African Women and Poligamy

Marriage is a social institution that is practiced globally. Traditionally marriages are known to occur between one man and one woman. However, cultural values and time have reshaped and birthed new types of marriages. Polygamy is a type of marriage that is often practiced around the world specifically in Asia, Middle East, and Africa. Polyamorous marriages have been in existence for centuries. Polygamy is classified into two categories, polygyny, and polyandry. Polygyny is the most popular type of polygamy, in this type of polygamous marriage, a man is married to multiple women. On the other hand, polyandry which is the least familiar type of polygamy is where a woman is married to multiple husbands. The intolerance of Mormons in the United States has led to the outlawing of polyamorous marriages. The Morrill Anti Bigamy law of 1862 outlawed the practice of polygamy in the United States. Like many other laws, this law can be overturned. In fact, it should be reversed because illegalizing polygamy is unethical. Polygamy should be legalized because it is unconstitutional for it to be illegal, same-sex marriages and interracial marriages are legal, therefore so should polyamorous marriages. In addition, legalizing polygamy would prevent immigrant families who practice polygamy from being separated and it would also strengthen the feminist movement.

to conduct new counts, and "added that the exercise had nothing to do with a tax

Could you imagine living in a world where it is acceptable for a man to marry more than one woman and be open about it? Not many can and that is why the practice of polygamy such is seen as taboo. The families usually live very private lives and they do not interact with a lot of the rest of America due to anti-bigamy society we live in. Polygamy is the practice of being married to more than one person at the same time (Webster 2015). This is not to be confused with an open relationship or an open marriage. This topic has been viewed and deemed as controversial for many years. As a practice that was not accepted in the public eye, it recently has gained more attention with mainstream media and culture. With shows on television such as “Sister

Polygamy also has many negative effects on the children. Often times the wives will be upset and in a bad mood because they are missing the husband or are jealous for some reason and the kids suffer from it. Also it is hard for the children to make friends when they know about there lifestyle. Perhaps some of the kids don’t believe in this lifestyle and don’t want to be a part of it, well they don’t have a choice until they are of age.

According to Naomi Nkealah who considers diverse streams of African feminisms as something which strive to create a new, liberal, productive and self-reliant African woman within the heterogeneous cultures of Africa. Feminisms in Africa, ultimately, aim at modifying culture as it affects women in different societies. Thus taking the multifarious nature of African experience into consideration, African Feminisms explore the possibilities of embracing the magnitude of their collective experiences. Assorted patterns of feminisms, that deviate from the conceptual equations of (western) feminism and construed after indigenous models emerged in African backdrop- such as Womanism, Stiwanism, Nego-feminism, Motherism, Femalism and Snail-sense feminism. Being indigenous blueprints these variegated modes were attempts to demarcate African female at the centre of entire contentions and to explore in the cultural chronicles for material to initiate further elaboration.

Polygamy is the practice of or custom of having more than one husband or wife at a time. Polygamy happens everywhere in the world. Polygamy consists of abnormal lifestyles that non polygamist find unappealing. Most relationships consist of an older man with an extremely younger girl. Some even get arrested for molesting young girls. The men of the order think that abusing and neglecting their women and children is normal and acceptable. Most of the polygamist men in any of the orders have well over twenty wives and hundreds of children. They believe in having many women and children because to them it is the only way to get to the highest degree of glory for them. Some polygamist groups are so huge that many of them are well known across the

There are many laws against polygamy in all 50 states. There have been many times over the years that people have gone to the state about things that involve polygamy. They did not just make polygamy illegal because they didn't like the lifestyle or because they didn't want the people to be happy. They made it illegal because some believe that polygamous groups are guilty of: bigamy, and child abuse, including forced marriage of teens and pre-teens to older men. Polygamy isn't a hard crime but it is very wrong. Even though it is illegal in all 50 states polygamy still happens. It is most common in Asia, Africa, and in the west of the UK. The husband can marriage as many wives as he wants but only the first wife

