On polygamy

It has only been two generations of Zulu men that have toiled with the idea of monogamy as the only marital-institution option. Before that, Zulu men were quite openly polygamous. This was the norm rather than the shunned upon exception that is the case in our anglicised society today.

If you had not noticed, ladies and gentlemen, this is Africa. You can tell it is so by the rich culture of the indigenous inhabitants of this continent. If you choose to overlook the richness of the culture, your other indicators are the richness of the skin pigment of the natives of these lands, the rather commonly large curvaceous nature of the native female behind, the kind, soft deep brown eyes and the beautifully nappy hair that crowns the native’s head.

And in Africa, as it should be in any other region of the world, the culture and the customs of that region should prevail and be kept alive, guarded jealously and cultivated in order for the nations that inhabit that region to retain their identity and their commonly noble ancestral way of life; for them to never loose sight of their true self and to always stay true to themselves and their age-old traditions that saw some of their most successful years as a society, in the case of the Zulu.

Back to the Zulu men; we are a proud nation. A nation of warriors, a nation that has a rich history and an even richer culture. However, one of our most closely held norms has, as with most others since colonisation, slowly been exposed to erosion by the ideas and ideologies of the unstoppable (in most cases) colonising forces that settle to rape the lands of all that they have to offer under the pretext of urbanisation and business investment, among other more vividly misleading descriptions. Polygamy was forced out of the native minds and beaten out them until, even among the natives, it has now been reserved a place in ridicule and is associated with a backwardness of the mind and a lack of education coupled with male chauvinism.

A neat trick by those clever rewriters of world history who hail from the North via the oceans.

Back in the day, a young man who had many girlfriends was held in high esteem by all of society. Mind you, the type of skill needed for the said young man to be successful as isoka (a young man with many girlfriends) was hard to attain. It took years of honing of skills such as movement, grooming and praise-singing of sorts on the part of the young man. The ladies made sure that they only succumbed to a male of extremely high skill, which made it paramount for any young man with a hope to marry one day to learn these skills and to learn how to treat a lady. For the ladies, being one of many girlfriends of a well-known and skilful young man was a thing to be proud of — and never did these interactions result in sexual intercourse until after marriage.

So in the modern day, being polygamous or having polygamous aspirations is treated with disgust by our educated sisters along with the originators of the monogamous ideal. If you, as a guy, support polygamy, you are viewed as a backward male chauvinist and are shunned or, in extreme cases, treated with the compassion reserved for a wild animal for uttering your beliefs and ideas.

Let me take you back a few decades and let you in on how we as African men feel about this whole monogamy business. You see, the current generation of Nguni men are about only the second generation of people to be raised in a monogamous family structure. Before, every man who could afford it was polygamous and could fulfil their duties as men without very much fuss.

This was the norm, a custom that saw thriving families and communities. My grandfather was a polygamist. He had two wives, which is quite low for his generation, but that is all the man-bashing he could take, I suppose. He had built different huts for him and each of his two wives and added on huts as his family grew. I never heard that there was in-fighting between his two wives; none that lasted, anyway. If there was a quarrel in the homestead while he was away with his buddies having sorghum brewskies, it was quickly and pragmatically sorted out by himself when he returned. By the next day, all were at peace and both his wives would prepare breakfast for him before heading off into the fields while he went on a tour of his property, hunted small mammals for dinner and made sure that the laaities took good care of his herds.

You see, polygamy meant there was healthy competition for the attention of the man of the house. Each woman worked to make and keep him happiest with her; she wished to be the favourite wife. This could never be a bad thing because it meant that everyone worked to be the best person that they could possibly be in order to have the favour of the husband. It was a matter of great pride to be the favourite and a huge self-esteem boost, while providing a role model of goodness to which the other wives could aspire. What wrong could possibly come from everyone constantly bettering themselves?

There was peace back in the day for the man of the house. He was king and that brought order — only if he was a wise man and could handle his business. Nowadays we are not, by law, allowed to marry more than one wife because, well, the Constitution doesn’t allow for it. Forget what you heard or what your ancestors did, the law of the land says you can’t, so forget it. The law, society at large and the women of this day all unequivocally condemn polygamy and declare that you may not be married or have relations with more than one woman.

We are human. Mammals, to be exact, which makes us ultimately members of the animal kingdom. We are animals, smarter animals (this is up for debate), but animals none the less. As creatures and creations we have natural instincts that were designed to ensure our furthering on Earth. Men were given the huge yolk of procreation. Because the Creator knew that we would refuse — as men, the thoughtful, sensitive creatures that most of us are — to put the feelings of our female counterparts under any strain by spreading our seed relentlessly and furthering the species with utter disregard for the feelings of the better half, He saw fit to take the decision away from us and supply us with hormones that would take over and necessitate sexual intercourse, which in turn led to procreation, thereby dictating to us our roles in this whole procreation business.

Besides the abundantly available hormones that issue no warning when they are about to take over, we were created or designed to react to triggers that are totally in the female’s control. We have no power in the way we react to sexual stimuli simply because we are designed or wired not to have any control. It is nature and it must run its due course, for the good of the species or, it would seem lately, to the detriment of the species.

