Ponderings on Marriage and Absence
*****
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but in case I haven’t, or haven’t made myself clear, my landlord (Sadi) has two wives, as is common in the area that I live. His first wife is Abibata and her daughter is Fusina. His second wife is Azaratuu and her son is Alhassan. Since there’s a third room in the house that’s sitting empty, I’m speculating that it’s for a future third wife for Sadi.
That being said, I haven’t seen Azaratuu for…over two months now. It’s not odd for someone to travel to visit someone, but it’s like…no one even speaks of her. I’ve asked if she’s died and no, she hasn’t. She’s traveled to our district capital to visit family. But it’s been two months. Everyone’s acting like it’s a completely normal thing, so maybe it is. I still kinda miss Alhassan - he was getting to be a sweet boy now that he stopped being terrified of me.
To tell the truth, though, the house has been much quieter. At least two or three times a month you could count on there being an argument between the two women, usually at the hands of Azaratuu. It’s hard not to play favorites with the wives, too. I definitely like Abibata more - she’s more approachable, generally happier, and her daughter stopped being afraid of me first. I just can’t let anyone know about it because it’ll be a huge cause of resentment and bring even more discord to the house.
And that’s not to say the house is always up in arms when she’s there. It’s not - in fact, it’s generally peaceful. Maybe that’s why the arguments stand out - the tension in literally palpable and it’s such a break from the norm that I can’t figure out how to act. So I just keep quiet and stay away, spend a lot of time in my room or on my own corner of the porch. So far it’s done me well.
It’s interesting, though, to see how much the men complain about it - having multiple wives and ‘no peace’ in the house. I always tell them “Well, there’s an easy way to solve that one!” But it’s just one of those jokes they get a kick out of because there’s no way any man will have less than two wives (unless its my neighbor and his wife, Ayi, said she wouldn’t marry him if he had any more wives - and he doesn’t…but she’s really intimidating, so I can see how he cowed to that one). It’s such a deeply engrained cultural requisite that the people can hardly imagine life without it.
Only having one wife means that you’re poor, that you can’t afford to keep two women. I find that sort of interesting in ways because everyone is poor - but there’s a hierarchy of poverty that exists in this culture that has to be abided by if someone expects to fit into their level of strata. And, of course, fitting in is everything.
But so many of the complaints people have here - to me - revolve around the fact that they have so many mouths to feed, so many children getting sick, so many wives unable to farm because they’re pregnant and watching their toddlers around the house. It’s difficult not to hate that custom.
I don’t have anything against it personally. I feel like polygamy is wrong, but can see how it became adopted as part of a culture. I don’t think anything differently of the men in this area because of it - it’s just the way that things are here and nothing I do will ever change it. I’ve figured out that there are some things not worth beating your head against a wall. But it’s difficult to watch my ‘solutions’ being stymied by a cultural practice that only exists today as sort of a status symbol.
I was talking to one of ‘my people’ (I have a few older men and women in the community I go to talk to when I have questions about certain practices or festivals or want to know the history of certain events, etc.) the other day and he was explaining it to me. Men had multiple wives for a lot of reasons (prestige - the more wives you have, the richer you are - being the chief motivation), but besides the obvious, there were also more necessary rationales. There used to be more women than men (when there were tribal wars going on, the men would die from fighting) and every woman needed a husband, women were frequent targets of kidnapping by warring tribes, men needed women to help on their farms, they also needed more children to help on their farms and one woman can only have so many babies - and this also ties into infant mortality as the children only had a 50/50 shot at living, so LOT of babies were needed to ensure a few would survive to adulthood.
So for those reasons I can step back and say “Well, it makes sense.” But those motives aren’t so prevalent anymore. Healthcare has improved (and by that, I mean, has come into existence since those days), children are living longer, the warring tribes are no longer coming to kidnap and kill en masse. Yet it’s still an integral part of the way people live - and expect to live for years to come.
But so many of their problems come from this practice. It’s difficult not to resent it because a lot of my work would be easier without it in place. Then again, I have the option of looking from the outside in and can be objective. I wonder how many of the ‘natural’ things we do in America or the West are counterproductive that I can’t see as such because I’m tied into it.
