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By Chukwudi Nwokoye Esq., Published June 12, 2008
Sometime in October last year, at around 11pm, as I was about to retire to bed, my cell phone rang. As I picked up to
answer the call, it was a female voice. The caller is a professional colleague of mine who is in her early thirties and African-
American. My heart skipped a bit as I was wondering whether there was a problem in the office which she wanted to warn
me about or whether I took a wrong file home.
“Is everything ok?” I asked. “Oh yes, everything is fine. I apologize to you for calling you this late in the night, hope you
wouldn’t mind, I have been trying to reach you all day” she said. I heaved a sigh of relief, but I could feel the excitement on
the other side of the line. She went on to the aim of calling me and told me that as she went to braid her hair in an African
Hair Salon, there was this movie that was showing titled: “Atlanta”. I have never watched the movie and do not know what
the movie was all about. She gave me the details of the movie which involved a man that married another wife who
happened to be his daughter’s best friend. She told me that when she was watching the movie, she remembered me. Still
confused, I inquired, “So you called me this time of the night to tell me about the movie you watch at some African Hair
Salon?”
“No I was just wondering if it is true. I have 2 questions for you. Is it true that in Africa, men marry as many wives as they
want? Secondly, could you help me buy the Part II of the movie, I really want to watch the second part” She went on again
telling me what she thought would happen in the second part of the movie. As she was engaged in the monologue, I was
laughing my lungs out. When she finished, she asked again, “please tell me the truth; is it true?” I started laughing again.
“Why are you laughing at me?” She inquired.
'So that’s why you want to take 30 minutes off my sleep time? So you thought I was playing when I told you that I already
had 9 wives”. “You are not serious. You are always funny. But I’m curious, is it possible for someone to marry many
wives in Nigeria?
I spent about another 30 minutes lecturing her about the issue of marrying more than one wife and about its benefits and
shortcomings. At the end I said to her: “Well, since you have taken away portion of my sleep time, in my culture, if a single
lady calls and spoke to a man at this time of the night, it means something. I’ve been wondering all along, will you be my
10th wife? Number 10 in my culture gets the best of everything from the husband, so will you be my magic number 10?”
“Goodbye, I will see you in the office tomorrow” and she hung up.
This issue of polygamy and the attendant problems has been a topic that many writers refuse to take head-on. The topic is
controversial and many people view polygamists with disdain. Some see them as heathens or traditionalists. To some,
polygamists are pagans, or as they put it, idol worshippers.
In this article, I wish to take this issue to the market square and ventilate the pros and cons in the public, so that people that
do not understand African way of life and the complexities of our traditions will come to understand and maybe appreciate
why it is so. Also, it is meant for even some Africans themselves that condemn the practice and refer to men that marry
more than one wife as crude or living in the past. But I am here to tell readers that men that marry more than one wife are
not crude.
The term “polygamy” is Greek word meaning “the practice of multiple marriages”. It is a form of marriage in which a
person has more than one spouse. It is the opposite of monogamy which is a practice of one man one wife. Polygamy is
divided into two, polygyny and polyandry.
Polygyny means when a man marries more than one wife at a time. Polygyny is practiced in many Middle Eastern and some
African countries like Sudan and some Western African countries especially Muslims and traditional religion. It is also
practiced in the Caribbean in mostly patriarchical societies. Mormon religion used to practice it but later outlawed it except
that their fundamentalists still practice it.
Polyandry means when a woman marries more than one husband at a time. In some cultures, it is not uncommon for
women to marry more than one husband at a time. It is known as wife sharing. Some call it fraternal polyandry and it was
traditionally practiced among nomadic Tibetans in Nepal and some parts of China . There, two or more brothers share the
same wife, with the wife having equal sexual access to them. Polyandry is mainly practiced in societies with scarce
environmental resources, as it is believed to limit human population growth and enhance child survival. They reasoned that a
child with more than one father has a more chance of survival than a child with only one father. Here we mean social
fathers and not necessarily biological fathers.
Some people will roll their eyes at this notion, but culture is relative to the people that practice it (cultural relativism).
Therefore it is a misnomer to use the term polygamy as involving a man marrying more than one wife at a given time. It is
actually polygyny. Having said that let me say that the practice of one man marrying many wives to me is not by itself
wrong. In the olden days, our grand fathers and great-grand fathers practiced it because of many reasons.
First of all the practice is highly favored because of the agrarian society of their time. Many wives equal many children and
many children together with the many wives accounted for many hands in the farm. The more people you have in your
family the more laborers in your farmland. The mainstay of their economy is farming. A man’s wealth is judged by the size
of his farm and by how big his family is. People also look at how much land, fruit trees like palm trees and other economic
trees. In my area when yam is the most common stable food, people look at the size of the barn, to see how many stacks
of yams, the quantity of cocoyam etc. All these are indicatives of how wealthy a man is at their time. Let me say that a poor
man would not be able to cater for many wives and does not have big farms. Moreover, some men that grew up as only
sons, try to take many wives so as to enlarge the size of his family.
Secondly, a man’s family size determines his influence in the political society. With his many wives and children, his
political influence could be felt. This is because, in the public square, if the man has grown sons that have already been
initiated into the age-grade “ogbo”, if the man makes a suggestion and a hand vote is needed, his grown sons would be there
to back him up.
