Two men sharing a wife in Kenya? Over my dead body!

By NIKKO TANUI

Some of the things that happen in this country don’t even take place in the animal kingdom.

Take for instance the case of Mombasa County’s Sylvester Mwendwa and Elijah Kimani who recently grabbed the headlines for their unorthodox agreement to share one wife. Have Kenyan men lost their minds?

In the animal kingdom, no male creature allows another male to come close to a female in his harem. Indeed, the strongest male has exclusive mating rights over the females.

The situation will stand until the day a strong younger male will come up and overthrow the older male, and begin to enjoy the fruits of uhuru.

It, therefore, came as a surprise to learn that some men in this county are so desperate that they stoop so low as to sign a contract of sharing a widow in the guise of helping her raise her twins.

Polyandry

Maybe these two men could have been living under a rock. I mean, the proposed Marriage Bill 2013 disallows polyandry — a woman having more than one husband.

And again, in the Bible, when King David saw Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, bathing, he fell in love with her and to cut it short, he had her husband murdered and took her as his wife.

I am not condoning what Rais David did, but I am just drawing a comparison to demonstrate how unacceptable sharing a woman is; biblically speaking.

Come on, there is no shortage of women in this country. There number of women outstrips that of men, allowing us to marry more than one wife — albeit after consultations with the bank manager.

How will that poor woman handle the sexual demands of two men? What happens when both men want a quickie? Boy, that means she will not sleep, worse, one of the men could end up feeling his ‘co-husband’ is more favoured, sparking off marital problems that could end up tragically — murder.