Polygamy debate roils Kenya

MALINDI - Relaxing in front of his house in the shade of a mango tree, Ata Tsumo had only a weak smile for the flap over South African President Jacob Zuma who has three wives and fathered a child out of wedlock.

Aged 62 and a retired district court judge in the coastal Kenyan town of Malindi, Tsumo has child problems of his own. Tsumo sometimes has trouble remembering all of his children’s names and birthdays. After all, his seven wives have borne him more than 50 of them.

His first wife died, and he divorced two others. As a Muslim, Tsumo is allowed to have four wives at any one time, and his current four wives keep his extensive farm in good repair.

Fatima Tsumo, aged 52 and mother of 11 of Tsumo’s children, sees nothing objectionable in polygamous families. “He treats us all equally and we all get along well,” she said. “It would be different if he favoured one wife and her children.”

Having multiple wives was not detrimental to Tsumo’s judicial career even though Kenya does not allow polygamous civil marriages. It recognises them, however, under customary law.

But a marriage bill now before the Kenyan parliament would allow civil registration of polygamous marriages provided that the man states before the first marriage that he intends to take more than one wife.

The bill has sparked heated debate in the East African nation as well as protests, mainly from Christian clergy. In the view of Cyrus Jirongo, a member of parliament who has three wives himself, the bill clarifies the legal status of polygamy and is in keeping with African traditions.

“I prefer having three wives at home to amusing myself evening after evening with other men’s wives,” he said in a recent interview, adding that polygamy made him “a better husband and father”.

Other men advance similar, and not disinterested, arguments in favour of polygamy. “If I marry another woman, she’s part of my household,” said a Nairobi store owner. “If she’s my secret mistress, though, she could have other lovers.”

The idea of a sex partner having other sex partners is repugnant to many men who, when it comes to themselves however, insist that one woman is not enough to satisfy their sexual appetite. This, for self-assured African women, is the biggest problem with polygamy.

“There’s a double standard,” complained a female office worker. “A woman can’t be married to several men. Only men are granted the right to have multiple partners.”

Call-in radio shows offering advice on matters of life and love are very popular in Kenya, and questions frequently deal with secondary wives and concubines.

“If I don’t agree he’ll divorce me,” moaned a woman in her mid-forties who had been asked to consent to her husband marrying a considerably younger rival. “Now I fear for my children’s inheritance.”

Secondary wives must often contend with nasty parents-in-law who see them as gold diggers in quest of the family fortune.

Siala Nadupoi is unfamiliar with call-in radio shows and advice columns in newspapers. A 33-year-old member of the Masai tribe who lives in a traditional manyatta in Kenya’s Kajiado district, she shares her husband with three other wives. The arrangement is quite practical, she said.

“We all have a hut of our own, where we live with our children. Our husband spends the night with each of us by turns,” she explained.

“We can take turns working and taking care of the children - when we go to fetch water or gather firewood, someone is always around to look after them.”