But I suppose, in the end, that’s what makes us all different - the things that we do, the actions we consider to be normal are what defines us as a people.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but in case I haven’t, or haven’t made myself clear, my landlord (Sadi) has two wives, as is common in the area that I live. His first wife is Abibata and her daughter is Fusina. His second wife is Azaratuu and her son is Alhassan. Since there’s a third room in the house that’s sitting empty, I’m speculating that it’s for a future third wife for Sadi.
That being said, I haven’t seen Azaratuu for…over two months now. It’s not odd for someone to travel to visit someone, but it’s like…no one even speaks of her. I’ve asked if she’s died and no, she hasn’t. She’s traveled to our district capital to visit family. But it’s been two months. Everyone’s acting like it’s a completely normal thing, so maybe it is. I still kinda miss Alhassan - he was getting to be a sweet boy now that he stopped being terrified of me.
To tell the truth, though, the house has been much quieter. At least two or three times a month you could count on there being an argument between the two women, usually at the hands of Azaratuu. It’s hard not to play favorites with the wives, too. I definitely like Abibata more - she’s more approachable, generally happier, and her daughter stopped being afraid of me first. I just can’t let anyone know about it because it’ll be a huge cause of resentment and bring even more discord to the house.
And that’s not to say the house is always up in arms when she’s there. It’s not - in fact, it’s generally peaceful. Maybe that’s why the arguments stand out - the tension in literally palpable and it’s such a break from the norm that I can’t figure out how to act. So I just keep quiet and stay away, spend a lot of time in my room or on my own corner of the porch. So far it’s done me well.
It’s interesting, though, to see how much the men complain about it - having multiple wives and ‘no peace’ in the house. I always tell them “Well, there’s an easy way to solve that one!” But it’s just one of those jokes they get a kick out of because there’s no way any man will have less than two wives (unless its my neighbor and his wife, Ayi, said she wouldn’t marry him if he had any more wives - and he doesn’t…but she’s really intimidating, so I can see how he cowed to that one). It’s such a deeply engrained cultural requisite that the people can hardly imagine life without it.
Only having one wife means that you’re poor, that you can’t afford to keep two women. I find that sort of interesting in ways because everyone is poor - but there’s a hierarchy of poverty that exists in this culture that has to be abided by if someone expects to fit into their level of strata. And, of course, fitting in is everything.
But so many of the complaints people have here - to me - revolve around the fact that they have so many mouths to feed, so many children getting sick, so many wives unable to farm because they’re pregnant and watching their toddlers around the house. It’s difficult not to hate that custom.
I don’t have anything against it personally. I feel like polygamy is wrong, but can see how it became adopted as part of a culture. I don’t think anything differently of the men in this area because of it - it’s just the way that things are here and nothing I do will ever change it. I’ve figured out that there are some things not worth beating your head against a wall. But it’s difficult to watch my ‘solutions’ being stymied by a cultural practice that only exists today as sort of a status symbol.
I was talking to one of ‘my people’ (I have a few older men and women in the community I go to talk to when I have questions about certain practices or festivals or want to know the history of certain events, etc.) the other day and he was explaining it to me. Men had multiple wives for a lot of reasons (prestige - the more wives you have, the richer you are - being the chief motivation), but besides the obvious, there were also more necessary rationales. There used to be more women than men (when there were tribal wars going on, the men would die from fighting) and every woman needed a husband, women were frequent targets of kidnapping by warring tribes, men needed women to help on their farms, they also needed more children to help on their farms and one woman can only have so many babies - and this also ties into infant mortality as the children only had a 50/50 shot at living, so LOT of babies were needed to ensure a few would survive to adulthood.
So for those reasons I can step back and say “Well, it makes sense.” But those motives aren’t so prevalent anymore. Healthcare has improved (and by that, I mean, has come into existence since those days), children are living longer, the warring tribes are no longer coming to kidnap and kill en masse. Yet it’s still an integral part of the way people live - and expect to live for years to come.
But so many of their problems come from this practice. It’s difficult not to resent it because a lot of my work would be easier without it in place. Then again, I have the option of looking from the outside in and can be objective. I wonder how many of the ‘natural’ things we do in America or the West are counterproductive that I can’t see as such because I’m tied into it.
But I suppose, in the end, that’s what makes us all different - the things that we do, the actions we consider to be normal are what defines us as a people.