Is Polygamy Evidence of Man’s Great Concern for Women?
- Category: The Comrade
- Date 09-05-2010
- 400 views
Your columnist intended to turn the spot on Nigeria, following the death of that country’s first university educated president, Umaru Yar’Adua. It is a serious cause of worry for a president to die in office because what has happened elsewhere is that the governance of a country is sometimes seen as a family affair where the next alternative is usually a member of the deceased family. In the recent past, the only president who died in office and was not succeeded by his offspring is Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia. The other two were shamelessly succeeded on the throne by their sons: the current president of Togo Faure Gnassingbé succeeded his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma, as did the present leader of Gabon Ali Bongo Ondimba at the death of his father Omar Bongo Ondimba.
The Comrade was captivated by the eulogy of Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s acting leader who was sworn-in as de-facto president on the day of his immediate predecessor’s interment. Mr Goodluck said, “Nigeria has lost the jewel on its crown and even the heavens mourn with our nation tonight." It is true; the late Yar’Adua was a jewel in many senses. If in no other perspective, The Comrade honours him for not turning the presidency into a family affair, for even in death, his moral disposition has allowed his countrymen to stand head high. Many leaders on this continent failed and still fail to separate state from family affairs. Their children and spouses are the base on which government derives functioning and survival. It was not so for Yar’Adua – and May he rest in peace!
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Let us return to our topic of last week. When The Comrade praised the move to ban polygamy and rallied men behind the women’s stab, he was confronted with a plethora of statistics. One online reviewer pointed out that to ban polygamy is ‘a step towards the right direction’ although it should not be used to denigrate the splendour of marriage as whole and the ‘happiness’ it brings to couples. He sounded like George Orwell’s piggish slogan of ‘four legs good, two legs better’.
Another commentator brought rather incredible data. He cited the logic of the secretary general of the Muslim Association of Malawi who recently said that the prohibition of polygamy will spark off an increase in the rate of prostitution. He noted that available information shows that the number of women exceeds that of men by over six percent in any given society in Africa. If every man married only one wife, therefore, many women would remain unattended to and they would ultimately look for men in any way possible, including through risky, immoral and deadly means.
The bloke went further to say that every polygamist, wherever you find him, is a reflection of what the name ‘man’ stands for: a Good Samaritan and an embodiment of authenticity. He advanced the craziest view that categorised some men as mere counterfeits. He argued that to say that ‘some men are more equal than others’ is to acknowledge the existence of two classes of men: real men and counterfeits. Thus, monogamous men often pass off as genuine products whereas they are mere imitations of the genuine species that the creator originally intended. Counterfeits tend to be cheaper and widespread whereas good quality, authentic products are always rare, costly and hard to discern. It is such rare men that can become polygamists.
As a Good Samaritans, he went on, polygamists are guided by the concept of ‘pro-social motivations’. It rejects the popular view that human behaviour is principally governed by ‘self-interest’. Polygamists are not self-seekers. Rather, polygamy runs on the more complex view of both individual behaviour and social organisation that stress the virtues of duty, love and kindness. To marry a woman that would otherwise remain husbandless is an act of generosity and concern for others. Such thinking, the Comrade believes, is shaped by naivety if not just a malevolent way of shedding crocodile tears.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: The Comrade, The Guardian on Sunday