Polygamy In Masculinity -By Okafor Valentine Ayanmama

‘Polygamy’ has been one of the most discussed topic by the feminist. The traditional practice of polygamy, whereby only one man is allowed to marry more than one wife
in a customary marriage, has long been perceived as an offender of women’s right. Buchi Emecheta in her book titled “Second Class Citizen” said:

‘a man is never ugly’

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her text, “Purple Hibiscus” captured the whole idea of polygamy in masculinity in this excerpt:

‘…the members of our Umunna even sent people to your father to urge him to have children with someone else. So many people had willing daughters and many of them were university graduates too. They might have borne many sons and driven us out, like Mr Ezendu’s second wife did..’.

I was still on the look out for signs that tells i was no longer a boy but a man. Signs like: night dream, deep voice, broad shoulders and several others, when i was faced by multiple derogatory remarks from my classmates. I could vividly remember being called ‘abo’ a yoruba word that means the woman’s sexual organ because i was one the few boys in class without a girlfriend, even though i had several opportunities to. I was in JSS one as at then.

In this part of the world, so much is expected from a man. This pressure does not come from family alone, it comes from friends, folks, passersby and the society at large. One of those things is being in a relationship. As a man in this century, if you aren’t in one, you’re either customized a weakling or ‘abo’.

I read in a page of Chimamanda’s “Half Of A Yellow Sun” where the soldiers took turn in raping a girl but Ugwu never wanted to. The other soldiers yelled at him and made him appear extraordinarily feeble. As a result of this, he succumbed to doing this and he was praised as gallant and manful.

Should the male child be blamed for his polygamous nature or the society he lives in be blamed for it?

I leave you with an excerpt from Chimamanda’s “Purple Hibiscus”, to assist you in providing a very efficient answer to my question.

‘Nekene, see the boy that will inherit his father’s riches!…If we did not have the same blood in
our veins, I would sell you my daughter’.