The Nairobian ran a macabre and tragic story from Kakamega this week: A man climbed onto the roof of his first wife’s house, removed a solar panel and installed it on his second wife’s roof.

Predictably, a scuffle of sorts ensued, during which the woman whose ownership of the solar panel had been revoked grabbed a kitchen knife and sent the man to the hereafter. Because of a what might seem like a trivial spat, a man is dead, his two wives widowed, one of whom is ‘assisting police with investigations’ — if you know what we mean. 

There are three issues at play here. One, our good man shouldn’t have been a polygamist in the first place, because he clearly couldn’t afford it. If he could, both women would have had solar panels on their roofs. Two, the man and his second wife ignored the cardinal rule of polygamy: Respect wife number one.  In the African setting, wife number one always had the bigger house, placed in the most commanding space within the compound. She called the shots and her progeny received a bigger inheritance.