Kgosi Mosielele wants polygamy back

Lebogang Baingapi | Monday June 1, 2015 18:03

 

Kgosi Mosielele who was the guest speaker told a full packed kgotla that, men are not satisfied by one woman  resulting in  multiple concurrent partners which lead to HIV/AIDS. He said in marriage, love is temporary, from there you become friends and raise kids together.

He revealed that customary law allows a man to marry the first wife and with the permission of the wife and the family, he can take the second, third and the fourth wife. He said in the past the practise mostly applied when the first wife was barren and divorce was not allowed. “In Botswana men are more than women, who do you think will marry the other unmarried ladies if we continue to marry once,” he asked, to the murmuring of the residents in disbelieve. He said though some may not agree with him, most of married men have concubines and it does not makes sense, it is rather better to take them legally. He said if polygamy is practiced it will be easy for a man to manage HIV/AIDS as they can go for testing together at once. “We always attend  to cases of passion killings and marriage wrecking ,and polygamy is the solution as all wives and children will be in  one place” he added.

Amongst other things the kgosi also called for teaching of various subjects in the mother tongue. “We are far much behind in preserving our languages because some parents still feel  proud when their children  do not speak Setswana.” He added

Kgosi Mosielele  also blamed early missionaries who introduced christianity  for  destroying the Setswana society with the money culture, and disregarding  traditional initiation schools and agriculture which were the  pillar of the society.

Meanwhile another kgosi Basimanebotlhe Kgomotso of Jwaneng Customary court  called for a  single hybrid culture for all.  He suggested  the various tribal groupings could come together under one roof and come up with a  merged, one solid culture that can be presented in other countries as Botswana culture.

He said culture should be included in school curriculum to reach out to the little ones.