By Kemoh Mansaray
Like organisms, societies have a life cycle. From inception, they grow, mature, and die. Societal growth could be measured in terms of its intellectual, material, and moral development. Such growth or changes are indicators of a continuum, which stretches from primitiveness to modernity. Generally, a people move from a primitive society toward a modern society, unfortunately, events over the last 50 years in our country Sierra Leone defy this kind of thinking.
Reference to African cultural values in an attempt to justify or garner support for the practice of polygamy in Sierra Leone portrays culture as though it is a static phenomenon. Culture, as a matter of fact, is always in a state of flux. Culture is not cast in concrete it is always evolving.
As a society grows intellectually, materially, and morally, its culture is constantly being created, recreated, and shifted. Thus, in proportion to their intellectual, material, and moral development, a people continually evaluate their culture. They not only weed out the bad and keep the good, but also pass on the good to the next generation.
One of the key elements of a family is the marriage institution. It plays an important role in the relationship that exists between men, women and children. Marriage can take many forms, monogamous or polygamous or other.
A few years ago I saw some young women while they were still young girls growing up in Sierra Leone in polygamous homes, I stood uncertain of their position on the matter of polygamy though I have witness firsthand the effects of polygamy. That was until South African President Jacob Zuma got in front of the world and defended polygamy with culture.
Before going any further, let me try to define what polygamy is. Polygamy is a hotly contested practice and open to widespread misunderstandings. For a deeper understanding of the concept of polygamy and how it affects women, a broader definition is needed. According to Maillu (1988:1) as cited in Nkomazana, 2006, a polygamist is simply a man who is married to more than one wife, living with them at the same time.
Now you can see where my argument is. Bluntly speaking polygamy is a violation of Human Rights and should not be tolerated because of culture. The problem with polygamy is primarily that it is a structurally in egalitarian practice in both theory and fact. Polygamy should be opposed for this reason.
President Zuma’s speech triggered something in me, making me want to find the cultural link between polygamy and the African tradition that I am so proud of. In the end, I realized my firm standing position on polygamy. When polygamy (a man married to more than one wife) became part of our culture, polyandry (woman married to more than one husband) was never considered. A practice that does not promote equality is a guaranteed no in modern societies and I just have one question for polygamy defenders: what's culture got to do with?
Let me draw your attention again to area of non-material culture where changes have been noted but not deeply studied in our African setting - “African traditional family system”. Family formations through marriage are of different types among Africans. These are the Christian marriages, customary marriages, Muslim marriages, and ordinance marriages. These four types end up as either monogamous or polygamous marriages. Christian and ordinance marriages are monogamous while Muslim and customary marriages and polygamous.
To Africans including Sierra Leone, the institution of polygamy is nothing strange. Polygamy was the acceptable form of marriage in Africa prior to the arrival of the colonizers and Christianity. When polygamy became a part of our society, men ruled and wanted their sexual desires satisfied. Men wanted to have a male son who could take over his household when he died, he wanted to show that he has power and wealth so he married all the wives he could to fulfill his dream.
There are many reasons why Africans practiced polygamy but here are the common reasons given through the years:
A man's wealth is measured by the number of wives and children he has.
The more wives a man has, the more political alliances he makes.
Agriculturally is easier to have a big family to cultivate the land
Women were safer in a large household
It gives men sexual gratification
Polygamy is a child spacer, it allows a woman time to rest before trying to bear another son for her husband.
Considering the reasons why African men marry more than one wife, it is obvious that Where resource inequalities are great among men, women will choose to marry polygamously. Where inequalities are comparatively low, women will chose to marry monogamously. This theory is female-empowering and functional. This recognizes polygamy or monogamy as rational choices to be made in accordance with social determinants, such as resource inequality.
For those arguing on the side of custom or ‘African Tradition’, let us then briefly examine the long and arduous road women have endured under men. In our progress toward modernization, there was a time when money, as we know it today, did not exist for use in commercial transactions. As a result, a man's wealth was not determined in dollar terms or Leones as the case may be in Sierra Leone or other currencies, but in terms of the number of wives, children, livestock, etc. he possessed. Wives, then, were not only looked upon as sex objects and baby manufacturing machines, but also as the primary source of farm labor. Men were not only interested in women's bodies, but also interested in whether their mammary organs were erect or flabby. As a result, when women became spent from bearing children, hard farm labor, and their sexual values depreciated, their husbands married younger girls. No wonder why Soul Singer James Brown sings, "It's a man's world."
