In Which I Decide I Don't Really Want Four Husbands

The second tea debate began with the exciting topic of polygamy. We managed to coax a few of the female highschoolers to come to this tea debate, but they were unwilling to speak up in front of the boys. Everyone kept encouraging them to talk, but they would only smile shly and giggle a little. Finally I said, "All right, this question is ONLY FOR THE GIRLS. Would you be less happy if your husband took a second wife?" One girl said she could only find happiness as the sole wife of her husband. The other girl said it depended on the husband. If her husband treated her and her co-wife equally, she would be happy with her lot. After giving these two contrasting points of view, the girls slipped out of the room, perhaps in order to avoid answering more questions. At least, up until I forced them to talk, they were listening with evident enjoyment.

I think everyone really enjoyed the chance to express their points of view. The Senegalese education system doesn't encourage discussion; its based on the old French model. So everyone was really excited to join in. We just had to get the ball rolling, then sit back and enjoy the ride. My opening question was based on something I'd read in a biography of Muhammed. "Muhammed gives each man the right to up to four wives. But he also gives a warning that its difficult to treat your wives justly if you have more than one. What do you think of that?"

I think they sort of misunderstood me there, because their response was to protest indignantly that Islam was a just religion. Which is kind of missing the point. Muhammed was born into a staunchly polygamist society. If he had attempted to outlaw polygamy, he would have had trouble finding followers. Later in his life, marrying the daughters of his friends was also a techique he used to consolidate alliances. But the bickering of his many wives caused him extensive personal problems. It seems clear that the monogamous period of his life was a happier time for him. Based on this information, I'm pretty sure Muhammed was trying to deliver a gentle and oblique warning to the men of his society. At least this was the picture the biographer painted for me. But since I wasn't a Muslim, I decided to just shut up and let them talk.

They mentioned the difficulty of providing financially for many wives and children. And even if financial resources were sufficient, emotional resources might be lacking. Is it possible for a man to truly love more than one wife? they asked. Can he distribute equal amounts of kindness to both of them? And even if he is equally kind to both, will the wives appreciate his efforts? Or will they grow jealous over imagined slights?

"I think polygamy stems from dissatisfaction," said one teenager. "A man sees that his wife cannot do something, she does not have a particular skill or trait. So he goes off and marries another woman who does have that skill. Then there's a sort of division of labor among wives, each wife doing what she does best."

They also brought up the possibility of wives neglecting their children because they are so busy competing for their husband's attention. Placing all the choicest morcels on the husband's plate, pampering him, and fussing over him, ignoring their children in the pursuit of their husband's sexual favors. This idea seems to me more like a male fantasy, than something women would actually do. The idea of having people competing to spend time to you may seem nice in theory, or in your imagination, but in real life it must be very stressful.

To lighten things up I asked if they knew any co-wives who were close friends, like sisters. They said this did happen from time to time but a relationship of competition, or rigidly polite formality, was more usual. They also said sometimes children would fight about whose mother was best, or who had the most status in the family. Polygamy has consequences for the entire family, not just the wives. Someone said that Muhammed had given instructions to "Reproduce and multiply the race of Islam," and polygamy enabled men to have more children, "Even thirty," someone said. So I asked if it was important for a father to know and understand his children. I got blank stares. Then I added, "If you have thirty children, is it possible to know your children......." and they all started nodding in understanding.

Then someone said very authoritatively there were twice as many women as there were men in the world. Therefore, it was a man's duty to take as many wives as he could, so no poor woman would be left husbandless. I'd come across this point of view before, in discussions with my Senegalese classmates in Daker. Sydney, the feminist of the group, got irritated to the point where she looked up population statistics on the internet. There are more women than men in the world, but the disparity is nothing like that huge. Its just a few percentage points of difference. But the bulk of Senegalese men-- even in urban areas like Dakar-- blithely ignore these statistics, convinced there are huge populations of single women waiting to be rescued from their unlucky state. Its amazing how powerful these myths can be, if they fit in with what people want to believe.

I tried flipping the argument on its head, saying, "What about the poor men who will be left wifeless, when other men take all the wives?" They scoffed at me, and said, "That would never happen. There are way more women than there are men." In retrospect, I think I should have hammered in this point a little more. Of course any society will reward financial prosperity with sexual success to some extent. But polygamy legitimizes the monopoly of sexual success by the wealthy to a much greater extent. In our society, even if you're the governor of New York, you are not technically entitled to any more booty than the humblest farmer.