Also some men that want to be “eze”-kings, try to take wives from villages in his town that he sees as his rival in the
chieftaincy tussle. If he foresees that there is a prospective candidate for “eze” from certain village(s), a politically savvy
candidate would try to take a wife from that village(s) to neutralize his rival(s). That way, if his rivals want to hurt him,
they would not because he is now an “ogo” in-law. Some men even when they have already succeeded in becoming “ezes”,
if they still feel threatened by a particular village, they try to take wives from those villages to neutralize any move by them
to antagonize him since he is now a ‘relation’ to them by virtue of marriage.
In some instances, many wives were products of inter-tribal wars. In those days, some women captured during inter-tribal
wars automatically become wives of the king. Some were given to him as spoils of war or in agreement to appease the
victors during those wars.
Sometimes, if there was an accidental killing of a man, the culprits would pay the victim’s family with a young woman in
compensation for their loss. The young woman would become a wife of the deceased person and probably the eldest
person in the family would “inherit” the young woman and raise children for the deceased brother. Also if a man dies and
the wife is still young, his brother also inherits the wife and raise kids for his deceased brother. In Jewish tradition, it is
called levirate marriage. In these instances, these men add to the number of wives they have.
The down side is that in a polygamous marriage, there is this constant competition among the wives and even children of
opposing camps. They compete for everything from the husbands' time, attention, wealth, etc. Sometimes, this competition
becomes deadly as there is always constant bickerings, fights, enmity and back-bitting. These are not unexpected in a place
where you have lots of interests.
If a person marries another spouse while the first legal marriage is still subsisting, he commits a crime known as bigamy.
Bigamy is defined as the act or condition of a person marrying another person while still being lawfully married to a third
person. It is a crime in most western countries. For instance in the United States, married persons make a contract upon
becoming married and by that contract, the person is obliged under the law not to marry again as long as the first marriage
continues and the stipulations of the marriage license applies. According to Section 370 of the Criminal Code, Laws of the
Federation of Nigeria 1990:
“Any person who, having a husband or wife living, marries in any case in which such marriage is void by reason of its
taking place during the life of such husband or wife, is guilty of felony and is liable for imprisonment for 7 years”
In Nigeria, if one performs marriage under the Marriage Act, any other subsequent marriage(s) under the Act is bigamy.
Marriage under the Act means that there was a marriage protected by the law whereby the spouse has certain rights and
privileges. However, what many do in order to circumvent the provision of the Criminal Code as regards bigamy, is to
perform one marriage under the Marriage Act and the other subsequent ones under the traditional system. But even before a
particular marriage is performed under the Marriage Act, the traditional marriage must be performed. That gives the suitor
some standing to proceed with the church marriage. Before a priest performs a wedding for a couple, or even before the
marriage ban is called in the church, the suitor must have performed the vital aspect of the traditional marriage which in
most cases is the bride price or bride wealth (ime ego nwanyi or ime aku nwanyi) as some call it. Otherwise, there would
be objections by the bride’s family.
I would say that though polygamy is frowned at by the law, I have not seen someone being prosecuted for bigamy in
African setting. The only thing is that it is only the “legal” wife and his children that has a right to the man’s property should
there be any lawsuit especially if the man dies intestate (without making a will). The law is not so strict against men that
have many wives irrespective of the fact that subsequent wives are not recognized by the law.
One wonders the essence of the law of bigamy. In other words, what did the law of bigamy set out to achieve or to
prevent? Is it to protect the sanctity of marriage? Which sanctity? Or is it saying that Africans do not understand what
marriage is? If a man already has some mistresses by the side, then there is no sanctity to protect anymore since the man
has already violated his marital vows. My take is that if the law is really set out to punish men because they marry more
than one wife, it is immaterial that the subsequent wives do not have marriage certificates. If it could be shown that a
marriage ceremony took place by furnishing both documentary evidence in form of pictures, Traditional Marriage Invitation
Cards; and producing witnesses of the ceremony, then a prima facie case of bigamy is made out. Prosecution for bigamy
should then follow.
So my question is if the law is watered down as far as bigamy is concerned, why then is polygamy frowned at and why is
the law of bigamy still in effect. Polygamy is not part of the practices that are “repugnant to natural law equity and good
conscience” as was handed down to the colonial administrator by their superiors. It is submitted that the law of bigamy is
no longer good law and ought to be purged out of our legal system since our socio-economic reality does not even support
it. So the law of bigamy is superfluous. I think the law of bigamy has been overtaken by event. To take the words of Oliver
Wendell Holmes Jr., an American Jurist, in his book: The Path of the Law (10 Harv. L. Rev. 456, 459 (1897)
“It is revolting to have no better reason for the rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still
more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind
imitation of the past”. I do not think that it is the government’s business to invade the citizens’ right of personal privacy,
freedom of thought, religion and conscience as enshrined in the First Amendment or Sections 37 and 38 of the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Every citizen should have a right to marry as many wives as he could cater for. The Muslim religion recognizes polygyny as
many as four wives. The curious thing is that even though Christianity frowns at polygyny, nowhere was it outlawed in the
bible. The Hebrew Bible shows that polygyny was practiced by the ancient Hebrews. Though practice was not very
common, it was not particularly unusual and was certainly not prohibited or even discouraged by the bible. There is
nowhere in the Torah (Jewish sacred writings and teachings mostly on a scroll) or the rest of the bible where monogamy
was established as a rule or even laid out as a sanctioned principle. In the bible, there are about forty polygynists, including
the prominent ones as Abraham, Jacob, Esau, Moses, David and even Solomon, with little or no further remark on their
status as polygynist.