Have you ever been to the zoo and seen a caged lion? Well, I have, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. To see an animal so majestic, the king of the forest, the boss, be kept in a cage, fed at meal times antelope carcasses that I would guess had been refrigerated, was just saddening. To be that particular lion must be very sad indeed. To never again have the taste of warm blood in your mouth, to never feel the pulse of a fresh kill die down inside your massive natural customised armoury, must be equal to death itself. I saw that the lion I was looking at was basically dead. He did not have a spark in his eye and he did not have his swagger. He probably lay around all day waiting for meals and trips to the vet. The good life had made him weak and killed his natural instinct.

In another instance I also visited a private game lodge on the outskirts of Krugersdorp where I saw a different set of lion. A pride about six strong — young lion. Although they also were fed regularly, they still chased the game that shared their revised habitat, purely out of natural instinct. Although I doubt they ever caught any of the captive game that was also at the lodge, at least they got to chase and their natural instinct was used and satisfied. Their eyes were sharper and fiercer; they looked healthier and even happier because they were afforded the opportunity to be true to the animals that they were.

The above is not at all like today’s male human animal who is not even allowed to take a second glance at that which stirs his natural instinct. We are told, or it is implied, that we may linger at our peril by our one, constitutionally sanctioned, better half. Surely this is not what nature intended, or men would simply be happy with their one partner and after marriage would never again have any use for another female? But this is not the case. Even saintly figures are slave to the flesh, to their earthly urges that demand to be heard and attended to immediately.

This is the burden that men carry in this day, a fight against their very self. And it is not even like we do not know the risks that we face when we engage in what has been now termed extramarital activity because, well, we are not allowed to have extra marriages, which are the natural solution to our dispossession. Men are trying with all their might to combat their very self and conform to the constitution of marriage — one partner till death do you part, or else your death may come quicker than you thought, sir.

A man wanting to mate with every available female is an instinct born within us that we can do nothing about. It is exactly that which separates us from our nobler opposites — or used to, anyway. Now I just don’t know. It is what sets us apart and dictates every single decision we make in life. We relate everything to mating. Women have a different code written into them, which is even more important than the “mate at will” coding given to the male. Women have the responsibility to curb the mating, they have the power of when and where, and will only do so when it is opportune — or men would run rampant, if it were up to them.

Women have been coded to be attracted to mate with the best male possible. Back in cavemen days, it was the male who provided the most, the best hunter, fishermen and fighter. All these things meant security and assurance that the offspring born from that engagement were afforded the best possible chance of survival. Unfortunately, like in the male, this coding still drives women today. They will be exclusively attracted to the alpha male of any group, the one best positioned to provide the most and, unfortunately, the internet billionaire geeks are coming up tops these days over the well-versed in the seduction of women, the well-built construction-worker types. It is the way of the world.

Men are trying, but it is hard not to cheat — especially in this superficial day and age, and especially if you are considered a desirable individual. But men try, and it is women who bring the situation of extramarital activity into its naturally rapturous state of being. Like Chris Rock says: “Women don’t say to themselves, ‘I want a man just like my friend’s;’ they say, ‘I want him’ …” And if a woman wants you and she sticks around long enough, even the most hardened (excuse the pun) and most faithful man will fall into her bosom and let nature take its course; often at their own and their families’ peril.

The point is that we as men are trying, ladies, but we ain’t gonna lie to you — it is damn hard. I mean the situation, not the … er … physical state of our equipment; not all the time, anyway. And women make it even harder by the way they behave these days. Women have been liberated and rightly so, and they are enjoying the best period in history for them and this is all wonderful, but on the flip side it makes them that harder to resist. So ladies, please help your men along the process of depolygamising themselves.

Ladies, your man doesn’t need your anger and your ridicule if you should be unfortunate enough to find him in a compromising position with a very willing secretary on top of his office desk. It is nature and although he fought it for three weeks and she flirted for that period, increasing the intensity each day, her coding also taking over. He finally succumbed to his coding and did what nature intended for him to do — and much against his will too, may I add. Now he needs your support and kindness in order for you two to work things out. Calling him a low-life bastard and burning his clothes, car and house is not going to help anyone.

Although I am a bit apprehensive about the way in which this whole one-woman business was introduced to my people, through Christianity, I’m also slightly glad for it. It definitely does keep a whole lot more of us alive. I believe that this is about the only good thing about it, and it’s a huge thing. Otherwise, I’m for polygamy any other time.

Of course there are still those among us who still openly practise polygamy, usually in the rural areas away from the modern female bibles like the Oprah show and those all-knowing women’s magazines. Some may argue that the woman in the rural areas still happily subscribe to polygamy because of lack of education and exposure to their rights, but others argue that there is always a choice and if something feels wrong to these women, they have a choice to steer clear of these marriages.

It may be that poverty also plays a role in deciding one’s marital status and the choice is taken away from rural women by the need to be provided for, while others may also say that they choose their way of life out of respect for their culture and norms. The jury is still out on that one, but polygamy still survives in some parts of the country and is still commonly practised.

So the struggle by the modern native male continues. The struggle to redefine his place in the world and find a new set of behaviour that is acceptable to him and the society in which find ourselves. Personally, I could not dream of having two people telling me to take a bath on the weekend, or calling me 50 times telling me to come home, or screaming at me periodically about the perceived high volume of fermented beverages I consume. But, hey, different strokes for different folk. Some still swear by variety, and as long as they can find willing partners, I will not place myself in any seat to pass judgement upon them.

I rest
The Sumo