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In the earliest times, thousands of years before the advent of modernization or civilization, the only type of marriage that was practiced then by our forefathers was polygamous marriage.
Due to inter-village or community wars, our forefathers married more than one wife so as to have enough sons who will grow to become warriors and go to battle to fight the next village thereby defending the community; as a village full of women are assumed to be defenceless community since women cannot be used as warriors.
Furthermore, aside from the inter-village wars, men are used at home as a form of superb security, they are seen as the defender of the women’s folk in the family. For this, a man whose wife does not give birth to a male child will likely marry another one believing that through the other wives he can get the number of male children that he wants. Due to the passion our forefathers had for warriors, maximum security of their homes, a larger family size and so on, they resorted to polygamous marriage as the only way to achieve all the above -mentioned desires.
However, with the advent of modernization they did not desist from the act since they had little or no passion for the western taste and fashion. Additionally, there were some benefits derivable from polygamy. For instance, there is unity among wives, no disparity, husband treat their wives equally, cater for their wives and children and equally show them, love. They are satisfied with what they have, so each man marries as he wants.
The following are the various reasons why polygamous marriage is practiced in our society.
• To have a large family
• To earn respect
• Barrenness and child mortality
• Proof of virility
• To have the male child
• To satisfy their desire
• For competition
• Religious belief
To have a large family
What leads some men into a polygamous marriage is their passion to have a very large family size. Some men see polygamous and a large family size as a thing of pride. In the rural areas, such men are addressed amongst their peer groups as a man who has the largest family in the community.
To earn respect
Some men see marrying many wives and having many children as something that earns them respect in the society. They are of the opinion that the larger a family is the more respect you earn in the society.
Barrenness and child mortality
Barrenness contributes to what leads a man to polygamy. This is to enable them to get an offspring that will continue the lineage.
Most men go into polygamy also because of fear of child mortality believing that polygamy ensured fathers having enough surviving children who would eventually work the fields to provide for the family. As such a man needed to have more than one wife so as to ensure that he had a considerable number of surviving children.
Proof of virility
This is one of the reasons why some men practiced polygamy, they want to prove their potency and show that they are still strong.
Some men at the age of 60-65 years still marry another wife so as to prove to the society that they are still virile despite their age.
To have a male child
Some men go into marrying many wives because of their desire for a male child. For instance, in a situation where a wife only gives birth to a female child; such a husband might decide to marry another wife hoping to have a male child through the new wife.
To satisfy their desire
Some men are not sexually satisfied with one wife. Such a man might choose to re-marry instead of going to visit a harlot to satisfy his sexual desire.
For competition
In some areas, polygamous marriage is a competition. For instance, if a man marries eight (8) wives, another man might want to do the same or even surpass the other man by marrying 9-10 wives.
The positive effect of polygamous family on our society
In the ancient days, before the advent of technologies in agriculture practices, children were used to working on the farm for the cultivation of lands, planting, watering, harvesting and so on. The size of farm determined the number of children in a family the larger the number of children the more productive the farm, the richer the farmer becomes and the more food is supplied to the society.
Rural areas are the food basket of the society, since there are no large-scale agriculture practices in the urban cities and even if there are, it cannot be quantified at all with that of rural areas where their major hobby is farming and a farmer that cannot afford the use of modern equipment might decide to use what the nature endowed him with by marrying many wives and giving birth to a lot of children to help him on the farm work and by so doing save the society from starvation.
Agriculture, they say is the food basket of all nations.
Need for husband
Polygamous marriage benefits women in the society compared to monogamous one.
For instance, when the number of the men in a particular society is small compared to the number of women in that society, many women would remain unmarried. This can lead to some of the women to commit suicide especially in a society like ours where a woman without a husband is not regarded and is deprived of some opportunities that are her due.
National trade relationship
The polygamous family provides support for the exporting of some rich crops lie cocoa, cowpea and so on in the sense that growing and harvesting of such crops require large-scale production in which children from such a large family are used to work on such farms in the ancient days.
