Magdalene 95 has two wives and 12 children

Magdalena Kesumo, 95, (right) with her ‘wife’  Flomena Kogo. [PHOTOS: KEVIN TUNOI/STANDARD]

By MICHAEL WESONGA

Magdalene Kesumo has two loyal wives with whom she has 12 children and 20 grandchildren.

This may seem like an extract from a fiction story, but it is not. It is the reality of life on Tuiyo Farm in Kapseret Constituency, Uasin Gishu County.

Kesumo plays ‘husband’ to Flomena and Roseline Kogo, with whom she has lived happily for the last three decades.

The wives, married in 1972 and 1978, have seven and five grown up children respectively, and over 20 grandchildren.

Kesumo, 95, is among many Kalenjin women who resorted to the age-old practice of woman-to-woman marriage.

This union is different from same-sex unions as practised by local lesbians, who ape the habit from Western countries.

It is a custom designed by Nandi forefathers to care for barren women in the community, giving them a chance to have a family.

 “I would have vanished out of desperation and desolation long ago had I not married them. They presented me with a lifeline,” Kesumo explains.

Kesumo was Bartiony Manyei’s fifth wife. Manyei, who had eight wives, was an orkoiyot (supreme chief of the Nandi) and son of Koitalel arap Samoei.

“The Kalenjin, especially the Nandi, believed that everyone was entitled to procreation and thus practised keelal mat, which determined my destiny after I discovered I was barren,” she says.

Keelal mat means betrothing someone after years of trying to have children to ensure the lineage is kept alive.

Tracts of land

“I moved away from my husband’s homestead and became a businesswoman at one point, working for Indian settlers,” she recalls.

Flomena says her parents betrothed her to Kesumo and she had no option but to accept the offer.

“She is wealthy and owns large tracts of land filled with food and livestock, which we tend for our daily bread,” Roseline says.

 She notes Kesumo chose to have two wives because she could take care of them.

“She engaged in barter trade, selling sorghum, maize and milk whose proceeds she used to buy land and build homesteads for us,” she explains.

Flomena’s daughter, Leah Chepkoech, says they have led a special and respectable life and have never lacked anything.

Cultural practices

“We call her grandma but we are supposed to call her father if we are to adhere strictly to cultural stipulations,” she explains.

Chepkoech advocates for the custom in present society and offers that it would work only if both parties maintain respect.

Barren Kalenjin women were never divorced but instead allowed to ‘marry’ after undergoing some rituals and attaining menopause.

The rituals involved going through male circumcision traditions to make her a ‘man’. That meant that thereafter, she could not sleep with any man, including her husband.

The process was followed by an ‘engagement’, just like any man would do. She would be accompanied by her family to seek a woman’s hand in marriage.

A wedding ceremony is held after the ‘husband-to-be’ is given the bride, but the siring of children is assigned to a male member of the family. The children belong to the ‘husband’ and not the man who sires them.

“My first wife was sought by my family; she is from where I was born, while the second was a connection through my husband’s family,” Kesumo notes.

She is categorical that her religion, Catholicism, compliments cultural practices.