This beast that’s monogamy

Diary,

The more I think about it, the more I realise that I might have judged myself wrongly all this time. Maybe I am not entirely anti-marriage. Maybe I am partially anti-hitching, but wholly anti-monogamy.

I mean, think about it. In a study of more than 200 communities, it was established that infidelity was the leading cause of most relationship break-ups, the bigger portion of those transgressions by men. For as long as man has walked on Earth, he has had a roving eye.

Wars have been waged over women. The battle between Rama and Ravana was fought over Sita. The Trojan war was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. And the list goes on.

Remember that workmate of mine who told a friend her boyfriend was only faithful because he was broke? Most men will seek fruits outside their garden as soon as they can afford it. It’s like how lion prides work. As soon as a lion can challenge an alpha male in a pride, he will go for it, dethrone the male (or get mauled trying), then take over the harem.

Then came Covid-19 back in 2020, remember? Cases of femicide skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. For the first time in eons, men were spending more time at home with their spouses. From the sitting room, a man would watch his wife cooking in the kitchen. Her phone chimes. The wife checks the message, laughs, throws back an emoji and goes back to the ugali. Once this keeps repeating, suspicions become rage and rage matures into a full-blown fight, and the wife ends up in our emergency room.

By 2021, black eyes and broken bones were almost the norms in the emergency rooms, and no matter how many “I fell down the stairs” we heard, we knew who the real culprit was. And some of it was worse because it ended in a wife losing her life.

Funny enough, of all the news of such domestic violence, I never had a case where a man with three wives woke up one day and killed one of his wives. The closest we came was one where a wife and a man’s mpango teamed up and did him in. Just one way that shows monogamy doesn’t work. In my opinion, anyway.

*Report gender-based violence through helpline :1195 or Phone No.: +254 705208065 / +254 733738626