Palapye women also want polygamy back

Bonte Seepi | Monday June 15, 2015 16:01

 

The main reasons that women decried was that of avoiding issues of multiple concurrent partners which lead to HIV/AIDS and divorce.

They stood by their view reasoning that polygamy is legal in many  African countries and they said divorces in those countries as well as the spread of HIV/AIDS have reduced.

When giving her speech, the leader of the group, Elizabeth Leso,  said  that they were supporting Kgosi Mosielele’s idea of bringing back polygamy as she said many women are suffering.  Leso said that people should not deny the fact that married men have “small houses”, popularly known as ‘Nyatsi’ in Setswana. She said that just like the customary law, the laws of the country should also allow a man to marry the first wife and with the permission of the wife and family, be allowed to take the second or third wife.

“We can’t deny the fact that married women are suffering because of “small houses.” At the same time the small houses are also suffering because they are being used by men who have their own families. These small houses are the ones who end up leading to misunderstandings in the family as men usually spend a lot of time with them ignoring their marriage.

“These issue end up punishing both children in marriage as well as those who are born out of marriage. So we believe that if polygamy can be legal, it can benefit both children, as well as both women as they will all be free and knowing each other. Let’s give  the man a chance to care for both of them without fear,” she explained.

Further, Leso noted that men usually remain sexually active longer than women which she said is one of the reasons why men cheat. She said that if polygamy could be legalized, men would have an advantage of marrying younger women who are still sexually active and avoid divorcing the old wives. She said that will also help control the movements of a man as the two or three women married would be able to communicate about the whereabouts of the  man and make it easy to catch him if he is cheating.

Other reasons which were brought to attention were that of population of women which exceed that of men. Women who were in support of Kgosi Mosielele’s idea said that all women wish to be married but the fact is that they are many as compared to the number of men. The women believe that if polygamy could be brought back, passion killings and instances of bewitching people for their husbands could stop. According to the gathering, the main issue is not about sex, but it is about helping each other in life and in the raising up of children. “Bonyatsi is not safe at all because these married men usually take us to bushes to have sex hiding from their  wive’s. Anything can happen while we are there, one can be attacked by thugs, or even be beaten by dangerous animals but it will be hard to explain the situation at home because the wife will question where all the incidents took place,” said one of the attendants.Some women argued that they also crave to move from their parent’s surnames, thus by getting married. They said they also desire to be recognised as married women.“We are tired of our parents’ s surnames, we also wants to get married and change those and have that recognition that married women gets.