WIFESPEAK: If only people knew what polygamy means...

We sometimes have heated arguments in one of my online groups.

The group is made up of brilliant men and women who will quote journals, research findings and even the Bible to support their arguments.

Recently, an argument on polygamy took days to settle.

It was birthed from an infamous remark by one honourable woman representative who fronted polygamy as a solution to the blatant child neglect and abuse in our communities.

Someone in our group forwarded that video clip and escorted it with his own remarks, singing praises about polygamy.

“Ladies, what do you think?” he asked and sat back, watching as everyone’s status indicated they were furiously typing.

POLYGAMY DEBATE

It was hard to keep up with the flow of messages. People went into the academic archives and the social research findings and dug up arguments for and against polygamy. Others castigated the members who were for polygamy.

One of the women said that she was okay with polygamy, as long as it was practiced in the exact African traditional way. We dug further and those in support of the act took a break to reconsider their stand, especially the men.

We found out that in most cultures that practiced polygamy, a husband did not just up and go and bring another woman home. The first wife made the decision about whether she needed a co-wife or not. If she did, she identified one and introduced her to the husband.

How blissful for the husbands, don’t you think? But wait until you hear about the next fact around polygamy that we discovered.

Hand in hand with polygamy was a form of polyandry, which was not frowned on – at all.

Wives had lovers and even bore children with other men, other than their husbands, in order to ward off curses. It was called mixing the children—creating a gene pool—so the evil eye could not identify one gene and wipe it out.

A gentleman who rarely posts anything—strange for a lawyer—reminded us that polygamy means having more than one husband or wife, at the same time, and that therefore a wife could argue her case in court for using the law to marry another husband.

IT'S GOOD TO CONSULT

Before these lawmakers pass a bill, they should consider bringing it into our online group for enrichment.

I am sure that our lawmakers did not clearly understand the definition of polygamy. They must have considered it a bliss ticket for the men, not realising that it also covers a woman.

As I followed this eye-opening argument, I thought of how ignorance leads to pits of destruction. The honourable public servant did not do her research to understand the root cause of the children being neglected.

Instead, we had the public busy debating about bedroom matters, while the problem of child neglect was not addressed.

The lawmakers rooting for polygamy did not ponder the intricate mechanisms around it.

Instead, we have families living in strife, high suicide rates and broken dreams. And yet, we retain ill-informed decision makers heading our homes and counties. Who will rescue us?

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