The Torah and even the Five Books of Moses, include a few specific regulations on the practice. In the bible, Exodus 21:10
states that multiple marriages are not to diminish the status of the first wife, while Deuteronomy 21: 15-17 states that a man
must award the inheritance due to a first-born son to the son who was actually born first, even if he hates that son’s
mother and likes another wife more. This implies that the son’s hated mother might have been divorced. Again,
Deuteronomy 17: 17 states that the king shall not have too many wives.
The levirate marriage, (derived from the latin word “levir”, meaning “husband’s brother” is a type of marriage in which a
woman marries one of her husband’s brother after her husband’s death, if there were no children, in order to continue the
line of the dead husband) has a positive disposition towards polygyny. The institution requires a man to marry and support
his deceased brother’s widow if he died without having given birth to a son. (Deut. 25: 5-10). Also Leviticus 18:18 was
interpreted to mean that a man can only take a second wife if his first wife gives her consent. Also in Exodus 21:10 a man
can only take a second wife if he is capable of maintaining same level of the marital duties of food, clothing and sexual
gratification as are due to the first wife. So because of these considerations, polygyny is considered impractical both to the
Jews and to the Igbos.
However, the Hebrews bible forbids polyandry. Hence, for a woman to have sexual relations when she is married to another
would constitute adultery, with the consequences that it would have on her status and that of her children from that
“adulterous” relationship. The Igbo culture also forbids polyandry. If a man marries more than one wife, it is called
polygyny, however, if a woman does same thing it is not called “polyandry” but “adultery”. Even if she only talks about
doing it, she is considered an adulterous and wayward woman. That’s how lucky women are in our society.
Christianity does not explicitly ban polygyny. New Testament does not explicitly mention or outlaw polygamy, however,
verses that teach about leadership, forbid multiple marriage for only church leaders. According to 1 Timothy 3:2, “a bishop
must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach” while 1
Corinthians 7:2 says that “each man is to have his own wife, and each woman her own husband”.
Christianity for over 1,000 years has been in favor of “one man one wife” and most Christian philosophers support this
position. According to St. Augustine in his book titled: “The Good of Marriage” (Chapter 15)
“Although it was lawful among the ancient fathers: whether it be lawful now also, I would not hastily pronounce. For there
is not now necessity of begetting children, as there then was, when , even when wives bear children, it was allowed, in
order to a more numerous posterity, to marry other wives in addition, which now is certainly not lawful.”
St. Augustine saw a conflict between the Roman Civil Law and the Old Testament as regards polygyny but he did not
consider it in violation of the scriptures.
The Catholic Catechism taught that: “polygamy is not in accord with the moral law. Conjugal communion is radically
contradicted by polygamy; this, in fact, directly negates the plan of God which was revealed from the beginning, because it
is contrary to the equal personal dignity of men and women who in matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and
therefore unique and exclusive” (see the Vatican Website)
This is also a normal position among Protestant Churches. This means that the mainstream Christian position is to reject
polygamy in principle. However, during the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther was known to have granted the
Langrave Philip of Hesse, (a leading champion of the Reformation and one of the most important German rulers of the
Renaissance who for years had been living “constantly in a state of adultery and fornication”) a dispensation to take a
second wife. The said marriage was to be done in secret to avoid public scandal. Even fifteen years earlier, and in a letter to
the Saxon Chancellor Gregor Bruck, Luther stated that he could not “forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not
contradict the scriptures”(See generally Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia)
Even now, many people I know that are devoted to the church and wanted to receive holy communion are allowed to do
so, provided that they denounce all their wives except one that they would take to the alter with. The church turns a blind
eye to whatever happens between the man and the other wives that are not recognized by the church. How about the
children begotten by these “rejected women”?
Many people just rejoice over the fact that they are the wedded wife and that she has more rights than the other women.
That may be true but in our traditional society and in practice, every child in the marriage has their own right in their father’
s property. So it is just a matter of “feel good” or psychology or just the bragging right of being called the legal wife. The
society would not allow a man to disown his kids whether their mother was taken to the altar or not or whether or not their
mother was taken to the court to perform court marriage.
The church and the law recognize that in our African society, it is not possible to order a man to remain with one wife. The
peculiar situations in Africa would make it impracticable for some men not to take a second wife. For instance, I know
some men that are only sons in their families, got married to beget children especially male children, but unfortunately, were
only able to have one male child or no male child. Some of them would be forced to marry again so that his lineage would
not terminate. Some would resist the pressure from the family members, but would later succumb to the pressure. In this
case, I am not talking about your average primitive and uneducated one, there are cases where you see a well-educated and
“polished” men who even studied abroad, but when faced with the reality of life, succumb to the wishes of what society
expects.
There are some men that prefer large family. They just want to see kids everywhere in his house. Some do it out to
personal preferences.