On the positive side, I think polygamy does a lot to eliminate hypocrisy, guilt, and secrecy. Having two wives seems so much more honest and wholesome to me than having a wife and a mistress, and lying to one about the other. In my experience it is possible to genuinely love two people at the same time; but whether it is possible to satisfy both people, is a question more open to debate.

On the whole, the tide of the discussion seemed to be flowing against polygamy. Everyone was talking about the problems and very few people were bringing up benefits. But then Emmanuel asked a very insightful and probing question (he has a talent for those.) He said, "If you could have any number of wives, how many would you choose to have?" The boys all looked at each other, and then a ripple of "Four!" (the maximum permitted by Islam) ran around the table. Then everyone cheerfully laughed at their own hypocrisy. It was a good moment.

People are the same the world over. Take us Living Routes students. We like to rant about materialism and consumerism, and preach the whole "money can't buy happiness," sermon, but I don't think there's a single one of us who would refuse a million dollars if it was offered us, no strings attached. People rarely refuse to pursue their own self-advantage. That's not something to be cynical or disappointed about; that's something to laugh about. There's a certain comforting predictability to it, after all.

I tried to close the discussion with a joke. "Before coming here, I had planned on having four husbands. But after hearing all the arguements today, I think I'll stick with just one." I've never had a joke fall so flat in my entire life. They stared at me, with, "We must have heard that wrong!" looks on their faces. My partner and classmate Emmanuel, the sole person who apppeared to have understood, looked embarassed and hastened on to the next subject before they could have time to think about it. Well, Emma, you should be relieved. I'm a BARD student. I could have told them I wanted four wives.

(In case you're wondering, Emma actually is his nickname. He doesn't care that its a girl's name in the US. Namuri, on the other hand, grew enraged when I nicknamed him, Na-na. I thought it was cute, like calling him Minty. Na-na is Wolof for mint. It is also French slang for "woman." I pointed out to Namuri that he was Wolof, not French, and he protested indignantly, "I am a Citizen of the World!")

The next topic was Emmanuel's invention, and an ingenious one. He asked, "Do you think it will be possible to develop Guede-Chantier into a Utopia?" First he asked them if they knew what a Utopia was, and they said, yes of course. I got really excited when I heard the word Utopia. You see, in a way it's my quest for Utopia that ultimately led me to Africa. I was researching Utopian philosophy when I first heard of ecovillages. I signed up for this program because they said, "Study Abroad in an Ecovillage." An ecovillage isn't an attempt to create Utopia exactly; its more humble than that. Ecovillages simply search to invent new, and rediscover old ways for humans to live in harmony with nature and with one another.

In a way I've been misled about the whole ecovillage thing. The suburb of Dakar where we study is called, "Yoff," and in all their propaganda materials, they call it "Eco-Yoff--" as if affixing the prefix "eco" on it would actually make it ecofriendly! If you talk to the natives about Eco-Yoff, they say, "What the hell is that? We live in Yoff, you crazy toubab!"

Our classroom building is the headquarters of the ecovillage network of Senegal, and since I've came they've installed this beautiful permaculture garden with bannana trees and all sorts of lovely things. But the reason they were installing the new garden when I came, was because the government paved over their old garden with the ugly six-lane highway I've complained so much about. People get killed on this highway because the funds for the pedestrian overpass were embezzled. Its really the most frightening road I've ever seen; whenever I cross it I feel like I can't wait to leave Senegal. I watch the woman with the babies on their backs, or the fat old ladies in their long gowns, clamber over the high concrete barrier in the center of it and I just wince. Its so horrendously symbolic in a way. One lone, pathetic bastion of eco-friendliness in the middle of a concrete river, being slowly overwhelmed by the rising tides of traffic and modernity.

But anyway, Guede-Chantier is perhaps more genuinely on the ecovillage path. And Emmanuel's question sparked a raging debate on the possibility of village development. Everyone started saying, "Young people have to participate in government! Our elders need to give us a voice!" They were passionately indignant about the elder's monopoly of power. Then they started talking about corruption and embezzlement.

"Where does the money for the schools go?" they asked. "Where does the money for the pharmacy go? They eat the money! They eat the money! There are these old men with these big fat stomachs, and they just eat the money and become even fatter." As far as descriptions of embezzlement go, it was a pretty vivid one. The idiom, "eat the money," is kind of a hilarious one; it makes me think of some ugly old man ravenously stuffing 10,000 franc notes into his mouth.