Thus, are we then saying that the use of women as sex objects, workhorses, and abandoning them when they begin to age is an African custom? I, too, am an African. More importantly, I relish African values. However, I consider polygamy a gross violation of Human Rights and should not be tolerated in any society and is not a display of African values.
Polygamy is also really about male choice and preference for sexual variety to ensure male reproductive success. The extent of the opportunity to seek sexual variety may vary, however, with social circumstances, such as the degree to which women are available and how costly they are as wives (their economic value).
Polygamy has long been associated with gender inequality and this remains the case. In particular, the United Nations has consistently taken the position that polygamy contravenes women's equality rights. The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which monitors compliance of states parties to the Convention, issued a general recommendation in 1992 that included the following.
“Polygamous marriage contravenes a woman's right to equality with men, and can have such serious emotional and financial consequences for her and her dependents that such marriages ought to be discouraged and prohibited” (Campbell, Bala, & Duvall-Antonacopoulos, 2005 P. 6 - 20 ).
The Committee notes with concern that some States parties, whose constitutions guarantee equal rights, permit polygamous marriage in accordance with personal or customary law. This violates the constitutional rights of women, and breaches the provisions of article 5(a) of the Convention (Campbell, Bala, & Duvall-Antonacopoulos, 2005 P. 6 – 20).
Women do not like polygamy but cannot do anything about it. Divorce is the de facto right of men in the Sierra Leone, whatever the behaviour of the husband. Men can and do divorce women when they want too, although this was comparatively rare in our so-called culture. The fact that men can take another wife or divorce their existing wife is a source of insecurity and anxiety for women and helps to ensure their adherence to conservative social norms.
Where is the right of the woman? Yes, polygamy is not illegal in many Africa countries. But how does it square with a Constitution in these countries that provides for the equal rights of women? The South African Law Reform Commission for instance as cited in (Morna, (2010), concluded that “a system that allows men to have several wives while a woman can only have one husband is self-evidently unequal” (p. 28).
Let me still ask the question to those who still support the idea of polygamy, Do African men still want many children in this world filled with orphans and abandoned children? Do you, African women still think that polygamy is a good birth control method? Do many polygamous African sisters still think that you are not good enough to get a husband all to yourself without sharing? Answers to these questions will undoubtedly support my argument that polygamy is a violation of woman rights or at least a violation of Human Rights.
The reasoning that there are more women than men no longer makes sense. Perhaps then, men were dying in the army and women were just too many. However, today men are no longer the only sex serving in the military. The death rate of men in the army has dropped significantly.
Even though I agree with having pride in our African culture, seen in light of the dominant western culture, this culture cannot be reason enough to continue this practice. The fear that traditional African culture will die is not sufficient to warrant acceptance of a tradition, like polygamy, which is outdated and harmful to women.
In conclusion, I have observed that traditionally, polygamy was regarded as a symbol of prestige and value among the Africans. While polygamy was evidently an acceptable way of life among Sierra Leoneans in the past, the voices of women were suppressed and marginalized to the point that they became the helpless and mindless victims. Though polygamy is still widely practiced, judging from the way things are happen in most African countries including Sierra Leone, I would not be surprised that legislations are put in place to discourage polygamy in the not too distant future. One way to get out of this mentality is to help educate all African women when we heed what Rousseau once admonished, we would be able to lessen the insidious tide of sexist male dominance in Africa: "When women become good mothers, men will become good husbands and fathers." When African women, by their education, knowledge and opportunity, become good mothers, they will rear good boys who will, in turn, become good men, husbands, or fathers.
References
Campbell, A., Bala, N., & Duvall-Antonacopoulos, K. (2005). Polygamy in Canada: Legal and
Social Implications for Women and Children: A Collection of Policy Research Reports. Ottawa, ON, CAN: Status of Women Canada. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Morna, C. L. (2010). Polygamy, promiscuity and progressive leadership. Sister Namibia, 22(1),
28-29.
Nkomazana, F. (2006). Polygamy and women within the cultural context in Botswana. Scriptura,
(92), 265-277.
Ogundare, S. F. (2010). Changes in Family Types and Functions among Yoruba of Southwestern
Nigeria since 1960. Journal Of GLBT Family Studies, 6(4), 447-457.
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Rehman, J. (2007). THE SHARIA, ISLAMIC FAMILY LAWS AND INTERNATIONAL
HUMAN RIGHTS LAW: EXAMINING THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF POLYGAMY AND TALAQ. International Journal Of Law, Policy & The Family, 21(1), 108-127. doi:10.1093/lawfam/ebl023
