Maasai women and children - Photo: Le Tri
Get many wives thanks to having many cows
During our days exploring Kenya's largest nature reserve, Masai Mara, almost all the men we met, from drivers to service staff, had two or more wives, many of whom were only in their twenties.
These men all belong to the Maasai tribe. Although they have escaped from the wild, they still maintain the thousand-year-old tradition of their ancestors: they must take many wives and have many children to be worthy of being descendants of the Maasai tribe.
They can go to work in Nairobi or in the high-end Mara Simba Lodge resort in the Masai Mara nature reserve, then return to their villages to get married and have children as a pride for the tribe. However, to get many wives, the British man Edward, an employee at Mara Simba Lodge, said that when he was preparing to marry his first wife, he had 10 cows and used 5 as a dowry for his wife's family, and he continued to take care of the remaining 5 cows until the herd had 15 cows, then used the 5 older cows as a dowry for his second wife. Currently, his 2 wivesI am raising 10 childrenHe had 20 cows left and he planned to take a third wife when the herd increased to 20.
But not everyone is successful in having many wives, as in the case of Daniel, the driver who took us on a tour. This year, he is about to turn 30 but already has 2 wives and 5 children. He said that when he fell in love with his second wife, because he did not have enough cows to hold the wedding ceremony, but he did not want to wait, so he did a terrible thing and took his wife to another village to live.
The girl's familyTogether with anger, they brought the village chief to his parents' house to demand their daughter back. Knowing their son's "feelings", his parents shook their heads as if they knew nothing. Two months later, when he and his wife returned to the village, everything was over. He waited until his child was 1 year old before he had enough 5 cows to give as a dowry to his wife's family.
At this point, he could not hide his pride in his "achievements" and told us that he would strive to marry 4 wives, because his father is over 50 years old this year but has 3 wives and 16 children. He wants to have 1 wife more than his father, because... "a son better than his father is a blessing to the family" (!?).
Genderyoung people want to change polygamy
Polygamy among men in the Maasai tribe as well as in many other parts of Africa is not uncommon, but not all tribesmen or Kenyan men enjoy it.
Naisola, now the head receptionist at Mara Simba Lodge and a Maasai, said her father had escaped the Maasai wilderness of Narok, was educated and married only her mother.
Naisola herself is a college graduate in Nairobi, and can speak three languages: English, French, and Swahili. According to Naisola, being an educated personIt is difficult for a woman to accept that her husband has many wives. Therefore, although Naisola is 30 years old, she is still single.
There are also Kenyan men from other tribes, or those who are religious (Kenya has a 62% Catholic population) who do not take many wives. Ongoto, 21, a student at Nairobi Hotel and Restaurant College, is from the Kish tribe, is Protestant and is an intern at Mara Simba Lodge, and insists that he will only take one wife.
According to Naisola and Ongoto, Kenya is still poor and should limit polygamy and polygamy in order to develop the country. In the eyes of these two young people when talking to us, there was a desire to change the custom so that no more babies would be born into poverty like the ones in Kasoe village, not far from where they work.
The story of poverty and population is an unsolved problem not only for Kenya but for the entire black continent.
The story of Maasai men "paying their dues" is also a curious thing. Vietnamese men always "show off" their achievements, but only... God knows how true they are. Maasai men are very practical, so when we jokingly asked Edward about... "paying their dues", he laughed happily: "It's a small matter, just take turns with each wife".
He also said that Maasai men are very strong, partly because they often drink cow blood mixed with milk. However, sometimes they cannot "complete the task" because Edward, for example, only comes home once a month, and both wives want to be close to each other first. So he had to "beg" each wife to stop being so gloomy and then slowly think about it.
