By Mangoa Mosota
Sporting dreadlocks partly covered with a white turban, Gordon Oyoo wraps his arms around his four wives and proudly shows off his 15 children.
Like with his long, flowing garb, the children and wives are clad in white clothing with little, red crosses.
Then, Oyoo thrusts one finger and points at a modest house made with iron sheets.
ABOVE: Gordon Oyoo steps out with his four wives. [PHOTOS: JAMES KEYI/STANDARD] |
Not that he has that many issues to solve. Oyoo is no ordinary polygamist.
He is a church elder, and his Christian denomination has no problem with polygamist members.
Speaking at his home in Rabuor Village, Kisumu County, he praises his Msanda Holy Ghost Church in East Africa for being a haven for polygamists who also want to be Christians. The church’s headquarters is in Msanda in Butere.
And he is a strong advocate of polygamy, saying it discourages promiscuity and guards against sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/Aids.
Outside his house, the wives chat away in excited chatter as children mingle about. It looks like a big, happy family.
"I love them all and we live peacefully," smiles Oyoo, 54. Ten of his children are in primary school, four in nursery, and his last-born child is yet to begin schooling. He has lost five other children in the last 20 years.
Oyoo has built four identical houses for his wives within one homestead. Furthermore, the women’s kitchens are alike. The impeccably built mud-walled houses are adjacent to each other, and a few yards away from his own house.
Additional women
"The church’s teachings state that one can be polygamous, but can, but you cannot marry additional women once you become an elder," Oyoo says.
The man who is fondly referred to as Rasta by his friends due to his long dreadlocks, donated land a few years ago for the construction of St Lawrence Rabuor Church, where the entire family worships.
The church’s Bishop Tom Oraga says the Bible is not against polygamy.
"We allow polygamous men to join our church, but they cannot marry more wives once they are our members. Even Paul in the Bible was against polygamy, but had 21 wives," argues Oraga. He is in charge of Mariwa Diocese in Kisumu, which has 12 member churches.
"My father has two wives, although I have one myself. Most of the members have two to three wives, but Oyoo has the highest," says the bishop.
It is debatable whether polygamy resonates well with modern realities due to limited resources, such as land. But some African leaders have led the way in preserving this age-old practice.
Oyoo says monogamy is merely unworkable, terming it a foreign concept.
"It is a notion from the West. Most of the men mentioned in the Bible had many wives. How can one then insist it is sinful to have more than one wife?" he wonders.
Some accounts say Solomon, the son of King David and later King of Israel, had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
Legitimise Marriage
Oyoo argues that he only gets intimate with his wives, unlike many married men with one wife who stray with their mistresses.
To legitimise his marriage, he has duly paid dowry for all his wives, according the Luo traditional customs. He paid five cows and some money for his first wife, who she married nearly 30 years ago.
His first wife, Rose Achieng is aged 43, and is the mother of the couple’s first born, aged 23. Achieng, on the other hand, says she has never had serious differences with her husband, and cites this as prove that polygamy does work.
The youngest wife, Mary Juma, is aged 24, and is a mother of two children.
"He told me that he had three wives and I would be the fourth one," she says. "I did not have a problem with that because he was honest right from the beginning."
Oyoo is a freelance photographer at Kisumu’s Jomo Kenyatta Sports Ground. He has also also trained two of his wives in photography.
