Am I Naturally A Polygamist?

By Arthur M. Katabalwa.

The Worlds most famous polygamist, South African President Jacob Zuma and his four wives.

A few days ago, I met a lay preacher in one of the suburbs in Kampala. He is an amiable 76 year old man with a stooping walk. I am naturally comfortable in the company of people like this. We started talking about his job and later the conversation went about his family. That was when he dropped a bombshell. He is polygamous!!! I thought that was a contradiction as he was a lay preacher. He should surely be promoting monogamy. That was when he sat me down and he talked to me about the intricacies of culture and the need to maintain it.

In my life I have had a number of women who have called themselves my wives. As a kid, about three elderly women constantly referred to me as a husband. For some reason, even now as an adult, I have failed to shake off that "reputation" (for want of a better word). A close girl friend of mine, Namanda the other day asked how many women I had in my life. For whatever protestations I gave, she refused to believe that I have been monogamous. Admittedly I have an inordinate number of female friends who are within my inner circle. In fact they are the majority. But this is because I actually enjoy their company and I think they enjoy my company.

For a while, I have taken interest in this subject. Why is it that in many parts of the world we have polygamous relationships? In the west, it is frowned upon. And to some extent, within African societies it is frowned upon but accepted. Another close girl friend of mine, Hamida, who is highly educated said to me that as long as she was the first wife, she did not care if her husband had more wives. I put it down to the fact that she is Muslim. But she vehemently rejected that notion with the argument that she would rather know her husband had another woman rather that suspect he was actually cheating.

Nelson Mandela enjoying the company of Winne and Graca.

There are cultures that peoples of the world hold dear to themselves. And when these cultures are faced with religion, especially Christianity, and the western cultures, they are looked upon as backward. But why are they looked upon as such? In our African tradition where wealth is sometimes apportioned by the number of wives and kids a man has in their homestead it has served certain purposes. We look at these things in the isolation of education, foreign cultural intrusion and economics. Many traditionalist families have strong family bonds because, much as it may seem implausible, when there have been multiple relationships, the need to offset emotions sometimes is divided.

One cultural practice that I find incredibly out of touch is female genital mutilation. The societies who practice this have many reasons for this practice but the general tide is against it. But in parallel to this, we have male circumcision. And this is still widely accepted. When I have had conversations with some of my contemporaries from the UK they have been mortified with the idea that a young male would be arraigned in the village square and have his foreskin chopped off without anesthetic. In the same way my contemporaries in Uganda find it mortifying that in the west a man can share a bathroom or toilet with his mother in law.

We all have our quirks. We all have our beliefs and in some ways we may find them contradicting our own beliefs. But for whatever reason, we must never give up that in which we believe. As long as it does not infringe on the freedom of the person next door, my belief is that we must all do and act as we feel we are supposed to act without reservation. That gentleman, who is a lay preacher does not find any contradiction in the fact that he has two happy wives. Maybe I am also naturally a polygamist. Let he who is free of sin be the first one to cast the first stone.