The negative effect of polygamous family on our society
Some of the negative effects of polygamous on our society are:
• Increase in crime rate
• Overpopulation
• Child abuse
• Increased rate of prostitution
• Waste of government resources
• Conflict
• Poor health standard
• Poverty
Increase in crime rate
Polygamy is one of the major factors adding to the increasing rate of crime in our society. Most children from polygamous homes turn out to commit violent crimes in our society, day in day out, especially those whose parents are not well to do.
As a result of lack of parental care, most children from this type of family engage in assassination and other violent crimes. Some of these children are into gambling, advanced fee fraud, drug peddling and all other forms of an indecent act such as smoking, drug addiction.
Overpopulation
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It is hard for a country whose citizens are majorly from polygamous homes to control her population growth; due to unhealthy competition commonly seen among the wives. For instance, if the first wife had up to eight (8) or nine (9) children, the second, the third and the fifth wives might want to have the same number of children as the first wife. This leads to overpopulation as birth rate cannot be controlled.
A country that is densely populated without adopting birth control measures might experience starvation as the available resources cannot satisfy ones due to limited resources and insatiable wants of individuals.
Polygamous practice in any society leads to increase in the number of people in the society; thereby causing overpopulation.
Child abuse
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Due to poverty that as turn to shoes and can be found in different sizes in polygamous homes, and because parents try any available means to make ends, most of them result to using their wards as the means to chase away the poverty that has already found refuge in their homes, they do so by engaging their wards to street hawking.
Some of these parents go to the extent of preventing their wards from going to school on some particular days like market days and so on, so as to fetch them more money on those days.
The alarming increase in polygamy adds to the alarming increase in child abuse in our society. It is an established fact that no child would prefer hard physical work to a warm parental care, but they are compelled to do these risky piteous jobs in order to eke out a living and support their poverty ravaged homes.
Increase rate of prostitution
Polygamous family contributes to the increased rate of prostitution in our society in the sense that there is lack of discipline among the children especially the female ones and no adequate parental care.
For example, like the case of Mallam Musa at Niger state of Nigeria who had 84 wives and unaccountable children, how can such a man satisfy and cater for all the wives and children, the daughter of such a man can venture into prostitution naively thinking that prostitution is the easiest means of making it.
Waste of government resources
In trying to control population growth, the government spends money on orientation programs like family planning programmes to enlighten the society on the need for child-birth control.
The government provides healthcare facilities free treatment in some areas, e.g. provisions of vaccines for tuberculosis patient etc.
Furthermore, a government that cares for the affairs of her people will want to look into what the causes of divorce are and how it can be eradicated or curbed. By so doing, government waste money and time organizing enlightenment programmes, providing health centers and educating her citizens on the disadvantages of polygamous marriage, instead of spending that time and money on other pressing needs of the society.
Conflict
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Conflict is always the order of the day in a polygamous family both in the poor and rich, literate and illiterate families, though this marriage is legalized in our society.
Like the family of Bashorun Mashood kasimawo Olawale Abiola (aka MKO); after his death, there was conflict in his family even though he had a will, yet some members of the family who were not favored in the will were not happy. They resulted in killing each other which led to the death of some of his wives and children and many more examples like that abound. Conflict is like a tea in a polygamous family, no peace, is either there is disputing today or next and can even at times lead to a broken home. For instance, in the olden days the first wife was the senior wife but what is happening now is that the junior wife wants to be the only wife; the second wife is pushing out the first.
A domestic violence often starts when a husband tries to introduce a second wife into the home- often he does this by saying that she is a nice or the daughter of a business partner.
In conclusion, polygamy has done nothing good to our society because the basic or main institution in a society is the family, and where there is no healthy family there can’t be a healthy society. If there is no peace in a family there won’t be peace in the society because the family is a mini-society on its own.