Page 31 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 29
P. 31
Art & Culture
The gap that appears to have been caused by the contra- will still be a lack of men due to
dictory scriptures in one divided Bible lends credence the following factors: mortality, the
to the above sentiment. In the old testament, men were continent is steadily losing its male
able to marry more wives than Africans could in the past, population, some guys are turning to
and after realizing the old testament’s first books were homosexuality and the gap is widen-
probably ineffective, they turned to the New Testament to ing, and some men are now heavily
further confuse us with ideas that would suit their agenda. involved in drug usage. Considering
After extensive brainwashing, the Dutch-English Marriage that polygamy is simply frowned
Act eventually made its way to Africa. Consequently, the upon in communities devoid of
“white wedding” originated with the first couple to do so, reason, it follows that polygamy is
Brittany and Louis XVII in 1499. Additionally, the phrase both lawful and a custom of marriage
“white wedding” refers to the white gown that the bride in Africa and should not be given
wears in a typical Western marriage. derogatory names to down play it.
View of polygamy in modern African societies. I at some point ask a brother “ why
In several African societies, having multiple wives is more when it comes to marriage, you
than death sentence. The argument is that, according to prefer white weddings and consider
Christian doctrine and the Bible, a man should only have it blessed and still mix it with African
one wife. As if is not enough, it should be mentioned that practices of lobola payment whilst
some sects within the same religion, “Christianity,” par- the whites only buy a ring and wed?”
ticularly those associated with white clothing, also have he kept quite, I hold his shoulder and
more than five wives. For instance, in Zimbabwe, mem- said “ Brother if you choose white
bers of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church have more wedding buy rings and forget cows”
than ten wives, which is against Christian teachings and
doctrine.
In addition, women outnumber men by a wide margin
when considering statistics or numbers of women world-
wide and particularly in Africa. Then the questions are:
(a) Did God made a mistake by giving such gender im-
balances?, because the ratios that are there would see one
men marrying more than five wives without them “ Men”
fighting Zinyanga Learnmore is a
(b) Are there women who were just created with a Zimbabwean Freelance Journalist
and educationist. He is interested in
curse and a mandate that they should just wander in the highlighting stories around African
world without being married or intimately involved till Politics and Arts and Culture.
death?
There will be no balances at all in this world, and there
ISSUE 29 | JULY 2024 31