"But we can't just sit here and complain about embezzlement," cried out one of the students. "We should do something about it. We CAN do something about it. It's the responsibility of us, the young people, to organize and put a stop to this. We have to say No. We have to confront the embezzlers and ask them where the money is going."

It was amazing to listen to this young man talk. He spoke, not as if he was speaking a group of friends assembled in the library, but as if he was addressing a crowd of millions. His phrases rang out and filled the room. Each sentence he punctuated with a punch of his fist into his hand, as if his ideas were nails he was hammering into our brains. When he finished speaking, people looked at each other and then a ripple of smiles ran around the room.

But then people began to bring up objections. "What if the person's who's embezzling is your friend's father?" they asked. "Then accusing him of embezzlement is a pretty socially awkward situation. That's the problem; everyone's so interconnected. If you say anything bad about anyone, you're sure to be insulting a relative, or a friend of a friend."

I was getting more and more interested. I said, "This exact same problem exists all over the world!"

"That's why Guede-Chantier is a microcosm of the world," said one of the quieter boys, smiling to himself.

"I still say we can do something," insisted our rabble-rouser, our young politician. 'The young people have power!" What a dynamic fellow he was. If he doesn't grow up to be someone very powerful and influential, I'll eat my hat.

Soon after, Emma decided to wrap up and summarize the discussion. "I hear many differing viewpoints here," he said. "Some people think Guede-Chantier can develop. Others point to the obstacles in our way." He then stopped and smiled. "But I encourage you to be optimistic, and remember the words of Barack Obama, 'Yes we can!' If we perservere through the difficulties, we are sure to achieve success."

Everyone burst out cheering at that, and I beamed at Emma. I felt so proud of him at that moment, I wanted to hug him. You see, Emmanuel isn't the sort of person who likes to take charge and step into the center of things. He's usually standing at the edges, observing. He has a tendency to speak in this quite little voice. But this was a real leadership moment for him. He had created this discussion and managed to turn it into something that was really inspiring. To me, the "Yes We Can!" slogan seems really cheesy by now. But to the Africans, Barack Obama's name is like a magic incantation. He's their inspiration, their proof that one of their own can succeed. Since his father comes from Kenya, they don't even really think of him as an American. To them, he's an African.

Anyway, I was really impressed by Emma's ability to channel the discussion and bring it to a soaring conclusion. But to my surprise, he wasn't finished yet. He glanced at his watch and said, "I think we have a little time left. So let's move on to the next topic. What about early pregnancy?"

I glanced around. The female highschool students had popped out the room. I opened my mouth to say, "Can we really discuss this when the girls aren't here?" but the discussion was already moving full steam ahead.

"Shouldn't early marriage, and forced marriage, be part of this discussion?" someone suggested. Apparently these are big controversies in the village. But somehow his suggestion got forgotten in the hubub.

To my surprise, the students seemed mostly disposed to blame parents for early pregnancies. "They should explain sex to their daughters, but they don't," everyone said. I told them I had learned about sex in school, and they nodded in approval. "That's the way it should be," they said, "But it isn't." To my surprise, nobody seemed to be mentioning contraception. So I started to talk about condoms, but Emmanuel quickly hushed me up.

Then my roommate Soda arrived. She had come to visit our tea debate, and put in her two cents. I was relieved there would be at least one female Senegalese opinion in the room. "You have to educate the young girls so they can act responsibly," Soda said.

"But what about the young men?" I asked. "Don't you have to educate them too? Don't they also have a responsibility for what happens?"

Soda smiled, her patient, explaining-things-to-the-ignorant-toubab smile. I usually don't mind that smile, but for some reason today it got on my nerves. "What you have to understand, Charlotte," she said, a touch condescendingly, "Is that a young man has nothing to lose. He can just do something and run away. Its the young girls who have to take responsibility."

"That's not right! Men should take responsibility too!" I said, getting more and more irritated.

"But that's just not the way things are, Charlotte," said Soda. I bit my lips in frustration. As Sydney would say, today I was learning a lot about "Gender Roles." But I can't pretend their irresponsible men is a problem unique to Senegal. The injustice is built straight into our biology. Its the woman who carry the damn babies.

God! I wish I was a man!