Polygamy is depressing me

Written Thursday, 24 January 2008

 

 

Lately, all the men in my village seem to want to talk to me about is polygamy.  They want to explain to me all the reasons why polygamy is a good and necessary thing – like that the second (or third or fourth) wife can help the first wife with all the chores, and can do the cooking for the family if the first wife is sick.  And they tell me that having multiple wives can make a man's home life easier – if a man has only one wife, she might talk back to him or refuse to do chores or something, but if there are multiple wives, the wives will always be competing to be the husband's favorite and so they will be nicer to him.  And of course there is always the argument that men have wandering eyes, and it is better for them to marry multiple wives than to have affairs.

 

On top of these theoretical discussions, a couple of my host brothers (whose wives are some of my best friends in the village) have told me they are looking for second wives.  Nowhere in any of this talk is there any thought to how the wife feels.  If I try to bring it up, I am just told that polygamy is allowed by Islam and by the culture, and that the women are used to it, or accept it, or whatever.

 

It is really starting to depress me that no one cares about how the women feel about it.