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Let’s begin this discourse properly, by excluding some categories of people it does not apply to on account of certain factors: individuals whose religions permit them to have more than one wife; widowers that want experiment with marriage again.
To those men who strayed or stumbled into polygamy because of a major quarrel between them and their spouse and therefore became easily deceived by the guiles of the devil or had one stupid fling with a single and searching lady, who ‘mistakenly’ got pregnant and used that to sink her hooks deep into the partner, I have this simple question: what real benefit have you gotten from your five minutes of insanity that led you into a polygamous mess.
In most cases, polygamy produces these fruits: jealousy, hatred, bickering, competition, resentment, bitterness, strife, perpetual quarrels, abandonment and backwardness. Sowing wild oats, which often leads to polygamous marriage, most of the time leaves such men in total regret, and wishing that they had kept their ‘staff of office’ or third leg hidden in their boxers. And when such men eventually pass on, more troubles beset the family left behind as hostility and resentments multiply. Why do men still get caught in the web of avoidable polygamy?
Okay, it may have worked in the olden days in Africa, but this is now, when we are supposed to be wiser and the realities of the modern time modulated by intercultural interactions, educational advancement, socio-economic growth and strong Christian, bible-based teachings against polygamy.
The reason a good number of parents are not too comfortable with polygamy is that it throws up complications in marital relationships. That is why they take steps to inquire into the background of a prospective spouse for their child and ensure that they shield the child from polygamous union. This explains why it is gradually becoming a source of contempt to be identified as a second or third wife. A child who is reminded that his mother is the second or third wife does not really feel proud about it because he/she is belittled by the statement.
I was told and have not forgotten when half-sisters in a neighbourhood were quarrelling and another girl said said, ‘Do you want to snatch her Ludo game the way your mother ‘snatched’ her mummy’s husband?’ It was not a funny situation, but meanwhile the two girls were very innocent of the polygamous situation that threw their births. The poor girl cried to her mother to ask her why she snatched another woman’s man. Her mother could not explain it.
Another account was about a polygamist who built houses for the wives in his compound. When he passed on, most of the visitors trooped to the first wife and children’s apartment because they were the popular. But the second wife received very few visitors and was not happy about that. The next morning she spread her mourning mat outside the compound and sat down to receive the visitors who otherwise would have walked past her, and go to the house of the first wife. That is the acrimony associated with polygamy.
There was the story about the chief executive officer of a blue chip industry who passed on, his two wives fed the press with laughable facts. The first one claimed ‘I am the first wife of his youth’ while the second one said ‘I am the love of his life’. Both claims were based on what the dead husband privately said to them. With his demise, a battle for assets ensued.
Men who keep concubines and children outside their matrimonial homes, are also engaged in polygamy. Men have always been the ones to initiate relationships that lead to the sowing of wild oats, whose mothers then begin to insist that they must be acknowledged by the man’s in-house family.
Has anyone taken time to peep into the world of a polygamous family when the man is no longer alive? What about two wives who jointly fought the man who separately deceived them into polygamous marriage?
A close pal told of his kinsman who was wrecked by a would-be-mother of an unborn child who pretended that she was pregnant, the result of a wild oat the man believed he had sown. The lady extracted a marital status for herself from the man. Unknown to the man, the lady had other plans up her skirt. The smart lady got his mansion in swanky part of Lagos, extracted a hefty sum and a flourishing business. All these were properly documented in her name before she later announced her miscarriage.
