Are polygamous men happier or they just love situationships?

Up and Close: Lukovido with his two wives who stay like sisters and refer to each other using pet names. 23/09/2014. Picture By: Benjamin Sakwa/Standard.

David Lukovido of Lukome sub-location Malava Constituency in Kakamega is just 29 years old.

A young man by all standards, and by some standards, he should not even be married.

But Lukovido is married. Not to one woman, but two.

He has been with his first wife for 15 years, and the second one for 11 years — and he is not complaining.

“There are several challenges of being a polygamist, just as there are numerous ways of being happier than a monogamist,” he philosophises at his home where we were welcomed by his second wife, Magdalene, who is three years younger than him.

If polygamy is a crime, then Lukovido is not the only member of his gang.

POLYGAMY IS GAINING TRACTION

If it is a right, a virtue then he is not the only saint.

He is just one of the many young Kenyans who are opting to have more than one wife, a practise that in the olden days was popular among older, and probably richer men.

Currently, polygamy is gaining traction among the Kenyan youth — and those who have embraced it, are liking it. Nay, loving it.

According to the 2009 Kenya Demographic Health Survey, 60 per cent of women in Kenya are married and 13 per cent of these are in polygamous unions.

It also says that about 50 per cent of men in Kenya are married with seven per cent of them in polygamous unions.

In the 21st century, such unions would be deemed to be reducing, thanks to modernisation and even the cost and standards of living which are higher and lower, respectively, which would make families want fewer dependents.

However, the KDHS reports just a slight decline in such unions over a period of five years from 2003.

It points out that the proportion of married women reporting one or more co-wives has declined from 16 per cent in 2003 to 13 per cent in 2008.

For married men, the proportion who report having more than one wife has declined from 10 per cent to seven per cent in the same period.

PREVALENT IN RURAL AREAS

Ironically, women with little or no education and also the poorest are most likely to be in such unions which are more prevalent in rural than urban areas of the country.

That finding probably explains Lukovido’s case.

We found Magdalene working on their small parcel of land while Lukovido was running errands around the village.

We were supposed to visit him the previous day, but we got late, we remind him.

“You want to know how I manage my family at my age?” he asks, laughing, and wondering why anyone would ask him such a question, yet what he does is the simplest thing in his short life.

But first things first.

He excuses himself and then goes to call his first wife, Priscilla Nanzalla, who is four years his senior.

Sitting between them, he is a picture of a man at peace with himself. And with his wives.

Lukovido married Priscilla in 1999 when he was 14 years old, and by the time he was 18, he decided to bring in Magdalene.

TALK LIKE MEN

In the 11 years that the two have been his co-wives, they have learnt to co-exist as sisters, and even refer to each other using pet names.

“We call one another by our clan names, we attend the same church and when there are events in the village and help is needed, we are called as a unit,” says Priscilla, a mother of four children aged between 2 and 12 years.

“She is like my older sister,” says Magadalene, also a mother of four children and the first one is just ten, while the youngest is two. “Our children play together and eat at either house.”

While the wives are talking, we cannot help but notice how Lukovido is at ease.

He remains reclined in his cushion less seat, listening to them speak in turns as they steal glances at him perhaps thinking that he will put in a word edgewise, but he elects to be passive.

He later requests them to walk back and continue with what they had been doing.

“Let us talk like men,” her says. “Let me say I can marry up to four wives because I am still young.”

He pauses, surprised that we are surprised.

“When I dropped out of school in Standard Three, I was afraid that I would be come irresponsible or worse still, get in to a life of crime if I were not married,” he says, adding that he married Priscilla when she was 18, four years older than him.

So, why the second wife?

“Priscilla loved visiting her people and I used to be lonely since my mother is not around and my father passed on, so I decided to bring a helper to take care of me,” he explains of Magdalene.

With eight children and two wives — that is eleven mouths, his included, to feed — you would think that Lukovido is wealthy.

His is a case study in the art of living.

Or surviving.

His homestead is on a quarter acre parcel of land and he earns Sh 4,000 per month.

That is amount a middle class city dweller city dweller would not survive on even for a day.

SOLVE ISSUES DURING BED TIME

That caters for the education of five of his children. The rest are yet to join school.

He admits that life has not been easy, and he has to perform other jobs to supplement his income.

His main occupation is saw milling, and he uses a manual saw.

Lukovido says that there are a million minor issues in polygamous marriages to be dealt with daily. They have million solutions too, he says.

“You cannot spend all your time to solving them,” he says matter-of-factly. “You might as well build a court of law in your compound.”

So what is to be done?

“When issues arise, I solve them during bed time. That is also when I craft and give binding orders,” he says. “It works.”

Lukovido further says each one of his wives asks about the other’s weaknesses and strengths but he will never reveal anything to either as that would cripple his marriage.

“The best way to keep them and the family together is make them to keep guessing.”

It is the same wisdom he applies when it comes to where he will have supper and sleep.

“I can have supper in either house but that is no guarantee that I will spend the night there,” he says, and gives a reason.

“The moment you create a definite roster you give the wives room to create theirs’ and they can easily sneak in another man when you are out.”

He has so far made them feel equal by buying them clothes at the same time, shopping for them equally and has built their houses in a similar design — using the same number of iron sheets.

Is polygamy in their blood?

Lukovido’s grandfather, Wilson Khakwa says his grandfather had eight wives but his father had four.

Khakwa has two wives but advises that due to scarcity of land, youth should not marry more than one wife