The society of today is being constrained by the law of bigamy. Again I would argue against this law. In our society today,
divorce is on the increase. In American society today, court is flooded with divorce petitions. Even among Nigerians and
other African living abroad, divorce rate is on the increase. It is estimated that six in every ten marriages or 60% of
marriages among Nigerians living abroad is likely to fail. See the articles written on the topic by the author:
http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2006/sep/242.html
http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2006/dec/124.html
The recurring reason for divorce in America is marital infidelity by either party. Research shows that men are more likely to
cheat on their wives than women. Taking all these together means that men are more polygamous in nature than woman.
Let us be real about this and tell ourselves the truth. Which is better: to have more than one wife fully recognized and
accorded all her rights or to have one wife with uncountable mistresses or concubines? What is going on in the society
today shows that sexual immorality is on the increase, no thanks to the computer/internet age. There are lots children
outside wedlock or inside the closet, what happens to their psychology of being rejected by their biological fathers. Also
sexually transmitted diseases are on the increase. So why not bring the mistresses home and accord them same respect and
status as ‘legal’ wives.
We have many women roaming around without husbands to call their own or to be co-owners. It is outdated and a
misnomer in our modern society to say that women are chattels of their husbands. We have women that have reached the
apex of their careers but their life is not complete and our society does not accord them any status or respect because they
are not married. Some women even sponsor their own wedding since their spouse cannot afford to even pay their bride
price.
Our society value women that are on top as regards their profession; but only when marriage is icing in the cake of those
achievements. Some modern women are no longer worried about the quality of their husbands. Before, they would make
the laundry list of qualities they want in their Mr. Right; but now since they could not get even half of those qualities from
one person, the have no choice than to lower the bar. That is the reality of life. I have seen some ladies that grew up in a
well-to-do family, had quality education and currently work in big banks, oil companies, communication industries, stock
brokerages, and even managers in big corporation or government establishments, yet they are not married because the
standard they set for their ideal men is too high to achieve. Now some even get some men and try to brush them up to
reach that acceptable standard. Some even get married to please the society whether or not they are happy in the marriage,
just to change their status from “single” to “married” even though they would do whatever they want as the so-called
husband could not exert any amount of control over them. Some even keep themselves from buying cars or buying
expensive properties, thinking that it would drive men away from them.
So who would marry all these high performing ladies? With economic realities of our time, men cannot even afford to get
married, let alone marry more than one wife. Still there are some that are very wealthy. They are the ones, some of which
have retinue of mistresses and concubines since they have money to throw about. They are the ones that I suggest should
marry more than one wife if, apart from their economic power, they have the maturity, judgment and psychological stability
that go with the polygynous family. If a man has four wives, and contemplates purchasing a BMW car for one, he better be
sure that he can afford four BMW cars or better cars for all the wives. Also if wants to purchase a house in Ikoyi or
Victoria Island, he must be able to buy four houses for his four brides, otherwise he would be courting disaster.
There was a highly educated lady I discussed with about this issue of polygamy and what she said shocked me. She was as
honest as she was blunt. She told me that “all men are dogs; forget all these good boy look of some”! She told me that she
has been privileged to have the confidence of older and more mature men who took her as their confidant. She told me that
these men told her in all honesty, that there is 80% chance that her future husband would cheat on her repeatedly and that
the earlier she gets accustomed to that fact of life, the better for her. She told me that they even told her that all men cheat
on their wives but the degree of cheating between one man and another is what makes the difference. Though I totally
disagree with her, I admit that there are some elements of truth but that 80% is very high and staggering figure.
Though they are in the minority, some women do not find it strange that a man would have more than one wife. Some even
are open to the idea of being married to a polygynous man. In fact, a lady was telling about a friend of hers that was a third
wife of a certain rich man. She told me that her friend was living happily as she has her own house, car and
houseboys/maids “ministering” to her. Asked about her opinion about that, she told me that she has no problems with that
as long as she gets her own due. The only problem, according to her is if she does not have equal access to the man as
would the other wives. She told me that she prefers that her husband brings the mistresses out in the open and marry them
so that she would know who her official competitors are. Also that way, instead of one pair of eye watching the man’s
moves, it would be, say 3 or four pair of eyes.
So my take is if men or even women could be married several times and be divorced the same amount of times, why not
keep all of them together since one cannot get everything from a particular woman or man. If a woman can get married to
three men at the same time, I do not see the reason why the law would tell her no. The only problem is that in most African
society, I do not see a woman that would have the courage to do same or even a man that would be so cheap to be husband
#2 or #3. I don’t see a family that would encourage their daughter to marry more than one husband let alone be involved in
polyandry. No matter how exposed or educated a woman is, polyandry is adultery in my culture. Abomination some would
say!
Solomon in his wisdom had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 King 11:3) but in our foolishness, our
law sticks to one man, one wife. Though they turned his heart away from the Lord, it was not because of their number but
because they are from other tribes and worshipped other gods.
In conclusion, I think that the law of bigamy and the prohibition against polygamy is no longer a good law since whatever
condition it was meant to solve or arrest is no longer relevant. Prohibition of polygamy has no authority in the bible and
Christians should be left with their conscience. People should be free to make their own independent decision as to what
kind of marriage they want. It is not the business of the government to dictate people's personal lives. So knowing the
advantages and disadvantages of polygamous family, it is up to the person to know what is good for him. To paraphrase
what our great Chinua Achebe would say 'he who wants to swallow an apple ('udala') seed would first of all go and inspect
the size of his anus.'
