Having multiple partners and wives is an area that would always spark debates amongst feminists and humans generally.
Some argue that polygamy in particular frames men’s attention as the prize and teaches women to compete for inheritance using their ability to birth sons.
Not enough is done however to document the women who grow up in polygamous homes and how it may or may not impact their feminism, views about marriage and other women.
Urban Woman Magazine recently spoke to some women who grew up in polygamous homes to share their stories and experiences.
Read their responses below.
Zi
I am from a long line of polygamy. My Grandparents are polygamists (my paternal grandfather had 12 wives, at different points though). My mother is the second wife (it’s even third, even though the other wife left before she came in).
Polygamy is such a terrible concept. The competition between the wives and the kids? The drama? It always is like “Oh, we are siblings, but I don’t like you like that”.
And then there are women like my mother who are people pleasers and stick their necks out for their step kids only to be thrown under the bus when it mattered.
It impacted my life and made my feminism ‘bitter’ because nothing should ever make a woman lose her agency or be a second choice (people claim it’s not true but there is no reason you should be okay with sharing man. Adam’s son o!!!). And, let’s not talk about how the boys in our house are seen as more important than the rest of us. Jesus forbid please.
I will never, ever, ever recommend polygamy. Don’t do it. Don’t be accessory to it.
Just move it!
Doctor*
Growing up in a polygamous family was tough! Our father’s family hated us, for a lack of a better word. He had three wives and we knew early on who was the favourite and who got the most of him. His family members too were crazy, but what made ours worst was because we saw him once a year.
He was a deadbeat, he paid school fees and sends pocket money, but all those emotional, physical, spiritual, physiological labour was absent. My mum did her best for us, she tried. But the anger and resentment she felt was transferred on us. She always said if our dad was not making her happy why can’t we make her happy?
That was not a role we could fill, the gap is too wide. She started telling me lot of stuff early on, so I’m very aware of how much injustice and lack of love we received from him. I hate his family members and his mother – piece of shit all of them.
The weirdest thing was he was very rich, he had resources to turn our lives for the better, but he didn’t. We were the family he hid, because lot of people don’t even know we exist, few people even know how my sister and I came from my mother. But a lot of people don’t know about my own mum. I remember meeting his friend, who he has been friends with for years, same school and all, and she was shocked to know we exist🤣🤣🤣.
The marriage was sexless too, she had to go and report to his mum that she had not seen him in five years, or was it when the sex they had that resulted in my last sibling, he had the guts to tell her to abort it. That he doesn’t want children.
I wish she had left him, she kept telling me that, since she was young even before she married him, they have told her that she will marry a man that she will not enjoy and after having one child for him, she should leave him and go be with someone else. She waited and had two more. Making three. And she never enjoyed him.
I don’t think he has even given her up to 1m before, this is someone who has money in usd and naira, famous, well known and well read and travelled. It ruined my childhood, I don’t like men so to speak, I date them just for the fun of them. Not because they are doing anything for me.
I went to therapy and it helped me a lot. I’m on my healing journey.
I forgot to mention, he kept her for food. She was the wife to call when he was hungry and being a dutiful submissive woman, she will cook up a storm, she is a great cook. He will eat the food, drop 20k at most and go again, off he went like the king of the world. It made me hate cooking, still do till know. I have always being the crazy child, so I spoke up a lot, still doing so. They know not to try me, even him.
I have been doing feminism before I even knew the word and with all my experience and knowledge, it’s me and feminism till I breathe my last. There is deadbeat and there is my daddy. He didn’t speak to me for close to a year and he didn’t speak to my mum for 6-7 years or so. His family cut us off, what a time. It was a dark period for us.
Now he found his way into her life because of some family issues, with no remorse or sorry, and I hate it, because guess what? He is still the same absent deadbeat. I don’t care. I don’t even miss him. I only talk to him when he calls. I don’t just say let me call him personally, we have no relationship.
I’m so scared of commitment and marriage and I know should I even do one, I’m not scared to divorce him and disappear. My wickedness and exit plan is in my pocket and my money too.
No man will even turn me to a shadow of myself. It ends with me. It’s a pain that no one can describe to anyone, unless you experience it. It’s a pain that I carried with me for years, the anger, shame, resentment, fear, disappointment, bitterness. Therapy was my last line, I was long gone.
It’s so much stories of unhappiness and sad tales. I want more and women for women. I wish she had left him years ago. That why I take my education super seriously and any knowledge I acquire. It’s so dear and important to me and it will take me places and set me apart from my world.
Education is a life changer, it changed my life.
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.