Our sisters from Central should wake up to reality of polygamy

Joseph Kaguthi made my day this week when he publicly asked people from Central Kenya to adopt polygamy to deal with the increasing incidences of single parenthood. He also touched on the fact that we need more babies in Central.

While I am fully aligned to some of his logic, I think he has a point and maybe we need to re-look at this polygamy issue particularly in Central Kenya.
Central Kenya holds a special place when it comes to polygamy - most inhabitants claim modernity and Christianity are not compliant with polygamy.

This is just their thinly veiled excuse to hide the fact that most Central Kenyan men, unlike men from other parts of Kenya are cowards plain and simple, who live in perpetual fear of their wives. Many men would happily expand their households but they fear this action will send them to an early grave.
Many people might not know this but the spirit of Wangu Makeri lives in many women from Central Kenya making them dispense fire and brimstone to any man or woman who ventures to turn their precious marriages into one with multiple partners.

This fierce need to defend their marriage is not guided by undying love and loyalty to their spouses; it is guided by their fierce need to defend their assets especially the mugundas which are a scarcity in Central. Many married women from Central will tell you that the mere thought of another woman (especially as a wife) encroaching on their land either in life or in death sends them ballistic.

Central Kenya men like to display serious machismo especially when decked in their cowboy hats and when dancing to One-Man Guitar but few if any can dare defy their wives by bringing home a new wife (or wives).
What the Central Kenya wives need to realise is that their stubborn nature is just preventing and delaying the inevitable. Most married men in Kenya like to play outside and will almost always have that side chick with whom they share their affection and resources.

Many have long-running affairs with joint bank accounts and love children to boot.

All these actions usually come to light in dramatic and usually embarrassing fashion when husbands die and women have to deal with the messy expense that comes with legal battles. Instead of delaying the inevitable by burying their heads in the sand, I suggest that women encourage their men to take other wives.

Love actions

Instead of frolicking across the town with many women, the men should be told to do the honourable thing and turn their side chicks into main chicks - this way men will be corralled into taking some level of responsibility for their love actions.

It is unfair that men from Central Kenya keep hopping from one relationship to another enjoying all benefits without being tethered by any responsibility. Marriage is the ultimate form of responsibility for men - especially when they choose to love more than one woman.
Let us face it, there are not too many eligible men especially in Central Kenya. Most of them have been decimated by alcohol or have been reduced into wimps by mothers who mollycoddle them.

Men who have managed to overcome the hurdles that lead into marriage and who still manage to stay sane and married are a rarity and therefore a prize catch.

The one man, one-woman philosophy is simply untenable in the current environment - it locks out many women who are willing to share their bodies, affections and time with men.

Delegate responsibilities

Let us deal with the reality by sharing the men — after all we shall be going back to the ways of ancestors.
Finally, all women need to recognise that most men are like babies — very demanding needing to be fed, loved and pampered all the time. At a certain age and point in life, these demands can become too much especially when you throw in children and households.

Polygamy allows you to delegate and share responsibilities often with someone younger than you. The women from Central Kenya therefore need to embrace polygamy as premier avenue to reduce stress and divide labour in today’s marriages.