*Chukwudi Nwokoye, an attorney and former United States Marine writes from Maryland, USA, nwokoyeac@hotmail.com
Sometime in October last year, at around 11pm, as I was about to retire to bed, my cell phone rang. As I picked up to
answer the call, it was a female voice. The caller is a professional colleague of mine who is in her early thirties and African-
American. My heart skipped a bit as I was wondering whether there was a problem in the office which she wanted to warn
me about or whether I took a wrong file home.
“Is everything ok?” I asked. “Oh yes, everything is fine. I apologize to you for calling you this late in the night, hope you
wouldn’t mind, I have been trying to reach you all day” she said. I heaved a sigh of relief, but I could feel the excitement on
the other side of the line. She went on to the aim of calling me and told me that as she went to braid her hair in an African
Hair Salon, there was this movie that was showing titled: “Atlanta”. I have never watched the movie and do not know what
the movie was all about. She gave me the details of the movie which involved a man that married another wife who
happened to be his daughter’s best friend. She told me that when she was watching the movie, she remembered me. Still
confused, I inquired, “So you called me this time of the night to tell me about the movie you watch at some African Hair
Salon?”
“No I was just wondering if it is true. I have 2 questions for you. Is it true that in Africa, men marry as many wives as they
want? Secondly, could you help me buy the Part II of the movie, I really want to watch the second part” She went on again
telling me what she thought would happen in the second part of the movie. As she was engaged in the monologue, I was
laughing my lungs out. When she finished, she asked again, “please tell me the truth; is it true?” I started laughing again.
“Why are you laughing at me?” She inquired.
'So that’s why you want to take 30 minutes off my sleep time? So you thought I was playing when I told you that I already
had 9 wives”. “You are not serious. You are always funny. But I’m curious, is it possible for someone to marry many
wives in Nigeria?
I spent about another 30 minutes lecturing her about the issue of marrying more than one wife and about its benefits and
shortcomings. At the end I said to her: “Well, since you have taken away portion of my sleep time, in my culture, if a single
lady calls and spoke to a man at this time of the night, it means something. I’ve been wondering all along, will you be my
10th wife? Number 10 in my culture gets the best of everything from the husband, so will you be my magic number 10?”
“Goodbye, I will see you in the office tomorrow” and she hung up.
This issue of polygamy and the attendant problems has been a topic that many writers refuse to take head-on. The topic is
controversial and many people view polygamists with disdain. Some see them as heathens or traditionalists. To some,
polygamists are pagans, or as they put it, idol worshippers.
In this article, I wish to take this issue to the market square and ventilate the pros and cons in the public, so that people that
do not understand African way of life and the complexities of our traditions will come to understand and maybe appreciate
why it is so. Also, it is meant for even some Africans themselves that condemn the practice and refer to men that marry
more than one wife as crude or living in the past. But I am here to tell readers that men that marry more than one wife are
not crude.
The term “polygamy” is Greek word meaning “the practice of multiple marriages”. It is a form of marriage in which a
person has more than one spouse. It is the opposite of monogamy which is a practice of one man one wife. Polygamy is
divided into two, polygyny and polyandry.
Polygyny means when a man marries more than one wife at a time. Polygyny is practiced in many Middle Eastern and some
African countries like Sudan and some Western African countries especially Muslims and traditional religion. It is also
practiced in the Caribbean in mostly patriarchical societies. Mormon religion used to practice it but later outlawed it except
that their fundamentalists still practice it.
Polyandry means when a woman marries more than one husband at a time. In some cultures, it is not uncommon for
women to marry more than one husband at a time. It is known as wife sharing. Some call it fraternal polyandry and it was
traditionally practiced among nomadic Tibetans in Nepal and some parts of China . There, two or more brothers share the
same wife, with the wife having equal sexual access to them. Polyandry is mainly practiced in societies with scarce
environmental resources, as it is believed to limit human population growth and enhance child survival. They reasoned that a
child with more than one father has a more chance of survival than a child with only one father. Here we mean social
fathers and not necessarily biological fathers.
Some people will roll their eyes at this notion, but culture is relative to the people that practice it (cultural relativism).
Therefore it is a misnomer to use the term polygamy as involving a man marrying more than one wife at a given time. It is
actually polygyny. Having said that let me say that the practice of one man marrying many wives to me is not by itself
wrong. In the olden days, our grand fathers and great-grand fathers practiced it because of many reasons.
First of all the practice is highly favored because of the agrarian society of their time. Many wives equal many children and
many children together with the many wives accounted for many hands in the farm. The more people you have in your
family the more laborers in your farmland. The mainstay of their economy is farming. A man’s wealth is judged by the size
of his farm and by how big his family is. People also look at how much land, fruit trees like palm trees and other economic
trees. In my area when yam is the most common stable food, people look at the size of the barn, to see how many stacks
of yams, the quantity of cocoyam etc. All these are indicatives of how wealthy a man is at their time. Let me say that a poor
man would not be able to cater for many wives and does not have big farms. Moreover, some men that grew up as only
sons, try to take many wives so as to enlarge the size of his family.
Secondly, a man’s family size determines his influence in the political society. With his many wives and children, his
political influence could be felt. This is because, in the public square, if the man has grown sons that have already been
initiated into the age-grade “ogbo”, if the man makes a suggestion and a hand vote is needed, his grown sons would be there
to back him up.
