Polygamy in Malawi

Last week, Tablespoon and I made household visits, because, you know, we wanted to see their latrines and all that fun stuff. We had visited a house with two wives. O.K., so it was pretty common to have two wives. Even my cook has two wives (and 13 children and 18 grandchildren). Then we visited another house with four wives. Four wives!!!! This man, wow, he had four wives. Each of them had their own house, but three lived on the same compound and even had to share the same toilet and bath rooms! The fourth one lives at the lakeshore and doesn’t have to share anything except the man. I asked Tablespoon if it was common for Malawian men to have four wives and he responded, “Even 20!”

Then Tablespoon pointed at me and said, “Mama Ellen, you will be the fifth.”

I retorted, “No, I have to be the first.” No way I’m going to be a concubine!

All I could do was ponder how polygamy thrives here. I can’t remember if I’d met anyone during my Peace Corps stint with four wives… although many polygamous marriages in the south are usually inconspicuous anyway, especially for those who call themselves Christians. But in the north, they still practice bride prices and instead of the husbands moving to their wives’ homes, the wives all move to the husband’s homes. It makes inconspicuous marriages, like those I’d seen in the south, rarer.

But I don’t know what marriage means to Malawians here. It’s usually a process that involves uncles meeting uncles and giving their approvals, that is followed with approvals from the chiefs. In the north, you buy the woman and she moves into your home. Bride prices can usually cost around MK200,000 (about $1333), so that means the man spent almost $6,000 on wives. Not bad considering how much it might cost an American man to date a woman (a BMW might just win her over). If it all ends, the American man is penniless and the woman ecstatic about her car. And if the husband in Malawi dies, then his brother gets her.

But in the south, the husbands move to the wives’ homes, which really, just make it so much more difficult to track the husband’s wives. One of the youths I worked with had “married” two women without each other’s knowledge (and I guess without the uncles’ knowledge). Of course drama ensued as the wives discovered each other and fought one another; a child died from malaria; and he took off with both wives’ money. Last I had seen him was in Lilongwe after I had finished my service, and I could barely look at him. Yet for others, marriage meant “I-got-her-pregnant-and-now-I-will-move-into-her-home-and-she-will-feed-me”.

I told Tablespoon, “If a Malawian man wants to marry me, he has to know that I’m very expensive. I will cost 200 cows, hundreds of acre of land, and at least five nice cars.”