Everyone is different, however, I never saw myself being able to be intimate with more than one man but that is because the way I was raised influenced my way of looking at the world and how I wanted my life structured. My beliefs are old fashioned for me and respectively those who support Polyandry would only prefer vice versa when it relates to one marriage, but I would say overall. The more I learn about the world, I try to respect everyone and not be judgmental, I think it is best to respectfully state my opinion. Too many of us always have to make a comment on something that we do not know about especially with malicious intent. On that note, I respect the decisions of those who choose to follow this ritual as it is convenient and special to them in all of its purposes. As you mentioned before it is not only a way to have financial security but also to preserve the

Newman explains in the textbook about a certain type of marriage named polygamy, occurs when a man marries more than one wife. Polygamy is illegal in the United States, but practitioners are rarely prosecuted as long as they remain in the background. Families shape our customs, values, morals, and address many of society’s needs (Newman 2016:186-187). In Gorvett’s article, she mentions how polygamy is having adverse

“Polygyny” and “Polyandry” seem to be parallel structure, but our society tends to have positive perception toward “Polygyny” and negative perception toward “Polyandry”. As most of the countries are patriarchal society, we think that “Polygyny” is more reasonable than “Polyandry”. Besides, Muslim support the practice of “Polygyny” but none of the religion support “Polyandry” in our society. Because of the stereotyped gender role and social ideology in modern society, most of the male’s role is hegemony in the world. It is the result of patriarchal society. This is the reason of why we think that man can have more than one wife rather than a woman have more than one

Polygamous relationships can on some occasions be beneficial towards the woman as they are most likely to be mated with a wealthy older man. Financially this is beneficial for the women because she is able to share the wealth along with several other wives that the wealthy male has. Their children are also ensured a safe future as their father has a well amount of money to spend on them.

Polygamy is a family system under which a man is married to more than one wife, living together with them at the same time. It is usually ranges between two and four wives in some cultures. This system of marriage is predominatly rampant in many sub-Saharan African countries where a man can marry from one up to four wives if he can afford their domestic needs. However, some men unfortunately may mistakenly put themselves into this type of marriage and eventually get stocked in it where in the end result is usually nothing positive but a negativism, unnecessary jealousy, daily fighting and hatred among wives and between the children whom usually follow the footsteps of their mother despite being from the same dad. Under

According to Aisha Lemu, marriage is an investment instead of an agreement; however, Mrs. Lemu is inaccurate. Lemu thinks that Polygamy is the legitimate way to handle a marriage, but in reality Lemu needs to comprehend that Polygamy is ultimately wrong. As a matter of fact Polygamy is an ancient practice known in a variety of societies. Although this belief is horrific, and biblically wrong, people still consider taking part of these actions as Mrs. Lemu discusses.

In industrialized societies, it is something that has been made illegal, and is considered deviant. When most people think of polygamy they think of polygyny, the marriage of one man with multiple wives, and endless children. Here in the United States the most common occurrence of polygamy was in the 1800s, through the Mormon religion, and more specifically the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-Day Saints. Through the reading of the Bible, the leader of the Latter-Day Saints church, Joseph Smith, had revelations that encouraged him take a second wife as many of the members of the Old Testament had done. The rest of the United States reacted negatively to polygamy and Congress passed several laws prohibited polygamy. However, Mormons continued to practice polygamy despite these laws because they believed it was within their right to do so based on the Bill of Rights which protected freedom of religion (Embry 2016).

Interestingly, it is clear now that the author might not have been interested in portraying the polygamy in the novel in the literal sense, but deftly twists the novel to largely accommodate his message on the immiscibility of tradition and modernity. And what better way to effect this than through the element of marriage? He marries the societal constructs together to show the ghastly effect of having them so close together. We also, however, must not ignore that there is actually a message on polygamy as it relates to human relationships and its lethal effects. We can therefore say that the author has managed to kill two birds with one stone.