Also some men that want to be “eze”-kings, try to take wives from villages in his town that he sees as his rival in the
chieftaincy tussle. If he foresees that there is a prospective candidate for “eze” from certain village(s), a politically savvy
candidate would try to take a wife from that village(s) to neutralize his rival(s). That way, if his rivals want to hurt him,
they would not because he is now an “ogo” in-law. Some men even when they have already succeeded in becoming “ezes”,
if they still feel threatened by a particular village, they try to take wives from those villages to neutralize any move by them
to antagonize him since he is now a ‘relation’ to them by virtue of marriage.
In some instances, many wives were products of inter-tribal wars. In those days, some women captured during inter-tribal
wars automatically become wives of the king. Some were given to him as spoils of war or in agreement to appease the
victors during those wars.
Sometimes, if there was an accidental killing of a man, the culprits would pay the victim’s family with a young woman in
compensation for their loss. The young woman would become a wife of the deceased person and probably the eldest
person in the family would “inherit” the young woman and raise children for the deceased brother. Also if a man dies and
the wife is still young, his brother also inherits the wife and raise kids for his deceased brother. In Jewish tradition, it is
called levirate marriage. In these instances, these men add to the number of wives they have.
The down side is that in a polygamous marriage, there is this constant competition among the wives and even children of
opposing camps. They compete for everything from the husbands' time, attention, wealth, etc. Sometimes, this competition
becomes deadly as there is always constant bickerings, fights, enmity and back-bitting. These are not unexpected in a place
where you have lots of interests.
If a person marries another spouse while the first legal marriage is still subsisting, he commits a crime known as bigamy.
Bigamy is defined as the act or condition of a person marrying another person while still being lawfully married to a third
person. It is a crime in most western countries. For instance in the United States, married persons make a contract upon
becoming married and by that contract, the person is obliged under the law not to marry again as long as the first marriage
continues and the stipulations of the marriage license applies. According to Section 370 of the Criminal Code, Laws of the
Federation of Nigeria 1990:
“Any person who, having a husband or wife living, marries in any case in which such marriage is void by reason of its
taking place during the life of such husband or wife, is guilty of felony and is liable for imprisonment for 7 years”
In Nigeria, if one performs marriage under the Marriage Act, any other subsequent marriage(s) under the Act is bigamy.
Marriage under the Act means that there was a marriage protected by the law whereby the spouse has certain rights and
privileges. However, what many do in order to circumvent the provision of the Criminal Code as regards bigamy, is to
perform one marriage under the Marriage Act and the other subsequent ones under the traditional system. But even before a
particular marriage is performed under the Marriage Act, the traditional marriage must be performed. That gives the suitor
some standing to proceed with the church marriage. Before a priest performs a wedding for a couple, or even before the
marriage ban is called in the church, the suitor must have performed the vital aspect of the traditional marriage which in
most cases is the bride price or bride wealth (ime ego nwanyi or ime aku nwanyi) as some call it. Otherwise, there would
be objections by the bride’s family.
I would say that though polygamy is frowned at by the law, I have not seen someone being prosecuted for bigamy in
African setting. The only thing is that it is only the “legal” wife and his children that has a right to the man’s property should
there be any lawsuit especially if the man dies intestate (without making a will). The law is not so strict against men that
have many wives irrespective of the fact that subsequent wives are not recognized by the law.
One wonders the essence of the law of bigamy. In other words, what did the law of bigamy set out to achieve or to
prevent? Is it to protect the sanctity of marriage? Which sanctity? Or is it saying that Africans do not understand what
marriage is? If a man already has some mistresses by the side, then there is no sanctity to protect anymore since the man
has already violated his marital vows. My take is that if the law is really set out to punish men because they marry more
than one wife, it is immaterial that the subsequent wives do not have marriage certificates. If it could be shown that a
marriage ceremony took place by furnishing both documentary evidence in form of pictures, Traditional Marriage Invitation
Cards; and producing witnesses of the ceremony, then a prima facie case of bigamy is made out. Prosecution for bigamy
should then follow.
So my question is if the law is watered down as far as bigamy is concerned, why then is polygamy frowned at and why is
the law of bigamy still in effect. Polygamy is not part of the practices that are “repugnant to natural law equity and good
conscience” as was handed down to the colonial administrator by their superiors. It is submitted that the law of bigamy is
no longer good law and ought to be purged out of our legal system since our socio-economic reality does not even support
it. So the law of bigamy is superfluous. I think the law of bigamy has been overtaken by event. To take the words of Oliver
Wendell Holmes Jr., an American Jurist, in his book: The Path of the Law (10 Harv. L. Rev. 456, 459 (1897)
“It is revolting to have no better reason for the rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still
more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind
imitation of the past”. I do not think that it is the government’s business to invade the citizens’ right of personal privacy,
freedom of thought, religion and conscience as enshrined in the First Amendment or Sections 37 and 38 of the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Every citizen should have a right to marry as many wives as he could cater for. The Muslim religion recognizes polygyny as
many as four wives. The curious thing is that even though Christianity frowns at polygyny, nowhere was it outlawed in the
bible. The Hebrew Bible shows that polygyny was practiced by the ancient Hebrews. Though practice was not very
common, it was not particularly unusual and was certainly not prohibited or even discouraged by the bible. There is
nowhere in the Torah (Jewish sacred writings and teachings mostly on a scroll) or the rest of the bible where monogamy
was established as a rule or even laid out as a sanctioned principle. In the bible, there are about forty polygynists, including
the prominent ones as Abraham, Jacob, Esau, Moses, David and even Solomon, with little or no further remark on their
status as polygynist.
