for my irresponsible father; he is both a traditionalist and a Baptist. This conflict of these religions is imminent even in our house where you see brothers and sisters fighting like its America against Afghanistan. Love is an erroneous belief in that home. There is no marital satisfaction in a polygamous home as women become subservient to their husbands as child bearing tools. Sometimes my father believes we would be helpful in his cocoa farm that’s why he officially knows he has twenty three children. Sleeping with four different women consciously and we think we are fighting sexually transmitted disease. We are just wrong. 

My story is weird and wild. I suffered what you all enjoyed. And my advice is; it’s better to die single than get into a polygamous home. Some people feel there is an advantage it possesses. If there is one you know please let us know before I start my story ………

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