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Is polygamy outdated?

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Is polygamy in 2010 still relevant? Is there still polygamy today, or it has it evolved into something else? These are some questions I’m asking after attending a discussion in town yesterday. Polygamy, one person said at the discussion, was very dignified in the times of our long gone ancestors. It was meant to build unity and strengthen family ties. Men did not do it out of malice, or for want of more sex. The women of old had a choice of who would become Mrs Number Two.

But polygamy today is actually doing the opposite of what it did a long long time ago. Where polygamy looked at preserving the society before, it is destroying it today. We have HIV/AIDS these days so if Mr. Bhuru has eleven wives no matter how much of a bull he is, his ashes are not going to meet all the needs of a dozen women, half of them old enough to be his daughters.

Polygamy is not dignified today because it is now called small houses. Today it solves nothing but promotes promiscuity that has been legalized by our tradition. Polygamy for me is not right. It degrades women because women most of the time have no choice but to do it.  I say this because women are still at a disadvantage because they are not economically independent. Allow me to ask a question: if women of old were the ones who had the cattle, would we have had polygamy? If women of today are working and owning their own things would we still justify polygamy?

From what I heard at the discussion polygamy involves double lives and lies. What’s your take on polygamy today?

2 comments to “Is polygamy outdated?”

  1. Comment by Fungai Machirori:

    Do you really believe that men who were polygamous of old didn’t do this for want of more sex? It’s most men’s dream to have sex with a host of different women. And I don’t think a man of old and a man today would much disagree on that point.

    I know this might sound a bit odd but I think we should just accept polygamy as something that will never go away. Call it waht you want; contextualise it however you will BUT it’s something that’s been around for ages and something we aren’t going to get rid of by telling folk they’ll get HIV, etc.

  2. Comment by Tonderai Chiyindiko:

    JZ says that its his ‘culture’,end of discussion.I personally think that there are some traditions that are probably outdated now but in place of those traditions we have far much worse ‘urban traditions’ like the ‘small house’.I think that as much as it was good in the olden days(though because of the paternal nature of culture,the voice of women was really only heard as a token gesture,not that it would change the course of events),right now its a violation of the rights of women.Think of King Mswati and how he chooses a wife every year and how some of those women have actually run away from him because they where ‘married off’ to him without their consent and against their wishes.Polygamy just does not work though on the other hand there is the argument that ‘monogamy is a social construct’ and not really embedded in our cultural milieu.Food for thought though the reality of HIV/Aids does not give us time to debate ‘on how we should put out the fire’ whilst the house is burning to the ground,for some it may be too late…