The Torah and even the Five Books of Moses, include a few specific regulations on the practice. In the bible, Exodus 21:10
states that multiple marriages are not to diminish the status of the first wife, while Deuteronomy 21: 15-17 states that a man
must award the inheritance due to a first-born son to the son who was actually born first, even if he hates that son’s
mother and likes another wife more. This implies that the son’s hated mother might have been divorced. Again,
Deuteronomy 17: 17 states that the king shall not have too many wives.
The levirate marriage, (derived from the latin word “levir”, meaning “husband’s brother” is a type of marriage in which a
woman marries one of her husband’s brother after her husband’s death, if there were no children, in order to continue the
line of the dead husband) has a positive disposition towards polygyny. The institution requires a man to marry and support
his deceased brother’s widow if he died without having given birth to a son. (Deut. 25: 5-10). Also Leviticus 18:18 was
interpreted to mean that a man can only take a second wife if his first wife gives her consent. Also in Exodus 21:10 a man
can only take a second wife if he is capable of maintaining same level of the marital duties of food, clothing and sexual
gratification as are due to the first wife. So because of these considerations, polygyny is considered impractical both to the
Jews and to the Igbos.
However, the Hebrews bible forbids polyandry. Hence, for a woman to have sexual relations when she is married to another
would constitute adultery, with the consequences that it would have on her status and that of her children from that
“adulterous” relationship. The Igbo culture also forbids polyandry. If a man marries more than one wife, it is called
polygyny, however, if a woman does same thing it is not called “polyandry” but “adultery”. Even if she only talks about
doing it, she is considered an adulterous and wayward woman. That’s how lucky women are in our society.
Christianity does not explicitly ban polygyny. New Testament does not explicitly mention or outlaw polygamy, however,
verses that teach about leadership, forbid multiple marriage for only church leaders. According to 1 Timothy 3:2, “a bishop
must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach” while 1
Corinthians 7:2 says that “each man is to have his own wife, and each woman her own husband”.
Christianity for over 1,000 years has been in favor of “one man one wife” and most Christian philosophers support this
position. According to St. Augustine in his book titled: “The Good of Marriage” (Chapter 15)
“Although it was lawful among the ancient fathers: whether it be lawful now also, I would not hastily pronounce. For there
is not now necessity of begetting children, as there then was, when , even when wives bear children, it was allowed, in
order to a more numerous posterity, to marry other wives in addition, which now is certainly not lawful.”
St. Augustine saw a conflict between the Roman Civil Law and the Old Testament as regards polygyny but he did not
consider it in violation of the scriptures.
The Catholic Catechism taught that: “polygamy is not in accord with the moral law. Conjugal communion is radically
contradicted by polygamy; this, in fact, directly negates the plan of God which was revealed from the beginning, because it
is contrary to the equal personal dignity of men and women who in matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and
therefore unique and exclusive” (see the Vatican Website)
This is also a normal position among Protestant Churches. This means that the mainstream Christian position is to reject
polygamy in principle. However, during the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther was known to have granted the
Langrave Philip of Hesse, (a leading champion of the Reformation and one of the most important German rulers of the
Renaissance who for years had been living “constantly in a state of adultery and fornication”) a dispensation to take a
second wife. The said marriage was to be done in secret to avoid public scandal. Even fifteen years earlier, and in a letter to
the Saxon Chancellor Gregor Bruck, Luther stated that he could not “forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not
contradict the scriptures”(See generally Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia)
Even now, many people I know that are devoted to the church and wanted to receive holy communion are allowed to do
so, provided that they denounce all their wives except one that they would take to the alter with. The church turns a blind
eye to whatever happens between the man and the other wives that are not recognized by the church. How about the
children begotten by these “rejected women”?
Many people just rejoice over the fact that they are the wedded wife and that she has more rights than the other women.
That may be true but in our traditional society and in practice, every child in the marriage has their own right in their father’
s property. So it is just a matter of “feel good” or psychology or just the bragging right of being called the legal wife. The
society would not allow a man to disown his kids whether their mother was taken to the altar or not or whether or not their
mother was taken to the court to perform court marriage.
The church and the law recognize that in our African society, it is not possible to order a man to remain with one wife. The
peculiar situations in Africa would make it impracticable for some men not to take a second wife. For instance, I know
some men that are only sons in their families, got married to beget children especially male children, but unfortunately, were
only able to have one male child or no male child. Some of them would be forced to marry again so that his lineage would
not terminate. Some would resist the pressure from the family members, but would later succumb to the pressure. In this
case, I am not talking about your average primitive and uneducated one, there are cases where you see a well-educated and
“polished” men who even studied abroad, but when faced with the reality of life, succumb to the wishes of what society
expects.
There are some men that prefer large family. They just want to see kids everywhere in his house. Some do it out to
personal preferences.
The society of today is being constrained by the law of bigamy. Again I would argue against this law. In our society today,
divorce is on the increase. In American society today, court is flooded with divorce petitions. Even among Nigerians and
other African living abroad, divorce rate is on the increase. It is estimated that six in every ten marriages or 60% of
marriages among Nigerians living abroad is likely to fail. See the articles written on the topic by the author:
http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2006/sep/242.html
http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2006/dec/124.html
The recurring reason for divorce in America is marital infidelity by either party. Research shows that men are more likely to
cheat on their wives than women. Taking all these together means that men are more polygamous in nature than woman.
Let us be real about this and tell ourselves the truth. Which is better: to have more than one wife fully recognized and
accorded all her rights or to have one wife with uncountable mistresses or concubines? What is going on in the society
today shows that sexual immorality is on the increase, no thanks to the computer/internet age. There are lots children
outside wedlock or inside the closet, what happens to their psychology of being rejected by their biological fathers. Also
sexually transmitted diseases are on the increase. So why not bring the mistresses home and accord them same respect and
status as ‘legal’ wives.
We have many women roaming around without husbands to call their own or to be co-owners. It is outdated and a
misnomer in our modern society to say that women are chattels of their husbands. We have women that have reached the
apex of their careers but their life is not complete and our society does not accord them any status or respect because they
are not married. Some women even sponsor their own wedding since their spouse cannot afford to even pay their bride
price.
Our society value women that are on top as regards their profession; but only when marriage is icing in the cake of those
achievements. Some modern women are no longer worried about the quality of their husbands. Before, they would make
the laundry list of qualities they want in their Mr. Right; but now since they could not get even half of those qualities from
one person, the have no choice than to lower the bar. That is the reality of life. I have seen some ladies that grew up in a
well-to-do family, had quality education and currently work in big banks, oil companies, communication industries, stock
brokerages, and even managers in big corporation or government establishments, yet they are not married because the
standard they set for their ideal men is too high to achieve. Now some even get some men and try to brush them up to
reach that acceptable standard. Some even get married to please the society whether or not they are happy in the marriage,
just to change their status from “single” to “married” even though they would do whatever they want as the so-called
husband could not exert any amount of control over them. Some even keep themselves from buying cars or buying
expensive properties, thinking that it would drive men away from them.
So who would marry all these high performing ladies? With economic realities of our time, men cannot even afford to get
married, let alone marry more than one wife. Still there are some that are very wealthy. They are the ones, some of which
have retinue of mistresses and concubines since they have money to throw about. They are the ones that I suggest should
marry more than one wife if, apart from their economic power, they have the maturity, judgment and psychological stability
that go with the polygynous family. If a man has four wives, and contemplates purchasing a BMW car for one, he better be
sure that he can afford four BMW cars or better cars for all the wives. Also if wants to purchase a house in Ikoyi or
Victoria Island, he must be able to buy four houses for his four brides, otherwise he would be courting disaster.
There was a highly educated lady I discussed with about this issue of polygamy and what she said shocked me. She was as
honest as she was blunt. She told me that “all men are dogs; forget all these good boy look of some”! She told me that she
has been privileged to have the confidence of older and more mature men who took her as their confidant. She told me that
these men told her in all honesty, that there is 80% chance that her future husband would cheat on her repeatedly and that
the earlier she gets accustomed to that fact of life, the better for her. She told me that they even told her that all men cheat
on their wives but the degree of cheating between one man and another is what makes the difference. Though I totally
disagree with her, I admit that there are some elements of truth but that 80% is very high and staggering figure.
Though they are in the minority, some women do not find it strange that a man would have more than one wife. Some even
are open to the idea of being married to a polygynous man. In fact, a lady was telling about a friend of hers that was a third
wife of a certain rich man. She told me that her friend was living happily as she has her own house, car and
houseboys/maids “ministering” to her. Asked about her opinion about that, she told me that she has no problems with that
as long as she gets her own due. The only problem, according to her is if she does not have equal access to the man as
would the other wives. She told me that she prefers that her husband brings the mistresses out in the open and marry them
so that she would know who her official competitors are. Also that way, instead of one pair of eye watching the man’s
moves, it would be, say 3 or four pair of eyes.
So my take is if men or even women could be married several times and be divorced the same amount of times, why not
keep all of them together since one cannot get everything from a particular woman or man. If a woman can get married to
three men at the same time, I do not see the reason why the law would tell her no. The only problem is that in most African
society, I do not see a woman that would have the courage to do same or even a man that would be so cheap to be husband
#2 or #3. I don’t see a family that would encourage their daughter to marry more than one husband let alone be involved in
polyandry. No matter how exposed or educated a woman is, polyandry is adultery in my culture. Abomination some would
say!
Solomon in his wisdom had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 King 11:3) but in our foolishness, our
law sticks to one man, one wife. Though they turned his heart away from the Lord, it was not because of their number but
because they are from other tribes and worshipped other gods.
In conclusion, I think that the law of bigamy and the prohibition against polygamy is no longer a good law since whatever
condition it was meant to solve or arrest is no longer relevant. Prohibition of polygamy has no authority in the bible and
Christians should be left with their conscience. People should be free to make their own independent decision as to what
kind of marriage they want. It is not the business of the government to dictate people's personal lives. So knowing the
advantages and disadvantages of polygamous family, it is up to the person to know what is good for him. To paraphrase
what our great Chinua Achebe would say 'he who wants to swallow an apple ('udala') seed would first of all go and inspect
the size of his anus.'
*Chukwudi Nwokoye, an attorney and former United States Marine writes from Maryland, USA, nwokoyeac@hotmail.com
What Is Wrong With Polygamy?